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SAPPHIRE

The sea isn’t water.Not here, in the Cosmic Tides.

It’s a starlit galaxy that folds around Riven and me like a second skin, cool and infinite as we stand side by side on the deck of the spectral ship. It’s a current of memory and fate, of futures that haven’t yet happened and pasts that never should have been. And the deeper we sink, the more the line between what’s real and what’s possible blurs.

The Tides show you everything.

And they don’t ask permission.

Riven, alone on the throne as the Winter King, his silver eyes empty, the frost crown heavy with regret.

Me, standing above Riven and Zoey’s lifeless bodies, blood staining my hands, my eyes devoid of emotion.

And lastly, me and Riven entwined on a battlefield, our bodies broken, holding desperately to each other as our lives slip away.

Each vision strikes me like a twisted nightmare, making my stomach churn. Because if this is what awaits us—if pain and loss are our only options—I’m not sure how to keep going.

“Do you think it hurts?” Riven’s voice is quiet, almost lost beneath the steady pull of the Tides’ current.

I blink, turning toward him. “Do I think whathurts?”

“Dying like that. Together.” His gaze drifts to the expansive galaxy around us, distant and haunted, flecks of stardust catching in his dark hair like frozen tears. “Do you think we fought to the end? Or did we just… lie down and wait for it to come?”

A shiver rolls through me that has nothing to do with the cold.

“I refuse to accept that,” I tell him, my voice stronger than I feel. “That won’t be us.”

“You saw the same visions I did.” He laughs, hollow and bitter, frost crawling higher up his arms. “We know that whatever’s here between us—hate, love, destruction, devotion, or anything else it might be—killed us both.”

I try to tell him he’s wrong, but denial sticks in my throat.

“Being together like that in the end is better than the alternative,” he continues, his eyes darkening further. “It’s better than beinghim.”

He doesn’t have to explain who he means.

Because the vision of him—cold and empty, a king with nothing to live for—flashes behind my eyes again, and my chest clenches. That version of Riven—the one with the crown of ice and a frozen heart—is worse than death to him.

He would rather die beside me than live without me.

I don’t know if I love him for it or hate him for it.

“You can’t actually believe that dying together is the best we can hope for,” I say, my voice shaking.

He closes his eyes for a long moment, like he’s waging war with something deep inside himself. When he finally replies, the words are so quiet I almost miss them.

“It’s better than you becoming the version of yourself who could?—”

He stops abruptly, as if afraid of unleashing it. But the image is already there, burned into my mind, refusing to disappear.

“Who could what?” I demand, my pulse racing, needing him to say it.

“Who could kill me,” he finishes, his voice deadly calm. “Who could stand over my corpse, covered in my blood, and feel nothing.”

I flinch, his words piercing me as sharply as if that future was already reality.

“That wasn’t me,” I choke out, even as doubt coils in my stomach. “Those three futures—they can’t be the only choices we have. There must be others.”

But Riven doesn’t argue. He doesn’t push back with cold logic, cutting remarks, or even a hint of his usual stubborn fight.