Page 97 of Crossing Between
"Kærasta, please," Elias's voice broke. "Don't torture yourself this way."
But I was already reaching for my magic, that well of power that hummed beneath my skin. It rose eagerly to my call, flowing through me like liquid gold. I extended my senses, searching for any trace of Ruth's soul, any lingering essence I could grasp.
Nothing.
I pushed harder, stretching my awareness to its limits, desperately seeking any fragment of the woman I'd loved like family.
Still nothing. Just an empty void where her vibrant spiritshould have been.
"She's gone." My voice hollow. "Her soul is completely gone."
Through my grief, something else began to take shape. A cold, hard fury unlike anything I'd ever experienced. This wasn't just about me anymore. This was about Ruth, about all the innocent lives the Essencefeaster had taken. This was about stopping the monster before it could hurt anyone else I loved.
I wiped my tears with the back of my hand, standing straighter. "I need to do a reading." It was similar to pulling the soul back but it wouldn’t give as much information. I hadn’t liked to do it before because it’s not usually accurate and chaotic.
"Zoey..." Varon began, his tone cautious.
"Not as a Medium," I cut him off. "As a Soulbinder. There might be traces, impressions left behind. Something I can use to track it."
Quilith studied me for a long moment, then nodded. "It's worth trying. But be careful, Zoey. The Essencefeaster's energy is corrosive. Don't let it touch your essence."
I approached Ruth's body, steeling myself against the horror of seeing her this way. Kneeling beside what remained of her torso, I placed my hands just above the gaping wound where her heart should have been.
My magic flowed from my fingertips, golden light illuminating the gruesome scene. I closed my eyes, focusing not on what I could see but on what I could feel. Impressions, memories, the echo of what had happened here.
At first, there was only chaos, fear, pain, and confusion. Ruth's last moments, fragmented and distorted. I pushed deeper, past the surface horror, seeking the thread that would lead me to her killer.
There. A flash of something familiar. A voice I knewwell, speaking words I couldn't quite make out. I followed the thread, diving deeper into the memory preserved in the wound.
"Come on, old lady. This doesn't have to hurt."
Ryan's voice. But wrong somehow, distorted, as if something else was speaking through him.
The realization hit me like a physical blow. It wasn't just Ryan's essence I was sensing in the wound. It was the memory of his voice in Ruth's final thoughts. The confirmation of what I'd feared since that day on the porch when my magic had recoiled from him.
My brother was the Essencefeaster.
Not just being used by it.
I pulled back from the reading with a gasp, my magic recoiling instinctively. The golden light winked out, plunging us back into the harsh reality of the crime scene.
"Zoey?" Kenji was at my side instantly, his hand warm on my shoulder. "What did you see?"
I looked up at the three men who had bound themselves to me, feeling their concern and love flowing through our connection. How could I tell them that my own brother was the monster we were hunting? That the person I'd raised, the last blood family I had left, was responsible for this carnage?
"It's Ryan," my voice cracked on his name. "The Essencefeaster is Ryan."
Chapter 53: Zoey
I was floating in darkness, not the kind that frightens but the soft, enveloping kind that cradles you between sleep and wakefulness. The grief of finding Ruth's body had hollowed me out, leaving me empty and drifting. I didn't fight it. The darkness was a relief after everything I'd seen.
"Z..."
A voice called from somewhere in the void. Familiar. Beloved.
"Ryan?" I tried to move toward the sound, but there was no direction here, no up or down.
He materialized before me, my little brother, looking just as he had when we were kids. Messy hair that never seemed to lie flat, our father's baby-blue eyes, that crooked smile that could charm the skin off a snake.
