“Rise. Rise. Rise! Rise!” I pounded the ground with fury. “Rise! You promised me! You promised you would crawl out of your grave! You promised me, and I…and I—”

The bones of other skeletons watched me silently, and the waves crashed against the shore.

I spent two nights by his grave, unable to move as the sun turned into moonlight into day. By the third sunrise, I had lost all sense of self. Perhaps the elder asha expected this when they abandoned me here. Perhaps they knew that the most fitting punishment was to die by my own hand.

Let me prove them right for once.

I waded out into the cold deep. The tide had arrived, and soon the waters had risen to my chest.

It would be so easy. To immerse myself in the quiet, to close my eyes, to let out one final breath.

It would be so easy to die.

It would have been easier to have never known the Dark. It would have been easier if Mykkie had never found me, if she had left me to live and die in Knightscross, never the wiser so that I could never be the fool.

Life without the Willows. Life without being an asha. Life without Polaire or Mykaela or Likh or Kance or Khalad…

Life without ever having known Kalen…

I surfaced abruptly, gasping for air, expelling salt water from my lungs. I staggered back toward the shore and fell to my knees before Kalen’s grave, sobbing harder.

I had to live. I had to live for Fox. He was all I had left.

But when I opened my eyes, I saw a vision.

I saw Kalen, alive and well, standing before me, holding a light so bright and lovely. He smiled and extended his other hand toward me, eyes full of love. I had my heartsglass once more, the silver having given way to black. But instead of the dark and matted luster I had feared, it was as bright as an ebony night filled with pearly stars. It was beautiful.

“Are you scared?” he asked me gently, and I laughed. Once upon a time, my sister Lily had promised me a prince.

“Never when I’m with you,” I whispered to the fading vision, as it gave way to black sands and the roar of the surf.

I should not have had that vision. My heartsglass was now locked away by the elder asha to prevent me from touching magic. So what did this mean?

I felt a warmth against my breast, a familiar weight. I looked down.

Hovering above my chest, small but growing in size and form, was the beginnings of a heartsglass, bright and black.

• • •