Page 79 of Broken Star

And yet, I turn to her, unable to take my eyes off her.

Because even with the hatred that’s been poisoning her heart for days—even when she’s recoiled from me like I’m something wretched and unworthy—she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“I’m so sorry,” she says softly, and there’s no anger. No poison from Eros’s lead arrow twisting her words into knives.

Before I can think, I’m pulling her into my arms, like she’s the only one who can stop me from becoming the man on the throne who’s lost everything.

She doesn’t pull away.

And that wrecks me even more. Because I know—Iknow—that this moment won’t last.

So, I pull back, memorizing the way she’s looking at me in this one, fleeting moment when she doesn’t hate and resent me.

“Sorry for what?” My voice is barely above a whisper, but gods, I need her to answer.

“I’m sorry I’m not there,” she says, the words strained, like it’s taking every ounce of her strength to get them out. “That I failed. Because if this is your future, then something must have happened to me. There has to be a reason why I’m gone.”

The words rip me in half. Because I can tell from the look in her eyes that she’s not talking aboutleavingme.

She’s talking aboutdyingon me.

“You’re not gone.” It comes out rough, more of a plea than statement, but I don’t care. I just tighten my grip on her, holding her like I can keep her here, like I can rewrite whatever fate the Tides have written for us.

“You think you have control over that?” Her voice wavers, quiet but sharp. “I could die tomorrow, or even today, in these Tides. And if I do, then that’s what’s left of you. But I need you to promise me you’ll fight it. That you won’t lose yourself completely. No matter what.”

Her words sink deep, dragging me under until I can barely breathe.

Because even the broken version of her outside the Tides—the one poisoned by Eros’s lead arrow, who’s spent days looking at me like she would rather die than touch me—is better than no her at all.

“I don’t need to promise anything, because I’m not going to lose you,” I say, my jaw clenching as the ice inside me thickens, trying to hold back the cold storm of emotions threatening to surface at the reminder of how close I was to losing her in Eros’s arena.

“How can you be so sure?” she asks.

I close my eyes for a moment.

I could avoid telling her the truth. I could hide it in wit and indifference—in some sharp-edged remark meant to deflect—to keep her from seeing how wrecked I really am.

But, for gods know what reason, I don’t.

“Because if you were gone—really, truly gone—then I’d already be dead.”

The words tear out of me, scraping against my throat like shattered ice. And now that they’re said, there’s no taking them back. No softening them. No burying them. They’re too final and absolute.

Her entire body shudders, her hands trembling where they rest against my chest.

And I see it—the shift in her expression, the untamed ache pooling in her eyes.

It almost hurts more than the hatred.

Because I don’t deserve her looking at me like I’m something worth saving. Not when I’m the one who shattered her in the first place.

But she’s listening now. She’s feeling this now. And hell, she needs to. Because if I ever lost her—really lost her, not just to the cruel twist of Eros’s arrow, but to death itself—there would be nothing left of me to save.

But then, she speaks, and there’s only warmth in her tone. It’s how she spoke to me in the Wandering Wilds before everything got ripped away, and it doesn’t cut through me like it has for days, making me bleed in ways she doesn’t even realize.

“Fate is like water,” she says, bringing me back into focus, her voice steady despite the turmoil inside me. “It carves its path whether we want it to or not. But water can be redirected. It can be shaped. The future isn’t set in stone.”

I almost laugh at how naïve it sounds.

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