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“He’s gone,” she whispered hoarsely, shaking her head back and forth. “Just… gone. He left me. Us.”

“Who?”

“He… he won’t be back.” Mama collapsed in the armchair, breaking down into heaving sobs. “He left.”

The reality of his mother’s words hadn’t hit Nikhail right away. It wasn’t until the next morning, when he woke up and realized that his father hadn’t come home, that the enormity of the situation slammed into him.

Later, when he was twelve, he found the note on top of his mother’s desk. She’d kept it all those years. Three lines. That’s all his piece-of-shit father had written before leaving. He’d said it was too much, and he couldn’t do it anymore.

The look in River’s eyes echoed the one Nikhail had seen on his mother’s face all those years ago, and it pinned him in place .

“It was an accident,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face as she told him about something she called the Incident. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to do it.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” he said immediately. “You would never purposefully harm a fly.”

He knew that, like he knew that his heart belonged to his water fae.

“It’s sweet of you to believe in me.” The corner of her mouth creaked up, the smile watery and barely there, but it dropped, along with her gaze, to her hands. She flexed them in her lap, staring at her fingertips as if they held the secrets of the universe.

“Once the magic started flowing, the water, the rain… I couldn’t stop it. It just kept coming. More, more, more.” She flattened her hands on her lap, drawing in a deep breath.

He itched to gather her in her arms and never let go, but he had a horrible feeling that if he touched her right now, she’d run away and never come back.

And so, even though it broke his heart, Nikhail held himself back. He allowed her to keep a few inches between them, even though they felt like canyons.

When she spoke again, pain laced every word.

“Death poured from my fingertips, Nikhail. I called down a tempest, and I killed hundreds of innocent people. I couldn’t make it stop.” Her pinky twitched. “Ryker had to come, and he… he calmed the storm.”

Nikhail had been aware that something had happened when River was fifteen, but he’d never known the magnitude of the event, the depth of her pain.

“River—”

“I murdered all those people.” She buried her face in her hands, but nothing could muffle her heartbroken confession. “I’m cursed. ”

That pain that had started in Nikhail’s chest had grown exponentially as River spoke, and now, he was wondering if one’s heart could shatter from emotional pain. It felt like it. Had his heart been whole before? Now it was an aching, pulsing, broken organ in his chest.

What kind of mother was Tertia Waterborn? How could she have let her daughter come to this conclusion? How come she wasn’t by River’s side every single day, making sure her beautiful, smart, powerful daughter knew she wasn’t cursed?

When he couldn’t take the sound of River’s sobs anymore, when he had to touch her, everything else be damned, Nikhail gently pried her hands away from her face. She shook her head, but he refused to let her cry anymore.

“Little storm,” he whispered hoarsely. “Look at me.”

It felt like it took hours before her eyes slowly met his. Mascara ran in black streaks down her cheeks, her eyes were puffy, and redness tinged her skin.

He grabbed a tissue from the side table, gently cleaning her tears. She didn’t move, didn’t say anything at all as he slowly removed the evidence of her pain.

“You are not cursed.” He took her clenched fists in his and pressed a kiss to the inside of each of her wrists. “I can feel your storm. It calls to me. I swear to you, there is nothing unnatural about it.”

If anything, it was the most natural thing he’d ever felt. The way her power spoke to him, the way he was drawn to her, felt like it was destined by the gods.

“If you’re cursed, then so am I,” he told her.

The longest moment passed before she sucked in a sharp breath. “What? ”

He leaned towards her, unable to stay away any longer. He was tired of ignoring the draw between them, tired of pushing his heart aside. And now that he knew about the hurt she’d been carrying, he refused to do it any longer.

River was in pain, and she needed someone to show her what it meant to be loved. She needed him .

He ran his thumb down the back of her hand. “Was this story supposed to scare me, River?”

Because it didn’t. If anything, anger burned in his veins at the way his beautiful water fae had been treated for so long. How could she think such awful, untrue things about herself? He was filled with fury on her behalf.

Nikhail vowed to find the people who had made River believe these terrible lies about herself and ensure they understood exactly how wrong they were. River wasn’t cursed. She wasn’t dangerous.

She was just… River .

“Scare you? I’m trying to warn you, Nikhail.” She clutched at his hands, the necklace still grasped between her fingers. “I’m trying to save you. From me.”