Page 4 of Broken Star

Riven’scasual attitude makes me want to scream.

He doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t care that my heart was shattered by his careless bargain and a god’s cursed arrow. The only thing that matters to him is finishing that potion.

I need to get away from him.Now.

So, I turn and take one step away from the palace. Then another.

Then… ice spears through my veins. It sinks deep into my muscles, wrapping around my bones like chains forged of frozen steel.

I stumble, gasping as it tightens its suffocating, determined hold.

“Wow,” Riven muses, his tone so light and unaffected that my vision swims with fury. “You really don’t learn, do you?”

If I wasn’t frozen in place, I would launch myself at him. I would tear through his detached indifference, rip away his careful composure, and force something real out of him. Something that proves he isn’t as unshaken as he pretends to be.

But the magic pulses harder, sinking its claws deeper into me, forcing me to my knees.

“Go. To. Hell,” I grit out, my fingernails raking the dirt as if the earth can anchor me against this overwhelming force of frustration that is Prince Riven Draevor of the Winter Court.

He crouches beside me, one arm braced against his knee, watching me with infuriating ease. “Freezing Hell over would be an enjoyable challenge,” he says lightly. “But I’ll settle for watching you shiver at my feet instead.”

He says it so carelessly. So effortlessly. Like this is nothing more than entertainment to him. Like he enjoys watching me fight against something I can’t possibly win.

I try to summon my magic—to force him back, to do anything—but it’s buried beneath layers of ice. Trapped and suffocated, just like I am.

“I hate you,” I say to him, the words scraping against my throat.

“And I don’t blame you for it.” He shakes his head, stands, and offers me his hand. “Now, get up. We have work to do.”

I stare at his outstretched hand, my breath uneven.

I’ve taken that hand before. When he helped me onto Ghost’s back, when he steadied me after falls during training, and every time he helped me get my bearings after I astrally projected.

He always held me when I came back. Cradled me, concerned about me, making sure I was okay.

Now, he’d probably just look down at me and criticize me for not getting up quickly enough.

“I can wait here all day,” he says when I don’t move. “But I doubt you can say the same. As you know firsthand, the ice magic will get worse the longer you resist.”

Another wave of frost surges through me, and my body locks up further, my lungs constricting as sharp, unbearable cold sinks deeper into my chest.

“Sapphire, as much as I’m enjoying watching you attempt to prove a point, I have to say… it’s not a very good one.” His tone remains light, almost bored, but there’s something beneath it. A razor-sharp precision—a cold, calculated edge. “You can hate me all you want, but you agreed to this deal. And unless you’ve developed an immunity to the wrath of fae bargains, I’d wager you won’t last much longer trying to fight it.”

I dig my nails deeper into the dirt, forcing myself to focus through the pain. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break. Not after he’s wrecked me so many times before.

“You’re wasting your energy,” he adds, detached and infuriatingly steady.

“You would love that, wouldn’t you?” I clench my teeth, my breathing uneven. “Watching me struggle. Watching me suffer. Just like youalwayshave.”

He tilts his head slightly, as if considering the accusation. “That’s not true.”

A bitter laugh scrapes my throat. “Isn’t it? Tell me, Riven, how clueless did you think I was? How entertaining was it for you to watch me believe you cared about me?”

He sucks in a sharp breath, as if it’s taking all his energy to not slam into me like he did back at that tree.

“I do enjoy being entertained,” he says coldly, destroying me from the inside out.

“I can’t believe that every time you told me you loved me, you were playing with my mind,” I continue, the words coming out in uncontrollable fury. “I can’t believe that every night we spent in each other’s arms, you were taking what you wanted and tricking me into thinking you cared.”

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