Page 25 of Burning Star

Three of them, to be exact. Circe’s pigs, trotting across the sand as if they’re wandering through an ordinary barnyard rather than the deepest part of the Cosmic Tides.

My magic sputters, the water droplets splashing down onto the stardust sand.

Riven’s ice daggers crack and shatter.

“Are you kidding me?” I say, not sure if I’m addressing the pigs, the Tides, or the universe in general.

Riven looks from the pigs to me, his expression deadpan despite the lingering awe in his eyes from our soul-binding moment.

“This is turning out to be one hell of a honeymoon,” he says, his voice so dry it could turn the cosmic ocean to dust.

Laughter bursts from me, so sudden and sharp that I nearly collapse with it. Because it’s too much. Everything we just survived—everything we just became—and now Circe’s pigs trot in, surviving the Cosmic Tides as if they were a scenic detour?

Riven joins in, his laugh deeper and richer than I’ve ever heard it.

It reminds me of the happy version of him that I saw in the Tides, at our wedding, with his mother there.

The smallest pig—a pink one with white spots—trots over and nudges my leg with its snout, as if wanting to be part of the joke.

“I guess they like us,” I say once I can catch my breath, wiping tears of laughter from my face.

“Maybe your dramatic monologues on the spectral ship about how heartbroken you were over me won them over,” Riven teases, his eyes gleaming with newfound warmth. “Although, explaining our trio of enchanted pigs to the Winter Court should prove rather interesting.”

My laughter fades at the mention of his father, the potion, and the Winter Court… which of course makes me think about Zoey trapped in the Night Court.

Riven notices. Of course he does. He can feel me now, just as I feel him, our emotions flowing back and forth like water and ice melting into one.

“We’ll get her back,” he says, steady with conviction. “I promise. We’re stronger now than ever.”

“You feel it too, don’t you?” I flex my fingers, watching in amazement as water and frost materialize in my palm. “I don’t just have my magic anymore. I have yours, too.”

Instead of replying, he creates a ball of ice in his hand that’s shot through with threads of water.

“Incredible,” he says in wonder, and I rotate my hand, playing with the frost, trying to form designs as delicate and intricate as the ones he creates to express everything he’s feeling but doesn’t want to say.

All I manage are… blobs.

He tilts his head, amusement dancing over his eyes. “I wouldn’t recommend competing with my artistic talent, Princess,” he says, although his expression changes a second later, becoming more serious. “But there’s no need to compete. Not really. Because you’re inside me now. In my veins, in my bones, and in my soul. And I’ll never let you go.”

“You say that like it’s a choice,” I reply, dropping my arm to my side, incapable of focusing on anything other thanhim.“Like either of us could walk away now, even if we tried.”

“I’d burn the realms down before letting you go,” he says, and then we’re crashing into each other again, losing ourselves in everything we created and destroyed and built back up in what feels like a single heartbeat.

But eventually—frustratingly—he pulls away, his eyes locked on mine with visible struggle.

I gaze up at him, knowing I’d drown in him and forget everything else if he asked me to. Because he wasgone,and now he’shere.And I’ll never forget the devastation I felt when his heartbeat stopped, when I thought I was going to have to live the rest of my immortal life without him.

He reaches for my left hand and traces my palm, as if he’s worshipping my existence with a single touch.

“As much as I’d love to stay here and revel in our whole cosmically bound, dangerously obsessed soulmates situation,” he says, seeming to get an immense amount of joy from the words, “we did come here for something.”

“Right,” I say, trying—and failing—to ground myself. “The Star Disc.”

We glance around the Tides, but there’s nothing here other than Cetus’s pile of sparkly stardust.

“Maybe we have to...” Riven focuses on it and trails off, grimacing slightly. “Dig through it?”

I wrinkle my nose, but nod in reluctant agreement. “It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve ever done,” I say, but as we’re about to reach into the glittering dust, the ground tremors, and the cosmic sand shifts, vibrating with an energy that seems to come from the core of the Tides themselves.

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