Page 10

Sapphire

“The potion is complete,” Lysandra announces, satisfaction clear in her eyes as she examines it.

As she speaks, something in my soul warms.

The ice magic that bound me to my promise to Riven is dissolving. And for the first time since we made the deal, I can breathe without its cold weight pressing against my chest.

“You feel it, too?” Riven murmurs, somehow having gotten closer to me in the past few seconds.

“If you’re referring to my urge to push you into the pool, then yes, I feel it,” I tell him, giving him an obviously fake smile. “And the best part? Now I can do whatever I want to you without being frozen to death as a punishment.”

A slow, infuriating smirk crosses his lips.

“Care to elaborate on these things you want to do to me?” he presses, and the only reason I’m able to stop my wind magic from rushing through the cave is because I can’t risk knocking the potion off the table and destroying everything we worked for.

“I could poison your next drink,” I muse, since it’s a solid second option. Not to do anything as dramatic as kill him, but definitely to hurt him. To make him feel something other than indifference and the desire to break me.

He shrugs, unaffected, as if I didn’t just threaten his life. “You could. But you won’t. You need me too much,” he says. “Because star touched or not, the Night Court is too powerful to face alone. And you’re going to have to face it if you want to help Zoey.”

My fingers curl into fists.

I hate that he still has power over me. Even worse, I hate that he knows it, and that he’s continuing to use it against me.

But I take a deep breath, somehow managing to swallow down the lump in my throat and blink back the tears.

Because there’s something else I want.

Revenge against every heartless thing he’s done to me, the careless ways he’s treated me, and the pain he’s caused me.

“I suppose you have a point,” I finally say with an overly dramatic sigh, as if it can release the fire coursing through my veins. “After all, you’re my biggest asset right now.”

“Don’t you forget it,” he says, and just when I think he’s done, he steps closer, so there’s only a foot between us. “Especially since if I’m your biggest asset, I expect you to make full use of me tonight.”

The words knock the breath from my lungs as a brutal, crushing flood of memories slam into me, so overwhelming that a few flowers blow off the table and fall to the floor.

His hand wrapped around mine as we built the igloo, teaching me how to mold ice into something that would keep us safe for the night. His rare, half-hidden smiles—the ones he only let slip when he thought I wasn’t looking. The way he used to pull me close when he thought I was asleep, his breath cool against my neck, his hold strong and protective. The vulnerability in his silver eyes when he let the ice around his heart melt and promised he’d find his way back to me, no matter what.

And then?—

The empty way he looked at me after bargaining away his love.

The way he let me shatter.

“Speaking of assets,” Lysandra cuts in before I can tell Riven that there’s nothing of his I’ll be using tonight, “I believe it’s time I told you the truth about something you’ve been wearing since childhood.” She gestures at the sapphire bracelet circling my wrist—the one I’ve worn for as long as I can remember. “That bracelet wasn’t from the woman who handed you over to your aunt. It was from me.”

I stand there, frozen, her words barely making sense.

Because for my entire life, I believed one thing: the woman who abandoned me with my aunt—the one who up until today, I believed was my mother—had left me this bracelet.

Now Lysandra is telling me that was a lie, too?

The air in the chamber shifts again, sending a few shards of crystal rolling off the table. Vials rattle, and the water in the fountain behind us sprays outward, as if my magic can release all the things my heart can’t.

“Control yourself,” Riven murmurs as he pockets the vial of potion to keep it safe from my anger.

I silence him with a glare.

“Speaking of your air magic,” Lysandra says, shushing us both. “The bracelet was gifted to me by your father during one of his visits to court. Which means it’s not just from me—it’s from both of us.”

I stare down at the bracelet glinting on my wrist, and for the first time, I hate the thing that I’ve always viewed as my most precious possession. The only connection I thought I had to my past.

Now, it’s a reminder of manipulation. Of lies. Of choices made for me before I could even walk.

However, as I study it, Riven’s words from our time at the first igloo together echo in my mind.

Your past doesn’t define you. Only your choices moving forward matter.

As much as I’d never admit it to him now, he was right.

The potion is complete. I don’t need the bracelet to store the brewing instructions. Now, it’s just a trinket.

A trinket I don’t want.

So, without a word, I walk to the edge of the pool, kneel down, and work at the clasp of the piece of jewelry that’s been part of me for so long.

Riven follows me, reaching out to help me—or to stop me.

I shake him off.

For once in his life, he doesn’t push back.

“What are you doing?” Lysandra asks me, a note of alarm in her voice.

“Choosing my own future.” The bracelet comes free, and I hold it over the water, watching the sapphires catch the light one last time. “I’m done letting others define who I am. From now on, I make my own choices. I carve my own life. I guide the river in the direction I want it to flow.”

I turn my back on the bracelet, hold Lysandra’s gaze, and release it, hoping to convince her that this means nothing to me.

“An interesting choice,” she says the moment it starts to fall, her voice carrying that infuriating mixture of wisdom and amusement. “Although you forget that sometimes, the things we cast away in anger are the very things that could have guided us forward. That bracelet wasn’t just a symbol of the past you’re rejecting. It was a bridge between who you were, who you are, and who you could become.”

Her words hit harder than I want them to, and I almost regret my decision.

But no. I will not let her get to me. I’m stronger than that.

“I don’t need a bridge anymore,” I tell her. “I know exactly who I’m choosing to be.”

“Perhaps.” Her smile softens. “And that might be the most important lesson you could have learned from this—that even when others try to shape your path, the final choice is always yours.”

Riven shifts beside me, and I catch the way his hand moves to his pocket. Probably checking to make sure the potion is secure. Always the practical one, focused on the mission while I’m having emotional, life altering revelations.

“Now then,” Lysandra says, gesturing to the exit. “Since our business here is done, allow me to escort you both to your room.”

“Our what?” I stand, refusing to look back at where I dropped the bracelet.

Lysandra blinks, feigning innocence. “It would be unbecoming for a couple to sleep in separate rooms on their wedding night.”

I nearly choke. “Absolutely not.”

Riven lets out a slow, exaggerated sigh, running a hand through his damp hair. “Come on, Princess,” he says. “We wouldn’t want to break tradition, would we?”

I snap my focus to him, hating the amusement curling on his lips.

“I can think of one thing I want to break right now,” I say, allowing my gaze to drag up and down his body. “And it certainly isn’t tradition.”

His silver eyes gleam, catching the way my face burns with the slip of emotion I can’t control fast enough.

“I don’t recommend breaking such useful things,” he replies, his voice dropping lower, threading through my bones. “I can assure you that you’ll regret it in the future.”

A storm surges inside me, and I move toward him, ready to strangle him and everything useful about him.

But before I can, a wall of water surges between us, slamming down with a force that sends a fine mist spraying against my skin.

Lysandra.

“In your room, I’ve removed the enchantment that stopped you from entering the mortal realm last night,” she tells us, lifting water droplets from the ground and playing with them between her fingers. “But the enchantment has only been removed in that room. So, do try to keep it civil until morning. It would be a shame for your first night as husband and wife to end in a blood feud.”