Page 27 of Burning Star

I want to sink into him and live in him forever.

Which, I suppose, I sort of already did.

“You know I love you.” I tilt my head, my lips curving slightly. “But owning a Winter Prince’s heart and soul sounds like a lot of pressure.”

“You don’t just own them. Youarethem,” he says, like a vow written in frost and starlight. “But—speaking of things we own, I have something of yours.”

“Other than my soul?” I ask, teasing, but curious.

Riven just smiles—that rare, genuine smile that makes my heart skip a beat—and reaches into his pocket.

“I’ve been carrying this since our wedding day,” he says, withdrawing something that catches the cosmic light and sends blue reflections dancing across his face.

My sapphire bracelet. The one I threw into the ceremonial pool in the Summer Court.

My throat tightens. “How did you?—”

“I caught it before it hit the water,” he says, turning it over in his hand. “Froze it midair, actually. You were too busy making your grand declaration to the Summer Queen to notice.”

The bracelet glows under the starlight, the sapphires pulsing like a heartbeat.

It was my one connection to my mother—or at least, to the woman I thought was my mother—even though it hadactuallybeen from Lysandra, my birth mother. And I’d thrown it away in a moment of anger and defiance.

“Why would you save it?” I finally manage to ask.

“Because it mattered to you,” he replies, as if it should be obvious. “Because even when you hated me and I couldn’t remember loving you, I couldn’t let you lose something that meant so much to you.”

His honesty floors me. Because I remember the rage I felt that day. The satisfaction of dropping the bracelet into the water, of rejecting the lie that had been my life. But now, I feel something different—a bittersweet ache for everything that was and everything that still could be.

“This reminds me of the first time,” I say quietly. “Before the trials. When you gave the bracelet back to me in the tent.”

“It’s a good thing our wedding bands are infused into our skin, because you’re terrible at keeping track of your jewelry,” he says, and then, with gentle hands, he takes my wrist. “May I?”

I nod, not trusting myself to speak.

He fastens the bracelet around my wrist, and the moment it touches my skin, I feel a rush of warmth.

The Star Disc pulses in my other hand, responding to the bracelet like they’ve been waiting to be reunited.

“I can’t promise I’ll always make the right choices,” he says, his voice low and intense. “But I can promise I’ll always protect you, no matter where we go, or what we face, or how many times we have to save each other from cosmic monsters and vengeful gods.”

“I love you,” I tell him, since it’s the simplest explanation for the emotions rushing through my heart that I can think of.

“I know,” he says, that smirk finding its way back to his lips. “And you’re stuck with me now. Soulmates, remember?”

“Soulmates,” I repeat, as if testing the word on my tongue.

It feels right, somehow. Not just because of what I did to bring him back, but because of everything that led us here—every fight, every sacrifice, and every moment of connection.

“Yes, soulmates,” he says. “Tangled together so deeply that even when gods tried to pull us apart, they failed.”

And then his lips are on mine again, and I know that if we never emerge from the Cosmic Tides, it’ll be because we lost ourselves in each other forever.

SAPPHIRE

The only reasonRiven and I come up for air is because someone clears their throat behind us.

I pull out of his arms, my cheeks flushing when I see Celeste—the goddess who star touched me—watching me and Riven getting closer and closer to what honeymooning couples usually do while enjoying their first nights of marriage.

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