Page 24 of Broken Star

I shake him off.

For once in his life, he doesn’t push back.

“What are you doing?” Lysandra asks me, a note of alarm in her voice.

“Choosing my own future.” The bracelet comes free, and I hold it over the water, watching the sapphires catch the light one last time. “I’m done letting others define who I am. From now on, I make my own choices. I carve myownlife. I guide the river in the direction I want it to flow.”

I turn my back on the bracelet, hold Lysandra’s gaze, and release it, hoping to convince her that this means nothing to me.

“An interesting choice,” she says the moment it starts to fall, her voice carrying that infuriating mixture of wisdom and amusement. “Although you forget that sometimes, the things we cast away in anger are the very things that could have guided us forward. That bracelet wasn’t just a symbol of the past you’re rejecting. It was a bridge between who you were, who you are, and who you could become.”

Her words hit harder than I want them to, and I almost regret my decision.

But no. I willnotlet her get to me. I’m stronger than that.

“I don’t need a bridge anymore,” I tell her. “I know exactly who I’m choosing to be.”

“Perhaps.” Her smile softens. “And that might be the most important lesson you could have learned from this—that even when others try to shape your path, the final choice is always yours.”

Riven shifts beside me, and I catch the way his hand moves to his pocket. Probably checking to make sure the potion is secure. Always the practical one, focused on the mission while I’m having emotional, life altering revelations.

“Now then,” Lysandra says, gesturing to the exit. “Since our business here is done, allow me to escort you both to your room.”

“Ourwhat?”I stand, refusing to look back at where I dropped the bracelet.

Lysandra blinks, feigning innocence. “It would be unbecoming for a couple to sleep in separate rooms on their wedding night.”

I nearly choke. “Absolutely not.”

Riven lets out a slow, exaggerated sigh, running a hand through his damp hair. “Come on, Princess,” he says. “We wouldn’t want to break tradition, would we?”

I snap my focus to him, hating the amusement curling on his lips.

“I can think of one thing I want to break right now,” I say, allowing my gaze to drag up and down his body. “And it certainly isn’t tradition.”

His silver eyes gleam, catching the way my face burns with the slip of emotion I can’t control fast enough.

“I don’t recommend breaking such useful things,” he replies, his voice dropping lower, threading through my bones. “I can assure you that you’ll regret it in the future.”

A storm surges inside me, and I move toward him, ready to strangle him and everythingusefulabout him.

But before I can, a wall of water surges between us, slamming down with a force that sends a fine mist spraying against my skin.

Lysandra.

“In your room, I’ve removed the enchantment that stopped you from entering the mortal realm last night,” she tells us, lifting water droplets from the ground and playing with them between her fingers. “But the enchantment has only been removed inthatroom. So, do try to keep it civil until morning. It would be a shame for your first night as husband and wife to end in a blood feud.”

Sapphire

Riven,to his credit, sleeps on the floor without giving me too much of a headache.

He’s too busy strategizing our next moves to bother devoting any of his headspace to me. And clearly, he has noheartspaceto offer, given that he doesn’t havea heart. At least not one capable of offering anyone anything.

Not even his newly wed wife.

But the headache of this unwanted marriage is a problem for later. Right now, we need to get the potion to the Winter King to restore his sanity.

The general plan for after arriving to the mortal realm? Steal a car and drive to Maine, so we can jump through the portal near Presque Isle to get back to the Winter Court.

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