Page 85 of Broken Star

In the vision, the other me rises to her feet, the dagger clutched tightly in her bloodstained hand.

“All rivers reach the sea eventually,” she calls out as she fades, as if she can somehow see and hear us. “No matter how many branches they take out along the way.”

Her voice slithers over my skin like a prophecy. Like a fate I can’t escape.

Then she’s gone, along with the battlefield and bodies, leaving Riven and me alone in the swirling, starry void once more.

Riven

I hold Sapphire tighter,my arms locking around her as if she’s the only thing keeping me from breaking apart.

Because sheisthe only thing keeping me from breaking apart.

But even with her in my arms—even after the soul-shattering kiss between the visions of our possible futures—I can’t stop thinking about everything I said to her after the dryad’s deal. The cruel, hollow detachment. The sharp-edged words that cut her open because in that moment, I had no love to give.

Eros’s arrow struck her, but I’m the one who poisoned her. The one who destroyed her.

Now, she holds me anyway.

So, I cling to her. Because she’s here now.MySapphire, the one grounding me in this moment instead of in the nightmares of what could be.

Her breath brushes against my skin, steady but fragile, and gods, I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserveher.

Then she pulls back slightly, her eyes searching, her expression shifting from grief into something steady and resolute.

“How do we know which choices to make?” she asks. “How do we avoid the futures we saw?”

“Together.” The word slips from me without hesitation, because it’s the only answer that matters. “We face every choice together. That’s something neither vision showed—and it’s one we’ll make happen. Because I refuse to believe that those futures are all that are possible for us.”

Her magic pulses against mine, warm and alive, wrapping around my frost like a vow she hasn’t spoken yet.

“You’re right,” she says, straightening, forcing strength back into her voice. “And now that we know exactly what we’re fighting, we’re better armed to make decisions that will stop it. Because we can’t let those futures happen. Not to you, not to Zoey, and not to me.”

Her words settle into my chest, and I know she means them. She chooses this. She choosesme.

I stare at her, silver locking onto blue, and for a moment, the war between us fades. There’s no anger, no resentment, and no battle for control. There’s just her standing in front of me—here, alive, andmine.

Slowly—almost hesitantly—I raise my hand, my fingers brushing her cheek, and wait.

I wait for her to flinch. For her to pull away. For her to remind me that we’re too fractured to be whole again, too poisoned by hate, and too empty from where my love had been stripped away in a single heartbeat.

But she doesn’t.

And in that moment, something inside my chest cracks open, wide and aching.

“Sapphire,” I murmur, and her name is heavier than it should be, weighted with everything unsaid.

She watches me, and I swear I feel the war inside her. The same war raging inside me.

I open my mouth, ready to tell her what didn’t fully hit me until seeing that vision of myself on the throne. That I need her more than I need to breathe, and that if she ever leaves me, I won’t survive it.

“I need you to know?—”

But I stop.

Because my body locks up, my chest tightens, and I feel like if I speak—if I let those words escape—they’ll rip me apart at the seams.

Besides, what if it’s not enough?

---