Page 3 of Broken Star

I move before I realize it, pacing in a circle as my magic burns through my veins like a wildfire, demanding an outlet.

“You left me and Zoey in that frozen tower for days.Days.We could have died,” I say, wind blowing around me as the pain turns to anger. “You said you built those trials to save us, but they almost broke us. And you didn’t step in to help until you realized I was drowning.”

Something shifts in his gaze, sharp and restrained.

Or maybe it’s just more of the same emptiness.

I narrow my eyes, needing him to respond. “Do you even remember that?”

Do you remember the moment you realized you were falling in love with me?I think, although I don’t say it out loud.

Instead of replying, he watches me like I’m something to be studied—a puzzle he’s already solved and discarded. Like he has no idea why I’m making such a big deal about this.

The dryad apparently stole his soul along with his heart.

“You let that night fae take Zoey at the waterfall,” I continue, resentment building in my chest with each word spoken. “You could have stopped it.You’rethe trained fighter.You’rethe winter prince. You could have helped her instead of me. But you just let him take her. And now, whenever I think about her, all I see is the terror on her face when she realized she was beyond saving. Which never would have happened if you believed in me enough to trust that I could protect myself.”

Frost plays along his fingers, and he toys with it, like he toys with me. Like he toys witheverything.

“If it helps you sleep better at night to think I’m the villain, then go ahead,” he replies, as icy and detached as ever. “As long as you’re alive, you can believe anything you want.”

“I believe you don’t love me,” I say without hesitation. “You never did.”

His expression doesn’t change. He just stands there. Unmoving, cold, and distant.

Which makes it even worse.

So, I channel my magic, sending water crashing over him like a tidal wave.

He doesn’t dodge it. He doesn’t even brace himself. He just lets the water hit him at full force, his face turned toward it as if he wants more of it.

“Refreshing,” he murmurs after the water hits the ground, running his hand through his wet hair as if he’s a model in a shampoo commercial. “Was that supposed to hurt?”

The world tilts.

I can’t hurt him. After all, it’s impossible to hurt someone who doesn’t care.

“Nothing could hurt as much as watching you bargain away your love for me,” I say, wind whistling through the trees as the memory of him kissing that dryad blasts through my mind. “You let me trust you. Let meloveyou. Then, you beat it into me that you never felt anything at all. You talked to me as if I was a punching bag you were trying to destroy until its insides were scattered across the ground like a smashed piñata.”

With each accusation I slam on him, his expression hardens, his eyes turning to ice.

But he still won’t fight back.

“Say something!” I demand, throwing everything I have at him—magic, fury, pain, and the agony of knowing that he’s standing right in front of me while still being impossibly far away. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me there was a reason. Tell meanything.”

For a moment, I don’t think he will.

Then, finally, he speaks.

“There’s nothing I can say that you’d want to hear.” His voice is quiet now. Almost too quiet. “Because even if I could, I wouldn’t take back what I did.”

And when he looks at me—empty and hollow, a shadow of the man I once loved—it breaks whatever hope I had that a part of him remembers what we were.

Then, he takes a slow breath, exhales, and lifts his gaze back to mine with detached indifference.

“However, as much as I’d love to keep standing here listening to a speech about how heartless I am, we have a job to do,” he says, turning slightly, looking off into the distance. “After all, the duskberry isn’t going to collect itself.”

Sapphire

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