Page 27
Story: Burning Star
I want to sink into him and live in him forever.
Which, I suppose, I sort of already did.
“You know I love you.” I tilt my head, my lips curving slightly. “But owning a Winter Prince’s heart and soul sounds like a lot of pressure.”
“You don’t just own them. Youarethem,” he says, like a vow written in frost and starlight. “But—speaking of things we own, I have something of yours.”
“Other than my soul?” I ask, teasing, but curious.
Riven just smiles—that rare, genuine smile that makes my heart skip a beat—and reaches into his pocket.
“I’ve been carrying this since our wedding day,” he says, withdrawing something that catches the cosmic light and sends blue reflections dancing across his face.
My sapphire bracelet. The one I threw into the ceremonial pool in the Summer Court.
My throat tightens. “How did you?—”
“I caught it before it hit the water,” he says, turning it over in his hand. “Froze it midair, actually. You were too busy making your grand declaration to the Summer Queen to notice.”
The bracelet glows under the starlight, the sapphires pulsing like a heartbeat.
It was my one connection to my mother—or at least, to the woman I thought was my mother—even though it hadactuallybeen from Lysandra, my birth mother. And I’d thrown it away in a moment of anger and defiance.
“Why would you save it?” I finally manage to ask.
“Because it mattered to you,” he replies, as if it should be obvious. “Because even when you hated me and I couldn’t remember loving you, I couldn’t let you lose something that meant so much to you.”
His honesty floors me. Because I remember the rage I felt that day. The satisfaction of dropping the bracelet into the water, of rejecting the lie that had been my life. But now, I feel something different—a bittersweet ache for everything that was and everything that still could be.
“This reminds me of the first time,” I say quietly. “Before the trials. When you gave the bracelet back to me in the tent.”
“It’s a good thing our wedding bands are infused into our skin, because you’re terrible at keeping track of your jewelry,” he says, and then, with gentle hands, he takes my wrist. “May I?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
He fastens the bracelet around my wrist, and the moment it touches my skin, I feel a rush of warmth.
The Star Disc pulses in my other hand, responding to the bracelet like they’ve been waiting to be reunited.
“I can’t promise I’ll always make the right choices,” he says, his voice low and intense. “But I can promise I’ll always protect you, no matter where we go, or what we face, or how many times we have to save each other from cosmic monsters and vengeful gods.”
“I love you,” I tell him, since it’s the simplest explanation for the emotions rushing through my heart that I can think of.
“I know,” he says, that smirk finding its way back to his lips. “And you’re stuck with me now. Soulmates, remember?”
“Soulmates,” I repeat, as if testing the word on my tongue.
It feels right, somehow. Not just because of what I did to bring him back, but because of everything that led us here—every fight, every sacrifice, and every moment of connection.
“Yes, soulmates,” he says. “Tangled together so deeply that even when gods tried to pull us apart, they failed.”
And then his lips are on mine again, and I know that if we never emerge from the Cosmic Tides, it’ll be because we lost ourselves in each other forever.
SAPPHIRE
The only reasonRiven and I come up for air is because someone clears their throat behind us.
I pull out of his arms, my cheeks flushing when I see Celeste—the goddess who star touched me—watching me and Riven getting closer and closer to what honeymooning couples usually do while enjoying their first nights of marriage.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27 (Reading here)
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85