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The Lycan.

I step into view and the moment he sees me, the air changes.

Not in fear.

Not even rage.

Recognition.

His entire body goes still.

His smile fades.

Not for Sabina—for me.

I know that look.

I’ve seen it before.

In a silver-lined room.

Under fluorescent lights.

The same man who never screamed?—

Now standing beside my cousin

Wearing softness like it doesn’t burn

I try not to show it.

But his eyes don’t leave mine.

He remembers.

And worse?

I do too.

The memory dissolves, but this time the stone doesn’t just project what happened—it projects my realization. The understanding that’s crashing over me now, in front of hundreds of witnesses.

I’ve become exactly what I hated. Someone who makes decisions about other people’s lives without consulting them. Someone who hoards truth like a weapon and calls it protection. Someone who builds their entire identity on the lie that they know what’s best for everyone else.

But worse than that—I’ve been doing it to everyone. To Sabina about Kade. To Vanessa about Greyson. To my chosen family about missions I can’t discuss. To Kieran and Finnian and Orion about who I really am.

I’ve built my entire identity on the lie that protecting people from difficult truths is the same as loving them.

“The candidate constructs her entire identity upon protective deception,” King Moros observes with the clinical precision of a surgeon removing organs. “She believes herself entitled to determine what truths others may bear about themselves and their nature.”

More whispers ripple through the chamber, but they sound distant now, filtered through the ringing in my ears. The Unseelie delegation murmurs among themselves, and I catch fragments:Trust issues. Manipulative tendencies. Fitness for leadership questionable.

“The Wild Court presents the final question.” The Morrigan’s voice cuts through my spiraling shame, ancient authority that makes the stone beneath my hands pulse with renewed intensity. When she rises from her throne, power radiates from her like heat from a forge. This is a goddess asking me to bare my soul, and I have no choice but to comply.

“What part of yourself are you afraid to set free?”

This time, the Truth Stone doesn’t just reach into my memories—it reaches into my heart. Into the locked chambers where I keep the emotions too dangerous to acknowledge, the wants I’ve never dared voice, the parts of myself I’ve spent a lifetime strangling.

The violation is the worst yet. Where the first two questions felt like surgical strikes, this feels like having my soul turned inside out and displayed for public consumption. I scream until my voice breaks completely, blood flowing from my mouth where I’ve bitten through my tongue. My entire body seizes,muscles cramping from magical overload. The chamber spins around me, consciousness fracturing as the stone tears through the deepest parts of my psyche.