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“Kal,” I breathed, my eyes so wide I could feel my lashes against my brows. It was the first time I’d ever called him that. Well, the first time since...
Kalen moved to my side, grabbing my hands desperately to get my attention. But his mouth fell open and whatever he had meant to say to reassure me would not come.Everything is okay, his eyes said, but it wasn’t.
My chin jerked to turn around the room, looking for anything familiar to grasp onto, but there was nothing I knew other than the dagger in my hand. The dagger I’d gifted Kalen and hoped he’d shove into my chest. He would never have to. I already felt like I was cut in two.
Before anyone could try to stop me, I ran from the throne room, sand kicking up from my feet and the smell of wishing blossom wilting in my lungs.
I can’t be here, I shouldn’t be here. I was supposed to be in the Binding and Kalen was supposed to be mortal.
Seventy-two years.
Kalen was supposed to bedead.
Everything was wrong. I’d gone to sleep in my grove and woken up too far away, and now there was no chance for me to go back. Two worlds lived inside me at once. They did not fit together and they were going to tear me apart. I ran and ran, hoping that I would be far from the castle walls by the time they did, or else I would bring this entire faction down around me.
When the stone of the palace grounds softened into the sand, I let my legs carry me until my muscles sunk towards the earth. My knees tucked to my chest, my forehead hit the wet beach, ears pressed to my shoulders and my hands clasped over the back of my neck. I panted in time with the waves.
It all made sense. Everything that Kalen knew of me, not because he read it from a book, but because he watched me do it all; fight and betray and cut deeply. I did those things to everyone I knew, but mostly to him.
There was a reason. An explanation. For all of it. All of the questions I had asked that Kalen made a point to ignore. All of the lies and all of the mistrust—the consequences of choosing myself over everyone else. Why had I let him go at our meadow, thinking that I didn’t love him? I didn’t want to watch him die, but he died all the same. By a brutal hand, instead of one that he could have held. That scar underneath his chin. I’d all but put it there with my refusal.
The tide swept in on me, lapping against my legs with a stinging cold. I jumped to my feet at its touch. I’d been here once before, in the Binding, when I thought that all was lost. But then Kalen appeared, and my life began again. Did it always have to end this way? With a start, I backed away from the water’s edge, clawing through the sand as it slipped through my grasp and Ifell flat on my stomach. Above, the moon was sinking away from the earth, making way for the sun. I’d lain on the beach for hours and hadn’t realized it.
Lost in time, again.
A flash caught my eye from the terrace just outside of my room at the palace. A crown, I realized. From the sensation that ran down my spine, I knew its wearer had set her cold blue eyes upon me. I pulled myself up from the beach and began the long walk back.
Ione was waiting outside of my room, looking out towards the work of the Mother, admiring the sea as one admires themselves in the mirror. As I approached, the waters began churning with subtle angst. She breathed through the wind that came in off the waves, her shell-colored lips pursed together in a tight smile. I stood next to her, wishing that I could enjoy the view without feeling desperately angry at everything and everyone.
The queen did not acknowledge my presence, so I broke what was surely another palace rule and addressed her first.
“A dagger for your thoughts?” I asked weakly.
Ione laughed, an exhausted whinnying that puffed out of her nose. It stunned me to hear such a sound come from her.
“I apologize if I startled you,” she said. “I meant to congratulate you at the ball, but you ran off. I thought I’d grab some night air on the terrace while I waited for you to come back. I became consumed with thoughts of the past.”
I ignored her apology. It was nothing more than a formality. Ione despised my very existence, and if I knew anything, it was that she couldn’t possibly be sorry at all. I smiled at her, hoping she would find it genuine.
“That makes two of us,” I said. “Which stone did you touch?”
Ione gave me a wary look and rapped her nails against the stone railing before us, clearly engaged in some inner debate. Across the beach, a gull careened from the dunes into the skyabove the sea. It culled heartily as it made its rounds above the waves looking for its morning prey.
“The stone of jealousy,” Ione finally answered, and I could not hide my surprise.Jealousy?Yes, everything I had done tonight would spark envy, but it was not a feeling I thought she would freely admit to having. It made her look weak.
“Not over Tyr, Gwynore,” she said, clearly aware of the look on my face. The look on hers was quite strange, her cheeks were bunched tight and her eyes squinted, not against the sunrise, but some hidden pain.
“My sisters were always my Father’s favorites,” she said. “From the time we were children, he strung them both along in a competition for his affections just so he could weed out the weaker of the two. They were both so powerful and so hard to understand. The only way he could control them was to open them up and see what they were made of. It was cruel, but I found myself always a step behind them, completing the same training as them, the same studies, everything. Just so I could show him I had done it, too.”
The blush on Ione’s face ran just across the bridge of her nose. A small change, but one that set her in a new light. She looked younger, less rigid. A girl who wanted everyone to see the woman she would be if they just paid attention.
“He never noticed, of course,” she finished, straightening the sleeve of her gown, “fathers like Thesion hardly ever do.”
Ione’s confession did nothing to soften my unease. Despite her current vulnerabilities, I was still standing next to the person who wanted me dead most in the world. To show empathy now felt much like cooing at a wild beast as it drew back from you. At any moment, I knew she would strike.
“I’m sorry.”
I felt like I had to say it.
