“Five years,” I whisper, looking at Auren. “You said five years?”
Auren nods carefully. “Time in the Void ran differently—what felt like months to you was half a decade here. For you and them, it felt like a year. Maybe less. But out here, the world kept moving.”
Gray’s massive white wolf form paces near the wall, silver eyes tracking every word. He hasn’t shifted back yet—and I don’t know why. His wolf’s presence is both comforting and unsettling, a reminder of how much has changed.
“The magical world has changed,” Auren continues. “Significantly, in that time.”
My stomach drops. “What kind of changes?”
“Feeders are being hunted,” he says simply. “The Council has spent almost five years systematically rounding them up.”
I go still. “Why?”
“Reports started coming in about six months after you all disappeared,” Auren says carefully. “Silver veins appearing on the Scarborne sanctuary grounds. Then they started spreading—through the stone, the surrounding forest, the entire property.”
“The Council determined it was raw Ether,” Auren continues, his voice hardening. “Powerful, concentrated magic just waiting to be harvested. And they decided someone needed to mine it.” He pauses,then adds, “My sources have since confirmed the veins are coming from one of the mirrors in the Ashen Oath Chamber. One with large, curved horns.”
Silence falls over the room.
“We saw them in the Void,” Wes says quietly, and everyone turns to look at him. “The longer we were there, the more they grew. Thick silver threads running through everything, pulsing with light.” His jaw clenches. “They were everywhere by the end.”
“When we found you,” Rhett says slowly, his voice hollow, “the veins started at your feet. Where you touched the ground—that’s where they began.”
The words hit like a fist to the stomach.
My breath catches. My hands go numb where they’re gripping the coffee cup.
It can’t be. It can’t—
Seth’s face goes pale. “When I found you, Ethos had already started. The veins weren’t there yet, but the corruption was, the black within your Ether. He’d been feeding on you for a while by then.”
The room tilts. I grip the edge of the table, knuckles going white. The coffee cup trembles in my other hand.
It’s mine. All of it. He took it from me and it just—spread. Grew. Became something they could harvest.
Thane goes completely still. His silver eyes widen with something close to horror.
“The first time,” he says, voice barely audible. “When we accidentally crossed into the Void together. That’s when he—”
“Started feeding,” Stellan finishes grimly. “Before any of us knew what was happening.”
“Months,” Rhett says, his voice shaking. “He’d been feeding on her for months before she was even trapped there.”
Thane’s hands curl into fists. “I was right there. I should have—” He stops, jaw clenched so tight I can see the muscle jump. “I should have known what he was doing to her.”
Gray’s wolf moves closer, a low whine escaping his throat. The sound carries weight—guilt, regret, things he can’t say in this form.
Their voices blur together, guilt and self-recrimination building, but I can barely hear them over the roaring in my ears. Five years. He fed on me and it spread through the sanctuary like roots, like infection, and they’ve been mining it. Mining me.
“Stop.” My voice cuts through their pity party. Everyone turns to look at me. “Knock it off. No one could have known what Ethos was doing.” I meet Thane’s eyes. “And besides, I brought us there. I did this to myself.”
My vision tunnels until all I can see is the truth laid bare: Riley’s been sitting on the Council for five years while enslaved Feeders mine my stolen power. Power that was ripped from me, thread by thread, while I was alone in the dark.
“The sanctuary Feeders,” I whisper. “They’re mining what he took from me.”
Auren’s expression shifts to horror. He didn’t know. Couldn’t have known where the veins truly originated.
“That’s why they kept spreading,” Stellan says, his voice tight. “The longer Bree was trapped, the more he drained from her, the more the veins grew.”
