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“I did not ask you to be.”

We stood there in silence. I counted the pace of her breathing until she grew calm again, the violent rippling of water on the horizon smoothing out until it stilled completely. The sun had risen fully above the water, edging out the night that still lingered high above us. Our gazing stars began to fade, replaced by the countless stares of sea people emerging from their rooms in the palace for a full day’s work on the sand.

“You were smart, Gwyn—cunning, even,” Ione spoke up beside me. “Leveraging Tyr’s lust, playing into his ego at the sake of your own. That was something you would have done in your previous life.”

I would have mistaken her words as a compliment, if not for her ominous tone.

“Will you kill me now, then?” I asked, “Because I won’t stop looking for my stones, and I won’t stop at this shore of the Alto.”

Ione looked at me quickly, giving me a once-over and then returning her gaze to the sea. “I have made many promises since you disappeared all of those years ago, Brave Gwynore.” Her shoulders flinched as if to shrug. “Some I value more than others.”

I sighed and looked down at my blade, watching the light of the dawn glance off the metal as I flipped it in my hands, trying to figure out what her words meant. Pondering the thousands of strategies she must have conjured up to exact her revenge on me, and failing to see how stealing this stone from me could possibly fit into any of them.

If she had destroyed my stone, thrown it into the depths of the sea, I would have never been able to take the Light back. Not without my entire soul. But all of this time she had kept my stone within my arm’s reach. And within an arm’s throw of the dark island she forbade me from.

“Why did you steal this?” I blurted out.

So much for court manners.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ione said without hesitation or offense. “I wished to lure you here, to tempt you. At any moment since your arrival, you could have very well lost your temper. Harmed someone, committed some unforgivable act that I could punish you for without consequence. I do say I was rather astounded that you did not kill Tyr when you found out he had your stone.”

Bile sloshed into the back of my throat, burning. No matter how many reminders I’d been given, the plain fact of my previous tendencies never became easy to swallow.

“I know,” I tried, “That in my past life, my actions were not...honorable. But I am not the same as I used to be.”

It was Ione’s turn to scoff.

“Aren’t you? At most, you have demonstrated that you can restrain yourself, and even then, surely you understand the so-called honor you now claim is yet a theory to be tested.”

“Then this was a test?”

Ione rubbed at her chin pensively, and signed a non-committal, “Mm.”

I scoffed. She had to have known Kalen would never let me give up so easily. “How did I fair?”

The High Mer stared down at my stone, which was now empty, all of its magic tucked safely back inside my soul, a tiny nook somewhere in my heart, I supposed. The clear edges refracted tiny little diamonds of light into the cup of my hand.

“You passed.”

Without a parting glance, her heels turned and she was gone. A light sea mist braced my face in her wake.You passed. Both a declaration and a threat.

I turned over the stone again, wishing I could have all of the answers and trying not to think too hard about the fact that I still wasn’t whole.

In Cypra, Kalen had said I didn’t want to find my stones because I was afraid of what the past would make of me. Was heright? I was acting afraid, running out of the ball like that. The truth was I really didn’t know anymore. I wanted to know how my life was lost, but this...this was becoming bigger than myself.

The first stone had shown me that I was capable of destruction, of pain. I was equally capable of love, that was clear enough from the way my heart squeezed in tight on itself just from one look at Kalen. But when I was pushing my sword into Abdiel’s chest, I felt strong and powerful. And loving Kalen had felt weak and wrong. Was that why I’d let him walk away out of our meadow knowing I would never give myself up for him? Because I hadn’t wanted to? Who was I, if I refused to love and be loved?

Taking a deep breath, I gripped the dagger harder in my hand, brushing my thumb over the stone again. If there were any more memories that would help me piece together the broken thing that was Kalen and me, the stone didn’t have them. I knew who did, but I wasn’t in the mood for that conversation.

Turning from the terrace railing, I headed for my room.

My bed was thealtar for my anger with me hoisted up on top of the mountainous quilt, sacrificed to an endless night. I tossed and turned, the frills of my pillows scratching mockingly against my face.

I had known Kalen, and he had known me.Better than anyone, my mind taunted. The thought made me silently wail as I flipped over to my back and pushed my hands into my eyes. Maybe if I shoved hard enough, I could rid myself of the look on Kalen’s face when I ran from the ballroom tonight. If that didn’t work, maybe I could hold my breath long enough to incapacitate myself and wake up in a world where Kalen hadn’t played me for a fool these last months.

Who was I kidding? I’d played myself for a fool.

It had never really made sense how he could have known about the stones, about my past life, about everything. But I had accepted the half-thought-out excuses he gave because even though it was my life, it was far easier to let Kalen make all of the decisions. I pulled the heels of my palm from my eyes and smacked down a pocket of air that bubbled inside the silk of my bed.