The wall where Seth stood is empty. Scorched stone. Nothing else.
Where is he?
I can’t think about that now.
Bree.
I find her.
She’s collapsed forward, face in the dirt. Hair covering her features. Hands still buried in the earth, but limp now—like the Ether burned straight through her and left the shell behind.
She’s not moving.
Something inside me tears open.
“Bree—”
The word comes out broken. I don’t recognize my own voice.
Not my queen. Not the Source.Bree.
Stellan appears beside me. On his knees. Breathing hard. His hand finds my shoulder—steadies me, barely. His eyes find her at the same time mine do.
I don’t wait.
I don’t think.
I shove to my feet and I move.
“We have to get to her.”
It’s not a command. It’s not strategy. It’s the only truth left in me—the only thing that matters in a world that just went white and silent and wrong.
Stellan doesn’t argue. He’s already moving too.
Ethos’s screaming cuts off. But all I can focus on is her.
The silence that follows is worse.
Chapter 2
Theo
The world comes back in pieces.
Sound first—a ringing like glass shattering inside my skull. Then pressure. Weight across my chest, my ribs, my lungs struggling to expand.
I open my eyes.
White. Silver. Shapes that don’t hold still.
My Seer vision strobes—silver threads cutting through shadow, flashes of possible futures burning into my retinas faster than I can process.
Then it clears.
Wes.
He’s draped over me, arm flung across my chest, face pressed into the dirt beside my shoulder. Shielding me. Even unconscious, even blasted twenty feet from where we were—he put himself between me and the explosion.
