Page 3 of Burning Star

I don’t answerSapphire’s question right away.

Because she’s right. Here, in the endless depths of the Cosmic Tides, the poison Eros’s arrow planted in Sapphire’s heart has retreated. And the ice I’ve forced around my heart, the carefully constructed walls?—

They’re gone.

And I don’t know how to exist without them.

I feeleverything.

It’s too much. It’s drowning me, crushing me, and breaking me apart at the seams. As it does, every lesson my father hammered into me since I was a child screams at me to shove it down. That way, when Sapphire and I emerge from these cosmic waters and her hatred returns, I’ll survive it. I’ll be ready for her to tear me apart all over again.

Although according to those visions, Iwon’tsurvive it. Because I was dead, or gone, in all three of them.

None of those futures are worth living for. Especially not after I traded my love for Sapphire away to that dryad, leaving a hollow space in my soul that I’ll never be able to fill.

I’ve hated myself for it since the deal was sealed.

Now, as the ice forming at my fingertips dissolves into the cosmic currents, I pull away from Sapphire enough to gaze into those brilliant blue eyes that have ruined me, haunted me, destroyed me, and saved me all at once.

Her breathing shallows, her grip tightening around mine like she’s afraid I’ll slip away.

Maybe I should.

Maybe it would be easier.

But I can’t.

Because for all the pain—for all the ways she’s shattered me beyond repair—I want to hold on. I need to stay tethered to something real, even if it’s the very thing that will destroy me.

“What I feel doesn’t matter,” I finally say, my voice rough and breaking in a way that feels both wrong and right. “Because the moment we surface, you’ll hate me again. Eros’s arrow will make sure of it.”

She exhales sharply, like my words physically wounded her.

Ice crackles along my fingertips again as I brace myself for her to hit me back. To tear into me. To hurt me the way I need her to.

But… she doesn’t.

Instead, she squeezes my hands, refusing to let me retreat into the icy shell I’ve buried myself in for decades.

“And you’ll be the cold, calculating prince who doesn’t care,” she says. “But I’m not asking about when we surface. I’m asking about now. Here. You and me, in this moment. Together.”

The starlight reflects in her eyes, swirling like the universe itself is trying to pull the truth out of me.

And suddenly, I want to let it. Because I can’t keep cutting Sapphire apart just to stop myself from bleeding. It’s not right, nor is it fair.

Not to her, not to me, and certainly not to us.

“I’ve always cared,” I say, the truth slipping out easily in these cosmic waters. “Even after the dryad took my love for you, I cared.”

She inhales sharply, and her magic flares, the droplets of water around us transforming into brilliant constellations.

“But I hated you,” she says, her voice cracking. “I was cruel to you. If you never stopped caring… then how do you bear it?”

“I don’t.” The admission tears something inside me apart—something that was barely held together, anyway. “When you look at me like I’m worthless, insufferable, and heartless… it kills me, Sapphire. Every single time.”

Her face crumples, and the whirlpool around us intensifies, pulling us closer together.

“Riven—” she starts, but I shake my head.

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