Page 7

Sapphire

The wedding gown the Summer Court gave me isn’t white.

It’s a deep, shifting blue, threaded with silver, its fabric rippling like water against my skin with every step I take.

Its weight should feel like a chain. Like a tether forcing me into something I didn’t choose.

But it doesn’t.

Because despite everything—despite Riven, despite Lysandra, and despite the deal that binds me—I’m the one walking forward. The ice magic isn’t digging into my skin this time, punishing me for resisting.

I agreed to this.

The realization settles uneasily in my stomach as I follow the guards deep down the spiraling staircases into the Summer Court’s underground halls.

Eventually, we stop at a rippling, vertical pool of water stretching from floor to ceiling.

I hesitate for only a breath—barely long enough to feel the weight of inevitability pressing down on me—before stepping into the dark chamber beyond.

The floor on the other side is slick stone, and in the center, there’s a pool so deep that I can’t see the bottom. Its surface is as dark as midnight, reflecting the glowing walls as if it’s the heart of the Summer Court.

Lysandra stands at the far end of the chamber, the folds of her dark blue gown pooling around her feet.

Riven’s next to her, watching me. Not with warmth. Not with anger. His eyes simply drag over me, slow and methodical, lingering on the way the gown clings to my body and moves with my every step.

It’s an assessment. He’s ensuring that his future bride is worthy of standing at his side. As if this is just another duty to fulfill.

Resent slams into me so violently that I nearly stumble.

But it isn’t just resentment—it’s grief. It’s the unbearable ache of remembering the way he looked at me when he actually saw me. The pain isn’t just for the past, or for the love he threw away, but for the way he stands here so casually, as if he never cared in the first place.

But somehow, I force my feet forward, moving closer to the man who ripped out my heart, threw it into a fire, and stood to the side as it burned to ash.

Lysandra nods approvingly when I approach, either unaware or not caring that each step I take forward hurts more than the last.

“It’s time to begin,” she says, and when she raises her hands, the pool at the center of the chamber glows brighter. “Face each other.”

Riven’s expression remains unreadable, blank as ice, his hands curled slightly at his sides. He doesn’t react. Doesn’t shift. He doesn’t betray a single emotion. Not even when I step into place in front of him and meet his apathetic, empty gaze.

How am I standing in this place, marrying the prince who broke me? And how is he standing right in front of me, barely seeing at me, pretending like this means nothing? Like I mean nothing?

This can’t be real.

And yet, somehow, it is.

Lysandra shifts in place, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts, and my attention moves to her.

“Water,” she begins, and as she speaks, I feel like I’m here but not at the same time, “is the element of connection. Of bonds. Of paths carved through stone and mountain until two streams become one.”

Droplets rise from the pool’s surface, floating midair like stars caught in suspension.

“Water is the element of memory.” Her voice is softer now, but no less powerful. “It does not forget. It carves its truth into the land, into time, and into the souls that enter it. Which is why the bond will be recorded within the strongest currents, engraved in the trenches of the deepest seas, and carried forever in the hearts of those who submit to its power.”

Memory.

The word almost chokes me.

Because Riven has forgotten. And I have to live with the memories of the past, while promising myself to a cold, empty future.

“Join hands,” Lysandra commands, and before I can register what’s happening, Riven’s fingers close around mine—icy and unshaken, just like him.

Pain slams into me with the force of a tidal wave, and suddenly, I’m not here anymore. I’m everywhere , the world blurring around me as memories of his touch shatter my heart all over again, sharp and merciless, dragging me under until I’m struggling to breathe.

His fingers tangled in my hair, tilting my chin up before he kissed me like he would never let me go.

His hands gripping my waist as he pulled me closer, his lips at my ear, whispering my name.

His arms around me, promising he’d never hurt me.

And then…

His back turned. The sound of my heart shattering as I watched his love for me melt into nothing.

As if he knows I’m close to breaking, his grip tightens slightly. Just enough to keep me in place.

To force me into the hollow future neither of us want.

He tilts his head, just a fraction, glancing down at my hands. His expression doesn’t change, but I know him. I see the shift behind his eyes.

He’s testing me.

And I will not give him any more control over me than he already has. Not even through the crushing wave of heartbreak, grief, and betrayal that steals the breath from my lungs, drowning me in memories that nearly make me collapse from the sheer force of their weight and devastation.

Not even when I’d rather to see the anger in his eyes when he learned I was half vampire instead of the indifference in them now. Because at least the anger meant he cared. At least it meant he felt something . That his heart was more than an empty, hollow shell.

“Now,” Lysandra says, and the water droplets suspended in the air begin to move, forming twisting, fluid patterns that defy gravity itself. “Speak your vows. Let the water bear witness to your truth.”

Riven goes first, his grip on my hands firm and effortless, like none of this affects him.

Meanwhile, every second of contact makes it harder for me to breathe through the crushing pressure in my chest.

“I vow to honor this alliance between Winter and Summer,” he says, precise and calculated, each syllable chosen for maximum political impact. “To uphold the duty placed on us. To sacrifice what must be sacrificed, and to ensure that the balance of the universe doesn’t falter.”

Something inside me fractures with each sentence he speaks.

“I vow to keep you alive,” he continues, holding my gaze so intensely that it’s like he’s daring me to break more than I already have. “No matter the cost. And no matter how much you might hate me for it.”

The water surges, reacting to his truth.

I want to scream at him. I want to make him understand how devastating it feels to have someone tell you they love you and then twist those words into cruelty minutes later.

Because despite his pretty words, he’s not vowing to love me. He’s not capable of loving me. How could he be, when he never loved me in the first place?

He said it himself when he broke my heart at the dryad’s tree—he loved the things I did for him. He never loved me.

And that’s what hurts most of all.

Lysandra gives him an approving nod, then turns to me. “It’s your turn, daughter.”

My body locks at the word.

And before I can stop it, the magic tightens around my throat, forcing honesty from my lips whether I want to give it or not.

“I vow to fulfill my part in this alliance,” I say, sharp as steel, as unyielding as the agony the lead arrow carved into my heart. “To help save the mortal realm, the Summer Court, and the Winter Court from what’s coming.”

I should stop there. Keep it political, like he did.

But the magic pulls the truth from me, merciless in its quest to make me lay my soul bare, even as I try to fight it.

“I vow to never forget what you did,” I tell him, the words searing through me like poison, thick with the grief I’ll never escape. “To never let myself be weak enough to believe in you again. I vow to remember that every word you ever spoke to me was a lie, that every touch was manipulation, and that every promise was empty. And I’ll never—ever—forget that whatever love I thought I felt for you was based on something that didn’t exist at all.”

He’s as still as a statue.

Then, finally, a breath escapes him. Barely there. A flicker of something—regret, hesitation, or maybe even longing—before it vanishes.

Lysandra looks back and forth between us, as if waiting for something more.

It doesn’t come. Because I’m not giving anything more to either of them.

They don’t deserve it.

“It’s time,” she finally says, and I pull my hands out of Riven’s, my skin burning from the contact. “Enter the water, kiss while surrounded by your element, and be bound as one.”