Everything feels scooped out. Empty veins. Bones that ache like they remember being pulled apart.
I know the cushions are soft beneath me, but I barely feel them. The Ether drifts around me, tired and thin. When I reach for it, nothing happens. Just that muffled hum under my skin that won’t answer.
But there’s something else.
A warmth. Low in my chest. Small. Steady. Not mine.
Gray’s voice whispers through my mind, quiet and certain:“Love.”
The memory flickers and fades before I can hold onto it.
I press my palm to my chest, trying to catch it. Trying to remember. But it’s gone, slipping away like smoke.
Maybe it’s what he left behind. When he—
Ethos.
Heat crawls through me before I can finish the thought. His hands. His mouth. The way he made me feel like I mattered.
I want that again.
It should feel wrong. It doesn’t. Just feels hungry.
The warmth pulses and I sink into it, letting it wrap around me like I deserve it.
My legs shake when I stand, but they hold.
The chamber is quieter now. Silver fire dimmed to almost nothing. Black stone that should feel oppressive but doesn’t anymore. Or maybe I’m just used to it.
My eyes find the mirror.
I don’t mean to look. Don’t decide to move toward it. But I do anyway.
One step. Then another. Like something’s pulling me.
Not curiosity. Not fear. Need.
My feet carry me across cold stone, and the Ether follows slow and tired, black threads weaving through silver. It should worry me. It doesn’t.
Rhett’s laugh echoes somewhere distant, warm like fire.
I reach for it, but it slips away like smoke.
I stop in front of the glass and stare at my reflection.
She looks different. More certain. Eyes still green but flickering like static.
The warmth flares in my chest.
I gasp, my hand flying up. My reflection does the same, but slower. Like she’s moving through water while I move through air.
“Why can’t I stop?” I whisper to the empty chamber.
The mirror doesn’t answer.
The warmth pulses again, stronger this time. It pulls—not toward something, but toward the glass itself. Like gravity. Like recognition.
I lift my hand without thinking and press my palm flat to the surface.
