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SAPPHIRE

The sea isn’t water. Not here, in the Cosmic Tides.

It’s a starlit galaxy that folds around Riven and me like a second skin, cool and infinite as we stand side by side on the deck of the spectral ship. It’s a current of memory and fate, of futures that haven’t yet happened and pasts that never should have been. And the deeper we sink, the more the line between what’s real and what’s possible blurs.

The Tides show you everything.

And they don’t ask permission.

Riven, alone on the throne as the Winter King, his silver eyes empty, the frost crown heavy with regret.

Me, standing above Riven and Zoey’s lifeless bodies, blood staining my hands, my eyes devoid of emotion.

And lastly, me and Riven entwined on a battlefield, our bodies broken, holding desperately to each other as our lives slip away.

Each vision strikes me like a twisted nightmare, making my stomach churn. Because if this is what awaits us—if pain and loss are our only options—I’m not sure how to keep going.

“Do you think it hurts?” Riven’s voice is quiet, almost lost beneath the steady pull of the Tides’ current.

I blink, turning toward him. “Do I think what hurts?”

“Dying like that. Together.” His gaze drifts to the expansive galaxy around us, distant and haunted, flecks of stardust catching in his dark hair like frozen tears. “Do you think we fought to the end? Or did we just… lie down and wait for it to come?”

A shiver rolls through me that has nothing to do with the cold.

“I refuse to accept that,” I tell him, my voice stronger than I feel. “That won’t be us.”

“You saw the same visions I did.” He laughs, hollow and bitter, frost crawling higher up his arms. “We know that whatever’s here between us—hate, love, destruction, devotion, or anything else it might be—killed us both.”

I try to tell him he’s wrong, but denial sticks in my throat.

“Being together like that in the end is better than the alternative,” he continues, his eyes darkening further. “It’s better than being him.”

He doesn’t have to explain who he means.

Because the vision of him—cold and empty, a king with nothing to live for—flashes behind my eyes again, and my chest clenches. That version of Riven—the one with the crown of ice and a frozen heart—is worse than death to him.

He would rather die beside me than live without me.

I don’t know if I love him for it or hate him for it.

“You can’t actually believe that dying together is the best we can hope for,” I say, my voice shaking.

He closes his eyes for a long moment, like he’s waging war with something deep inside himself. When he finally replies, the words are so quiet I almost miss them.

“It’s better than you becoming the version of yourself who could?—”

He stops abruptly, as if afraid of unleashing it. But the image is already there, burned into my mind, refusing to disappear.

“Who could what?” I demand, my pulse racing, needing him to say it.

“Who could kill me,” he finishes, his voice deadly calm. “Who could stand over my corpse, covered in my blood, and feel nothing.”

I flinch, his words piercing me as sharply as if that future was already reality.

“That wasn’t me,” I choke out, even as doubt coils in my stomach. “Those three futures—they can’t be the only choices we have. There must be others.”

But Riven doesn’t argue. He doesn’t push back with cold logic, cutting remarks, or even a hint of his usual stubborn fight.

And that silence terrifies me more than any vision.

Because he always fights. He always argues. He always pushes, twisting my words, challenging me and reminding me exactly who he is—proud, fierce, and infuriatingly in control.

Now, his silver eyes stare emptily into the swirling cosmos.

“Riven.” I step closer, gripping his face between my hands and forcing him to look at me. “Don’t you dare give up. Not now. Not ever.”

“But what if we can’t escape it?” he whispers, and the shattered look in his eyes breaks something deep inside me. “What if every branch of the river leads to the same sea?”

“Then we find a way to change the river,” I say, leaning closer, refusing to let go.

He exhales sharply, a shadow of pain crossing his features. “You make it sound easy.”

“No,” I say. “I make it sound possible.”

He watches me, mesmerized, like he might be coming around.

Or like he’s about to kiss me again.

I want him to. Badly. I need his lips on mine, his hands tangled in my hair, his body pressed close. I need proof that we’re alive, fighting, and still breathing. I need to feel something real with him, even as the universe tries to rip us apart.

But before he can, the current shifts, pulling us down through space and time. Stars streak past us, brilliant galaxies spinning into what looks like the bottom of a cosmic ocean. It’s beautiful and terrifying, like being suspended in the heart of an unraveling universe, and I gaze around in awe and wonder.

My hand finds Riven’s again, my fingers threading through his. Because right now, he’s my only tether to reality. To myself. To everything that matters.

His fingers twitch at the contact, curling around mine.

“There are so many paths forward for us,” I say, nodding toward a swirling nebula that floats past us, purple and blue and breathtaking in its enormity. “We just have to step into them and take them.”

His grip tightens, frost spreading from his palm to my wrist. It’s cold, yes, but somehow comforting. A reminder that he’s still here—still mine.

“You don’t know that,” he murmurs, his eyes locked on the spinning cosmos around us. “You can’t.”

“Maybe not. But I have to believe it,” I insist. “Because giving up isn’t an option. Not for me, and certainly not for you.”

He looks down, his eyes shadowed by uncertainty, and it breaks something inside me.

So, I pull him close, pressing our bodies together until I feel his heart pounding in rhythm with mine.

“Do you hear me, Winter Prince?” I ask, begging him to see clearly again. “You don’t get to surrender. Not here. Not now. Not ever.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth—the first I’ve seen since the visions began. It’s barely there, just a ghost of his usual arrogance, but it sends hope surging through me like wildfire.

“You really won’t let me slip away, will you?” he asks, his silver eyes blazing with a vulnerability he rarely allows himself to show.

“Never,” I say, putting all my heart into the promise.

And now, as he gazes into my soul, his eyes flicker with something raw and unguarded. Something he’s been fighting to bury, that I don’t think even he understands yet.

But I do. I feel it burning between us, wrapping around us as powerfully as the currents of the Tides.

And I can’t stand here any longer, hoping and waiting in silence.

I have to know. And to know, I have to ask.

“You feel it, too.” My fingers squeeze his tightly, refusing to let him look away. “The hate from Eros’s arrow and the apathy from the dryad’s deal are gone.”