In the stories, epics of reincarnation spanning centuries, it always seemed to be so clean. Lovers who looked into one another’s eyes and just knew, glances or songs or last words spoken again as first words that brought all the memories rushing back. An old, old person filling out their new skin as easily as pulling on a fitted jacket.

Maybe it was that simple for some people. Royals and prodigies, rare talents and those who practically lived for when they would be born again. Maybe peaceful deaths made a difference, though they rarely seemed to in the stories.

Hers had been horrible, they said. Her story and her death. And she was no prodigy or royal, or likely ever had been. But still, it should have been easier than kneeling by the riverbank that way. It should have hurt less than holding that stone in her palm, black with one perfect band of white, and knowing it better than she knew herself, knowing she had held it before. It had fit just as smoothly in her palm then, she had clutched it as if it were important, but knowing only that.

Not how she had lost it. Not how it could have tumbled through the currents to find her there. Only that tears welled in her eyes to see it in the silt, to hold it again, overflowing from a spring too deep and rocky in her soul to ever find the source.

Only that she’d once had someone worth grieving for, and now she was alone.