Chapter 2

At two in the morning, a loud crash woke me up.

When I burst into the guest room, Celeste was standing there with a moonmark stone in her hand, rune tools scattered around her feet.

The stone had split in two, right through the carved moon pattern.

“Ella...”

Celeste hurried toward me barefoot.

“I didn't mean to. I was just looking for a blanket.”

My mind went blank.

My father had carved that moonmark stone himself in the last year of his life.

He died before I ever got to show him my first complete design.

I'd treasured it ever since.

“I said nobody touches anything in this room.”

My voice shook with an anger I'd never felt before.

My shout startled Celeste. The stone slipped from her hand, hit the floor, and shattered.

I couldn't hold it in anymore.

“Get out.”

I pointed at the door.

“Get out right now.”

Celeste backed away crying and stepped right on a shard.

She yelped in pain and stumbled to the floor.

Hurried footsteps pounded down the hall, and Kane burst into the room.

He took one look at Celeste's injury, walked straight past me, and bent down to pick her up.

“What happened? Does it hurt?”

Celeste was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.

“Don't blame Ella. She just cares so much about her father's things...”

The tenderness on his face as he checked her wound left me dazed.

The year we first became fated mates, I'd cut myself on a carving knife in the workshop.

When Kane got there, he'd scooped me up just like that.

That day, he'd held my hand and promised that as long as he was around, I'd never have to face pain alone.

He still knew how to hold someone protectively in his arms.

It just wasn't me anymore.

“Don't move. I'm taking you to the healer.”

Kane turned with Celeste in his arms, and only then did he notice that my hand was hurt too.

A shard had sliced open my palm, and blood kept dripping from it.

Kane's gaze lingered there for a moment.

“Go get the first-aid kit and bandage that up.”

I looked at him, and suddenly the words sounded so strange they were almost funny.

“The moonmark stone my father made is broken.”

Kane frowned at the crack running through it.

But when Celeste let out a soft gasp of pain, he looked away.

“I'll find the best rune master to fix it.”

“And if it can't be fixed?”

He was quiet for a moment.

“I'll have someone find another moonmark stone just as good.”

I stared at him.

“But it wouldn't be the one my father made.”

His voice hardened. “Celeste is hurt right now. Are you really going to make me stand here and argue with you about a rock?”

A rock.

So to him, the thing my father left me was just a rock.

Just then, Celeste lifted her head.

“Kane, maybe you should stay with Ella.”

She tried to climb out of his arms, but Kane held her tighter.

“Don't move. You're still bleeding.”

Then he carried her right past me.

“Ella, you've always been stronger than she is.”

I stood there, the blood from my palm running down my wrist.

It was a long time before I crouched down and picked up the pieces one by one. Then I called an old rune master.

After I described the damage, there was a long silence on the other end.

“Ms. Wren, the stone itself might be held together with resin, but the core pattern is broken.”

“Can't it be carved again?”

“It can. But then it wouldn't be your father's work anymore.”

After I hung up, I didn't cry. I just put the wooden box back in the cabinet and locked it.

The final acceptance notice from Moonstone Academy was still on my screen.

I didn't hesitate this time. I tapped to confirm my enrollment.