Page 48 of Crown of the Mist (The Ether Chronicles #1)

The ether screams.

Not with pain - with recognition. With awakening. With the kind of joy that breaks worlds and remakes them anew.

I grip the edges of my scrying mirror, watching silver light explode through the mist that connects our realms. Centuries of waiting, of watching, of guiding her soul back to us again and again... and finally, finally, she remembers.

No. Not remembers. Not yet. But she's opening to it, to them, to the bond that's written in the very fabric of our existence. I can feel it in my bones, in the ether that flows through my veins - she's accepting what she is. What they are. What we've always been.

Their souls shine like beacons through the mist - five points of light surrounding her radiance. Even now, after all this time, they found their way back to her. As they always do. As they always will.

Gray. His soul burns sharp and bright, the shadow-walker who's guarded her through a thousand lifetimes.

Rhett. Steady as flame, his warrior's spirit unchanged by death and rebirth.

Jace. Light incarnate, his brilliance dimmed but never extinguished by the cycles of time.

Wes. Silent and deadly as winter's first frost, his devotion outlasting empires.

Theo. Knowledge seeker, dream weaver, his quiet power a perfect balance to her storm.

And her... Gods, but she glows. The ether surges around her like it's finally found its heart again, its queen, its reason for being. My fingers trace her image in the mirror, an echo of a touch I haven't been allowed in centuries.

"You're finding your way back," I whisper, watching the power build around them all. "You're finally letting yourself remember what it means to be loved by them. By all of us."

The mark on the door - my mark, our mark - pulses with ancient magic. Soon the crown that's waited so long will rest again upon her brow.

I press my palm flat against the mirror, feeling the ether respond to my touch. It yearns toward her, drawn by the magnetism of her awakening strength. The mirror ripples beneath my fingers as her power surges again, and for the first time in longer than I care to remember, I smile.

She's coming home to us. To all of us.