Page 77 of Burning Star

“No one will ever truly care about you,” he snarls, stalking forward. “Not even your precious Summer Princess. She might cling to her fantasy, but you and I both know the truth.” His voice drops to a softer, more vicious tone. “I made you what you are. Ice, through and through. Cold. Hard.Empty.”

He laughs, sharp and cruel as he hurls more ice daggers at me that I block at the last second.

“No one loves a heart that’s been frozen solid, chiseled into something sharp and hollow,” he continues, shards of ice bursting from the ground, forcing me to dodge them to avoid being speared or knocked to my feet. “They survive it. They bleed for it. They fear it. And then they leave. Because all ice does is crack and break. And when it’s over, you’ll be left alone, drowning in the shattered pieces of it.”

He rushes at me with his sword.

As I block his attacks, my time with him while I was growing up roars through my mind like an avalanche.

I’m thirteen, kneeling in the snow on the training ground after a humiliating defeat in front of the court.

My father loomed over me, his eyes filled with disgust.

“Emotion has no place in you,” he said, his voice a whip across my skin. “Swallow it. Freeze it. Or it will tear you apart.”

Me at fifteen, standing amid the carnage of my first border skirmish. Blood on my hands. Horror in my chest. My sword shook.

“Fear makes you slow,” my father said from beside me. “Slow gets you killed. Bury it.”

Then, I’m twenty-one. I’d just given an order that ended in far more bloodshed than expected, doubt gnawing at me until it nearly broke through.

My father turned on me, his eyes shards of ice. “Right and wrong are for the weak,” he said. “The worthless. The undeserving. Harden doubt, or drown in it.”

It keeps coming.

“Falter in front of me again, and I’ll freeze you where you stand and watch you shatter and melt.”

“Hesitate, and I’ll exile you to the Wandering Wilds, where the monsters will eat you alive until not even your bones remain.”

“You deserve nothing but silence, solitude, and ice biting at your throat.”

“Emotion makes cracks. You crack, and I’ll grind the pieces beneath my heel and throw them into the ravine.”

The memories echo in my mind, tightening around my chest like chains. They’re pulling me down, dragging me back to that boy who swallowed every scream and buried every tear. Who told himself that if he could just be perfect—just be cold enough—maybe he’d be worthy.

Then I feel Sapphire through the soul bond.

She’s steady. Warm.Here.

She knows me. The broken pieces, the sharp edges, and the fragments that never thaw. She’s been inside the wrecked, shattered parts of my heart that were nearly destroyed by decades of my father’s threats and malice. And despite it all, she loves me, anyway.

Still, as I grit my teeth and ground myself against my father’s relentless cruelty, frost fills my chest and ice rushes my veins. Because even though Sapphire’s fought like hell to make sure I’m not empty, frozen, or alone, I’ll never be worthy tohim.

Which is why there are only two options—force him to accept what I’m offering, or kill him.

RIVEN

“You want me to be cold?”I growl, raising my sword. “Fine. But don’t mistake it for weakness.”

“There it is,” my father sneers. “The ice beneath the rage. The callous monster you pretend you aren’t.”

I launch an attack, but he controls the battlefield with sheer precision, moving as if the laws of motion bend to his will. Frost swirls around him, shards of ice forming and melting at his command.

“I know every move you’ll make,” he taunts, sending a wave of frost that catches me off guard, throwing me against the barrier.

Shards of ice crack against my back, scraping through my shirt and biting into my skin.

“I created you,” he continues. “Iforgedyou.”

---