Chapter 26 Seth
Seth
The pull jerks me forward one final time, and the Void shifts around me.
Not gone. Still here. But different.
The darkness thickens into walls—black stone, silver fire flickering without heat. The oppressive emptiness becomes a chamber, and the air tastes like smoke and something sweeter underneath.
Ethos’s chamber.
Terror floods through me because I know this place. Know what happens here. Know I should turn around and run before he—
Then I see her.
Every thought scatters like ash.
She’s lying on floor cushions in a pool of silver light, naked and trembling, and she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Not beautiful like art or distant stars. Beautiful like water after years of drought. Like the first breath after drowning.
Beautiful like hope I’d forgotten existed.
Her dark hair spills across velvet, and even from here I can see the way her chest rises and falls, fast and shallow. Her skin glows faintly in the dim light, and silver threads drift around her like she’s exhaling magic with every breath.
But there’s black threading through the silver.
A lot of black.
My stomach drops.
I know what that means. I’ve seen it before, in the others who crossed through and didn’t make it. The ones who heard Ethos’s voice and followed it into corruption.
But never like this.
Never this cruel.
Because she’s not awake. Not really. Her eyes are closed, lips parted, and her body moves like she’s responding to touch that isn’t there. Like she’s trapped in something that feels real enough to drown in.
He’s feeding off her dreams.
The realization hits me like a fist to the gut.
Not just feeding—replacing reality with something that feels better than truth. Making her want the cage so much she won’t try to escape it.
It’s the cruelest thing I’ve ever seen him do.
And I’ve seen a lot.
A sound escapes her—soft, broken, wanting—and something in my chest cracks wide open.
I should leave. Should back away slowly and disappear into the Void before Ethos realizes I’m here.
But I can’t.
My feet move without permission, carrying me closer to the cushions. Closer to her.
She doesn’t notice. Doesn’t even open her eyes.
Just lies there trembling, chasing sensations that aren’t real, while the silver around her dims with every breath.
I kneel at the edge of the light, close enough now to see the details that make her real instead of dream.
Freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks. The way her fingers curl into the velvet like she’s holding onto something.
And scars.
So many scars.
They cover her body like a map of pain—pale lines across her ribs, a cluster on her shoulder blade, more scattered down her arms and thighs. Some are old, silvered with time. Others look newer, angrier.
My heart breaks all over again.
Because it’s not just this. Not just Ethos and his cruel dream-feeding.
She’s survived a lifetime of torture.
Her story is written on her skin in violence, and she’s still here. Still breathing. Still reaching for something even when she’s lost in nightmares.
She’s real.
And she’s the strongest thing I’ve ever seen.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
The emptiness I’ve carried for years—decades, maybe—and the scars she wears on her skin. They’re the same thing, aren’t they? Different kinds of survival. Different kinds of torture that should have broken us but didn’t.
She’s the first real thing I’ve seen in longer than I can remember.
The silver Ether drifts closer to me, curious and cautious all at once. A tendril brushes my arm and I freeze, expecting pain or cold or the hollow ache the Void leaves behind.
Instead, it feels warm.
Safe.
Like recognition.
More threads follow, wrapping around my wrist, my forearm, curling up toward my chest like they’re searching for something. The black is there too, woven through the silver, but it doesn’t feel malicious. Just… lost. Confused.
Like her.
The Ether tightens slightly, and for the first time in years—longer than years—I don’t feel alone.
I don’t know what this means. Don’t understand why her magic would reach for someone like me—powerless, trapped, insignificant.
But it does.
And I can’t make myself pull away.
“No…”
Her voice is barely a whisper, but it makes me jerk backward anyway.
Her eyes flutter open for just a moment, unfocused and glassy, and they land somewhere near where I’m kneeling.
She’s looking at me.
Or through me.
I can’t tell which.
“It can’t be him,” she breathes. “I killed him.”
The words don’t make sense, but before I can try to understand them, her eyes are already closing again.
She thinks I’m someone else.
Someone she killed.
For a moment, her face twists with something that looks like grief. Like guilt.
Then it smooths.
The dream takes her again—I can see it happen. The way her expression shifts from pain to something else entirely. Her lips part. Her breathing changes, deepening.
She’s not here anymore. Not seeing me or remembering whoever she thought I was.
She’s back in whatever Ethos showed her. Whatever he made her feel.
I stay frozen, barely breathing, as she twists onto her side. Her body reacts to memories I can’t see. Her breath catches. Her hips tilt. A soft sound escapes her throat that has nothing to do with grief and everything to do with want.
The Ether wraps tighter around me, and I let it.
Because even lost in dreams, even broken and corrupted and bleeding magic like an open wound, she’s reaching for me.
Or her magic is, at least.
She comes apart right there in front of me.
Her back arches, lips parting on a moan, and her Ether floods outward in a wave of black-rimmed light that washes over me.
For one impossible moment, I feel everything.
Her pleasure. Her confusion. Her want all tangled up with shame and surrender.
And underneath it all—buried so deep she probably doesn’t even know it’s there—terror.
The light flares so bright I have to close my eyes.
When I open them again, she’s looking at me.
Really looking this time.
Her hand lifts—trembling, uncertain—and reaches toward me.
Not toward where Ethos was. Not toward the memory.
Toward me.
I don’t think. Don’t hesitate.
I reach back.
Our fingers brush, and the world explodes.
Light bursts from the contact point—silver and black and something else that feels alive. Her Ether wraps around both our hands like binding, like claiming, like something permanent and terrifying and perfect all at once.
Ecstasy shoots through me so sharp it borders on pain.
I gasp, body jerking forward, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel full.
Connected.
Alive.
But there’s pain too—deep and visceral, like something vital is being pulled out through my skin. Like her magic is feeding on whatever small spark of life I have left.
I don’t care.
Let it take everything.
Let her take all that I am.
As long as I get to feel this for one more second—
The light fades slowly, reluctantly.
I’m shaking. My whole body trembles like I’ve been struck by lightning, and I can barely breathe around the sensation still echoing through my bones.
But I’m still holding her hand.
A thread hums between us now. Thin. Alive. Unfinished.
I don’t know what it means, but I can feel it like a tether pulling tight.
Her eyes start to flutter closed again.
“I’ll find you again.” The words tear out of me, rough and desperate and more honest than anything I’ve ever said. “However long it takes. I’ll find you.”
She doesn’t respond.
Just sighs softly and sinks deeper into the cushions, her face smoothing into something that looks like peace.
Her hand goes slack in mine.
The Ether around her dims, and I watch in horror as the silver fades almost completely beneath the black.
She’s still breathing. Still alive.
But barely.
And I can’t do anything to stop it.
I need to leave. Need to get out of here before Ethos returns and finds me with her.
But I can’t make myself let go of her hand.
The thread between us pulls tight, humming with something I don’t understand.
I force myself to release her fingers, and the loss feels like tearing something vital.
The Ether clings to me for one more moment before reluctantly retreating back to her.
Like it doesn’t want to let me go either.
I push to my feet, legs unsteady, and back away from the cushions.
Every instinct screams at me to stay. To protect her. To do something.
But I’m powerless here. Insignificant. If Ethos finds me, I’m dead.
Or worse.
I take one last look at her—naked and vulnerable and so beautiful it makes my chest ache—and commit every detail to memory.
The way her hair falls across the velvet. The rise and fall of her chest. The faint glow of corrupted Ether still drifting around her like a shroud.
“I’ll find you,” I whisper again, even though she can’t hear me anymore.
Then I turn and run.
The chamber melts back into Void as I flee, darkness swallowing the stone walls and silver fire. But the thread stays intact, pulling tight across the distance.
She’s still there. Still connected.
Still mine, somehow.
I don’t stop running until the chamber is far behind me and the oppressive emptiness of the Void closes in again.
Only then do I let myself collapse, gasping, shaking, every nerve still singing with the aftershock of her touch.
The thread hums faintly in my chest.
A compass.
A promise.
A way to find her again.
However long it takes.