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I don’t know if there’s a difference.

“You’re the only thing holding me together. If you leave me, I’ll never come back from it,” I tell her, and then I press my forehead to hers, not trying to hold it in anymore. All the tears, all the heartbreak—all of it—comes rushing out at once.

It’s too much. It’s shredding every piece of me. And I welcome the ruin, because it’s what I deserve.

So, I slam my fist down onto the ocean floor, barely feeling the bones crack, relishing the blinding pain, the explosion of ice around me.

It’s not enough.

It will never be enough.

“I can’t go back to the Winter Court and lead our army without you next to me,” I say to her, even though she can’t hear me. “I can’t save Zoey when the only reason I gave a damn about any of this was because youmademe care. I can’t even?—”

My throat closes around the next words, locking them inside me like a secret too painful to say aloud.

“I can’t even save myself.”

I clutch her tighter, desperately, as if holding on hard enough can fuse us together and anchor her to this world. She looks so pale, like even though her wounds healed, her blood never returned…

Blood.

She’s run out of her own. And gods know, she’s always wanted mine. Every time I’ve bled in front of her, she’s looked at me like she’s starving.

It’s the only thing I have left to give.

Her dagger is right next to her, the blade stained with Cetus’s blood. So, without hesitation, I grab it, pressing the cold steel against my wrist, and carve. Deep, swift, and merciless.

The pain is instant and scorching, a beautiful agony racing through my veins. And I welcome it. Crave it. Anything to give meaning to this endless, empty ache that’s been haunting me since the deal with the dryad. Actually, for far longer than that—since the day I stood in front of my mother’s icy coffin, and my father told me to bury every emotion that could make its way into my heart.

With shaking hands, I lift Sapphire’s head, cradling her even as blood pours from my wound, and press my wrist to her lips.

“Drink,” I tell her, forcing my blood into her mouth.

Nothing happens.

So, I pry her lips open, panic rising as I press harder, spilling more of myself into her. But the cut’s already starting to heal, so I take the dagger and carve into myself again, this time even deeper, letting more blood flow out.

“Please, Sapphire. I need you to live,” I repeat what I’ve been demanding of her since I realized she was dying.

Still, nothing. Just the steady flow of my blood, unable to help the one person I would give anything to keep safe.

“Take everything,” I tell her, my desperation bleeding into the words as much as my life bleeds into her mouth. “All of it. My blood, my magic, my life. Whatever you need. I don’t care, as long as you live.”

Desperation claws through my chest, a sob rising, choking me. Because the one thing I have left—my blood, my life—isn’t enough.

And then—a flicker. The faintest, smallest movement as she swallows.

“Yes,” I murmur in her ear, guiding her mouth more firmly against my wrist. “There you go.”

The pull of her lips is intoxicating. It’s fire and ice, pleasure and torment, colliding brutally in my veins. It’s an exquisite destruction—a ruin I crave more than sanity.

Her body arches against mine, hungry and insatiable. Her hands, once limp, now grip my forearm, her nails digging into me, marking me, claiming me even in her weakened state.

“Sapphire,” I groan, my voice barely audible, caught between agony and ecstasy, between warning her and begging her never to stop.

She doesn’t listen. She doesn’t care. Her focus is on consuming me—on devouring me whole.

This isn’t just drinking. It’s obliteration. It’s the annihilation I’ve yearned for, the destruction of everything I am. And gods help me, it feels incredible. Like being unmade by the most exquisite torture imaginable.