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But then—there’s his voice.

If love is destruction, then let it destroy me. At least this way, I’ll be part of you forever.

As I drink—as it gets harder and harder to pull more blood from his wrist—what he’s saying threads together.

I’m destroying him. He’ll always be part of me, but he won’t be here beside me. Which means…

Reality slams into me, and I ground myself, forcing myself away from him, terrified of what I’m about to find.

His arm falls. Like he wasn’t even trying to hold it up.

And when I open my eyes…

The world stops.

His head is slumped against my shoulder, heavy, lifeless, and unresponsive, even as I try to make him look at me. His eyes are closed, his face pale, and delicate patterns of ice crawl across his skin, spreading over his chest like frost on glass.

But he’s still breathing. He’s stillhere.

“Riven?” My voice sounds foreign to my ears, small and desperate.

His eyes remain closed, his face eerily peaceful.

I’ve never seen him this still. Even in sleep, Riven maintains a coiled tension, ready to spring into action at the slightest threat.

But now? Nothing.

“I won’t let you do this,” I tell him, my voice cracking on every word. “You don’t get to leave me now. You promised?—”

The memory hits me—Riven’s voice in my ear when he was telling me that he loved me, when he thought it was all going to be over soon.

If you think I’m going to keep existing in an empty, meaningless version of reality that doesn’t have you in it, then you don’t know a damn thing about me.

“You can’t give up now,” I say, shaking, needing him to open his eyes and make one of those insufferable comments about how I’m overreacting and messing up every thought-out plan of his. “You promised me forever.”

I grasp his frozen hands, squeezing as if I can transfer my warmth—my life—back into him.

But they remain cold and unyielding, like marble beneath my touch.

His pulse is weak. Fading. Barely there.

And then?

It’s gone.

Just...gone.

Like it was never there at all.

“No—” The word wrenches from me in a ragged sob, and I press my fingers harder against his throat, his wrist, and his chest, desperate to force life back into him.

“You don’t get to decide that you love me more than your own life,” I choke out, barely able to breathe. “You’re supposed to be here. You’re supposed to catch me when I fall. How are you supposed to do that if you’re gone?”

The Tides are silent.

But I won’t accept this. I won’t let him go. I won’t let this be our end.

And then, Riven’s final words cut through my mind.