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Eclipsa scowls at my use of King Oberon’s other name. “Because the prison has suffered major breaches over the years, so the Evermore council chose to store his soulstone on Starfall Island.”
I raise an eyebrow, and Valerian adds, “Starfall Island used to belong to the Lunar Court, before the Lunar Court was banished for their part in the Darken’s war and the island was claimed by the council.” Eclipsa goes still at the mention of her banished court, and Valerian flicks his gaze to her before continuing. “Now, the Lunar palace acts as a vault to hold the most dangerous artifacts in Everwilde, including the Darken’s soulstone.”
I blow out a breath. I’m not even pretending to do yoga now. “I’m assuming the vault was guarded and warded?”
“Heavily.” Valerian’s brow furrows. “Whoever broke in and stole the stone had been planning the attack for months, possibly years.”
Eclipsa sits cross-legged facing me. “Since all the courts distrust each other, they each have their own guards and spells protecting the palace.”
“Crap.” I massage my temples. “So whoever took the stone has to be powerful.”
“Very,” Valerian says, and something about his soft tone worries me. “But all the power in the Everwilde couldn’t break those defenses unless someone betrayed them from the inside.”
“And,” I finish proudly, “because every court had a hand in defending the vault, it’s near impossible to determine a suspect, and they’re all blaming each other.”
Asher winks proudly at me, impressed.
“So the prince went home,” I continue, working out the angles as I speak, “because someone suspects the Winter Court?”
“Not just suspects,” Eclipsa says quietly, her focus shifting to Valerian.
Valerian stretches to a stand, his face near unreadable. “The Summer Queen publicly accused me of the crime. I went home to face the council.”
My stomach sinks. “What’s the punishment for stealing the stone?” The look Eclipsa gives Asher turns my unease to full on panic. “But why would the Winter Prince steal the Darken’s soulstone when he despises his grandfather?”
Silence.
Valerian’s mouth hardens as he stares at some invisible spot on the wall. “I didn’t always disagree with him. After your death, I had a lot of anger against the Seelie Court. He used that anger to make me an ally, for a time. A part of me thought as long as I stayed close to him, I would know if he ever found you.”
He allied with the man who cruelly and methodically tormented him in an effort to protect me? I swallow, my throat bone-dry as I remember the dream I had about the Darken whipping Valerian. The stories I heard about his grandfather torturing him in horrendous ways . . .
Still. Still.
The Darken is the reason our world turned upside down. He’s the reason we lost almost half our population and land. The reason my aunts both have learned to cry soundlessly in the middle of the night because they don’t want to wake us.
“How could you align with someone like him?” I whisper.
A flicker of emotion ripples over his countenance, too quick to make out. “Because I’m not always the good guy, Summer. I’m Fae. In our world, there’s not always a good or bad side, only the weak and the powerful.”
“But you didn’t steal his soulstone, right?”
I don’t mean it to come out as an accusation, but it does. His lips twist, my body recoiling from the hurt I see in his eyes before he closes off his emotions behind a hard mask.
“He didn’t do it,” Asher says, and I can tell by his clipped voice that any points I won with him have been docked severely. “The Winter Prince was the one who turned the tide in the war. He spied against his grandfather, and when it came time, rallied half the Winter Court to the other side. If not for the prince, the Darken would still rule.”
“Then why would my—the Summer Queen claim he stole it?”
Eclipsa twists her ponytail around her fingers. “The Summer Queen has had it out for the Winter Prince ever since . . . well, she blames him for your death. Any chance she gets, she tries to turn the council against him. Tries to undermine his court. Anything to hurt him.”
I pluck at my soulstone pendant. Over the summer, Eclipsa and I determined that my mother must have taken my soulstone after I died, before my father could find it and destroy it. That’s the only way she could have performed the spells necessary to make me jump into another body, rudimentary as they were.
Then, somehow, she got it to me when I visited the half-Fae who erased my memory.
“Wait.” I drop the necklace back down into my tank top. “Why not destroy the Darken’s soulstone? I know it’s possible because Eclipsa said my father almost destroyed mine.”
Valerian’s eyes harden. “When he created the forbidden weapon that eventually caused both our worlds to collide, he needed something powerful enough to contain that many souls inside the weapon.”
I shiver, remembering the dark presence of the forbidden weapons in the vault beneath the academy.
