Page 37

Riven

I hold Sapphire tighter, my arms locking around her as if she’s the only thing keeping me from breaking apart.

Because she is the only thing keeping me from breaking apart.

But even with her in my arms—even after the soul-shattering kiss between the visions of our possible futures—I can’t stop thinking about everything I said to her after the dryad’s deal. The cruel, hollow detachment. The sharp-edged words that cut her open because in that moment, I had no love to give.

Eros’s arrow struck her, but I’m the one who poisoned her. The one who destroyed her.

Now, she holds me anyway.

So, I cling to her. Because she’s here now. My Sapphire, the one grounding me in this moment instead of in the nightmares of what could be.

Her breath brushes against my skin, steady but fragile, and gods, I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve her.

Then she pulls back slightly, her eyes searching, her expression shifting from grief into something steady and resolute.

“How do we know which choices to make?” she asks. “How do we avoid the futures we saw?”

“Together.” The word slips from me without hesitation, because it’s the only answer that matters. “We face every choice together. That’s something neither vision showed—and it’s one we’ll make happen. Because I refuse to believe that those futures are all that are possible for us.”

Her magic pulses against mine, warm and alive, wrapping around my frost like a vow she hasn’t spoken yet.

“You’re right,” she says, straightening, forcing strength back into her voice. “And now that we know exactly what we’re fighting, we’re better armed to make decisions that will stop it. Because we can’t let those futures happen. Not to you, not to Zoey, and not to me.”

Her words settle into my chest, and I know she means them. She chooses this. She chooses me.

I stare at her, silver locking onto blue, and for a moment, the war between us fades. There’s no anger, no resentment, and no battle for control. There’s just her standing in front of me—here, alive, and mine.

Slowly—almost hesitantly—I raise my hand, my fingers brushing her cheek, and wait.

I wait for her to flinch. For her to pull away. For her to remind me that we’re too fractured to be whole again, too poisoned by hate, and too empty from where my love had been stripped away in a single heartbeat.

But she doesn’t.

And in that moment, something inside my chest cracks open, wide and aching.

“Sapphire,” I murmur, and her name is heavier than it should be, weighted with everything unsaid.

She watches me, and I swear I feel the war inside her. The same war raging inside me.

I open my mouth, ready to tell her what didn’t fully hit me until seeing that vision of myself on the throne. That I need her more than I need to breathe, and that if she ever leaves me, I won’t survive it.

“I need you to know?—”

But I stop.

Because my body locks up, my chest tightens, and I feel like if I speak—if I let those words escape—they’ll rip me apart at the seams.

Besides, what if it’s not enough?

What if we still fall apart?

What if no matter what we do, the Tides will pull us into the futures we already saw, and I’ll lose her anyway?

My hands shake as I release thin patterns of frost across her skin, fractals of ice spreading like the threads of my unraveling soul. She’s so beautiful like this, with the reflection of magic glinting in her hair, with her lips slightly parted, with her body so close that for a second, I can almost believe she’s still mine.

Maybe that’s why I hesitate.

Because if I tell her the truth, I’ll be throwing my heart at her feet, and letting her destroy the sliver of me that’s still intact.

But before I can bring myself to force the words out, the air shifts, thickening with something ancient, hungry, and merciless.

The Tides are pulling at the fabric of fate again, unraveling into another vision.

But this one is different. It expands slowly, like the universe itself is savoring the torment it’s about to show us.

Sapphire presses closer, and my hand finds the small of her back, grounding her. Grounding myself.

“What now?” she asks softly, but the words barely register, because the vision is forming in front of us, and I already know it’s going to ruin me.

At first, all I see is destruction.

The sandy, shimmering ground is uneven, torn apart by magic— our magic. Water clings to every surface, reflecting jagged, broken glimpses of what’s left. Ice is shattered, its edges slick with blood, and magic lingers in the air, sharp and raw.

And in the center of it, there’s us.

Not the hardened versions of us from before. Not her standing over my body with a bloody dagger. Not me abandoned on a frozen throne.

It’s just Sapphire and me , still and lifeless on the ground.

As entwined in death as we’ve so often been in life.

Her hand is splayed over my chest. My arm is curved around her, like even in my final breath, I was trying to shield her from something—to protect her from something.

Our daggers lie discarded at our sides, and the blood is on my hands, on her face… it’s everywhere.

But we aren’t reaching for our weapons. We aren’t clawing at the ground. We aren’t trying to fight fate in our last moments.

We chose this.

We died together.

A jagged pain rips through my chest, so sharp and sudden that I wonder if the vision is bleeding into reality.

And then, before I can stop her, Sapphire drops to her knees.

I follow.

Because I can’t not follow.

I pull her against me, gripping her like I’m afraid she’ll slip away. Like if I let go for even a second, I’ll open my eyes and find us lying there, cold and gone, like we are in the vision.

And for once, I have nothing to say.

No sharp retort. No cold wit to shield my feelings. No smirk to cover the way I can’t breathe. No bitter, self-destructive remark to hide that this moment is unraveling every thread of my soul. No raw confession that puts my heart at her feet for her to wreck more than it already is.

Nothing. Because this?

This is the end of us.

And then, Sapphire’s voice is cutting through the silence, cracking under the weight of what we’re seeing.

“We chose each other,” she says, and when I look at her, her eyes are shattered.

No defenses. No anger. No lead-poisoned hatred. Just her, open and breaking.

And somehow, that’s worse.

“We chose to not hurt each other,” she continues, and the way she says it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself of it. Like she needs to believe this ending is something more than pure tragedy. “We chose to make every decision together.”

She doesn’t say the rest.

She doesn’t have to. Because we both know what comes next. It’s playing out in front of us right now.

My hands shake where they hold her, and I hate the way my control is slipping. I hate how powerless I feel.

But if she won’t say it, I will.

“And in the end,” I finish, my fingers threading into her hair, pulling her close as I press my forehead against hers. “It killed us both.”

And gods help me, I don’t know if that version of me tried to stop it.

Because maybe—just maybe—he never wanted to at all.