Page 11

SAPPHIRE

My left palm tingles.

And then, Riven gasps—a sudden, desperate inhalation that makes his body arch before he collapses back onto the cosmic sand.

His eyes flutter open, unfocused and dazed. His chest rises and falls with renewed life, and the frost that was claiming his body flows back into his fingertips, as if it belongs to him again instead of him belonging to it.

Relief crashes through me, followed by something hot, furious, and unstoppable.

“You reckless, self-sacrificing idiot!” I punch his chest, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him feel the sting of my anger. “How could you do that? You just laid there and died on me?! You let me…”

I can’t say the words. It’s too much. Too painful.

Riven blinks up at me, too weak to respond, although his lips twitch slightly.

“You’re crying,” he finally manages. “Over me.”

My hands shake as I grab his shirt, pulling him closer. “How dare you?” I continue, still trying to wrap my mind around what just happened. “You can’t just—you don’t get to just?—”

My voice cracks, and water magic explodes around us, droplets hovering in the air like tiny stars.

Riven’s just staring at me, his silver eyes wide with wonder. There’s something different about them now—a depth that wasn’t there before. It’s like he’s seeing me— all of me—for the first time.

And then, impossibly, he smirks.

“This is what you signed up for when you married me,” he says, tracing a finger along my tear-soaked cheek. “And you’re incredibly beautiful when you’re crying over me after magically tackling your soul into my body.”

I sit up quickly, startled and flustered, torn between wanting to slap him and kiss him senseless. “That’s not funny,” I snap, voice shaking. “You were dead, Riven. Your heart stopped. If I hadn’t?—”

I can’t finish the sentence. Because what did I do, exactly?

His smirk dissolves into quiet sincerity as he pushes himself upright.

“I felt you,” he says softly, his eyes holding mine. “All of you. Every memory. Every moment. You brought them back.”

My breath catches, and then his hand is finding my left one, turning my palm upward and tracing familiar letters across my skin.

I.

He pauses, his eyes locked on mine, making sure I’m paying attention.

When I don’t pull away, he continues.

L. O. V. E.

My heart stutters, my magic swirling inside me, entwined with something that feels like Riven’s heartbeat.

Y. O. U.

The final letter undoes me completely, and then I’m taking his left hand, turning it over, and tracing those eight letters in return.

As I finish, memories stolen by curses and heartbreak rush back in a flood, returned in vibrant clarity.

The ocean holding us, Riven’s forehead pressed against mine, his fingertip spelling out our truths beneath the waves. The devastating ache knowing we’d forget all of it when we surfaced.

“You remember it, too,” he whispers, awe coloring his voice.

“Yes,” I breathe, the memories filling in spaces I didn’t realize were empty. “The marriage chamber, and the ocean near the pier… I remember everything.”

Something wild and desperate overtakes me, and I yank him to me, crashing my lips against his with bruising force.

He responds instantly, one hand tangling in my hair, the other at the small of my back, pulling me impossibly close. The kiss is all-consuming, an inferno of need and relief and something deeper—something that feels like coming home after the longest, coldest winter.

Because I feel him everywhere. Not just physically, but in places that transcend the physical. I feel the quiet ache of his longing, and the previously hollow space the dryad created that’s now filled with my essence. I feel his devotion, his determination, and his certainty that I’m the only thing in the universe worth dying for.

When we part, breathless and dazed, I rest my forehead against his, unwilling to separate from him completely.

“Your soul is inside me,” he murmurs, his voice filled with wonder. “I can feel you—your magic, and your emotions. I can feel everything.”

“I feel you, too,” I whisper back. “It’s like?—“

“Like we’re one,” he finishes, and the rightness of it settles over me like a blanket of stars.

His fingers trace the mark on my ring finger—the one from our wedding ceremony—but the colors are deeper now. More vibrant.

Glancing down, I see the same marking on his hand, pulsing with a light that echoes my heartbeat.

Or maybe our heartbeat. I can’t tell where mine ends and his begins anymore.

“What did you do, ?” he asks, but there’s no accusation in his voice—only wonder.

“I couldn’t lose you,” I reply simply. “So, I pulled you back. I fought for you. I fought for us.”

“You did more than save my life,” he says, still trapped in a daze, as if my very existence is hypnotizing him. “You bound us forever.”

“Do you regret it?” I shift in place, suddenly uncertain.

After all, he didn’t exactly consent to this whole soul fusion thing.

His laugh is soft and incredulous. “Regret being bound to you for eternity?” He shakes his head, his eyes locked on mine. “You’re the one thing I’d choose over and over again, no matter the cost.”

Relief washes through me, and I feel it reflected from his soul, an infinite loop of emotion and truth.

I could stay here like this with him forever—but we didn’t join our bodies and souls to disappear into the starry void again.

“We need to get out of here before the Tides try to take us again,” I say, glancing around at the galaxies spinning overhead. “Let’s find the Star Disc and return to the mortal realm, or the mystical realm—or whatever realm is closest to the exit of this place.”

He nods, resolve burning in his eyes. “Then we deliver the potion to my father.”

“And then we destroy the Night Court and save Zoey,” I say, a fierce protectiveness surging through me.

He smiles—not his usual smirk, but something warmer and more genuine. “Together,” he says. “You and me. Forever this time.”