Page 8

RIVEN

She’s gone.

I feel it—not just in the unnatural stillness of her body, but in something deeper. Something soul-crushingly empty.

It’s the absence of her. The suffocating, unbearable void where she’s supposed to be.

My arms tighten around her, my body curling around hers like I can shield her from the cosmic forces that claimed her soul.

“Sapphire.” I shake her, harder this time, unwilling to give up. “Come back.”

There’s nothing.

The Tides took her from me. They ripped her projection away, swallowing her soul right when she was supposed to return. They stole her and left this pale imitation behind, taunting me with her lifelessness. She physically healed at the same time I did—after she killed Cetus—but the life that’s always radiated out of her isn’t there anymore.

“Don’t leave me,” I whisper, burying my face in her hair, inhaling her sweet scent of summer rain, torturing myself with the memory of her warmth. “Not like this. Not ever.”

Still nothing. Just the shallow rise and fall of her chest and the pallor of death creeping across her smooth skin.

Ice cracks through the cosmic sand—my magic surging, uncontrolled and unchecked. Unraveling. Because how the hell am I supposed to control myself when she’s not here to anchor me?

I trace every detail of her face—every feature I’ve loved from the first moment I saw her. The delicate arch of her eyebrows. The gentle slope of her nose. The soft curve of her lips—lips that should be smiling or screaming or kissing me senseless, not still and lifeless like this.

I don’t know if I’m memorizing her or worshipping her.

I don’t know if there’s a difference.

“You’re the only thing holding me together. If you leave me, I’ll never come back from it,” I tell her, and then I press my forehead to hers, not trying to hold it in anymore. All the tears, all the heartbreak—all of it—comes rushing out at once.

It’s too much. It’s shredding every piece of me. And I welcome the ruin, because it’s what I deserve.

So, I slam my fist down onto the ocean floor, barely feeling the bones crack, relishing the blinding pain, the explosion of ice around me.

It’s not enough.

It will never be enough.

“I can’t go back to the Winter Court and lead our army without you next to me,” I say to her, even though she can’t hear me. “I can’t save Zoey when the only reason I gave a damn about any of this was because you made me care. I can’t even?—”

My throat closes around the next words, locking them inside me like a secret too painful to say aloud.

“I can’t even save myself.”

I clutch her tighter, desperately, as if holding on hard enough can fuse us together and anchor her to this world. She looks so pale, like even though her wounds healed, her blood never returned…

Blood.

She’s run out of her own. And gods know, she’s always wanted mine. Every time I’ve bled in front of her, she’s looked at me like she’s starving.

It’s the only thing I have left to give.

Her dagger is right next to her, the blade stained with Cetus’s blood. So, without hesitation, I grab it, pressing the cold steel against my wrist, and carve. Deep, swift, and merciless.

The pain is instant and scorching, a beautiful agony racing through my veins. And I welcome it. Crave it. Anything to give meaning to this endless, empty ache that’s been haunting me since the deal with the dryad. Actually, for far longer than that—since the day I stood in front of my mother’s icy coffin, and my father told me to bury every emotion that could make its way into my heart.

With shaking hands, I lift Sapphire’s head, cradling her even as blood pours from my wound, and press my wrist to her lips.

“Drink,” I tell her, forcing my blood into her mouth.

Nothing happens.

So, I pry her lips open, panic rising as I press harder, spilling more of myself into her. But the cut’s already starting to heal, so I take the dagger and carve into myself again, this time even deeper, letting more blood flow out.

“Please, Sapphire. I need you to live,” I repeat what I’ve been demanding of her since I realized she was dying.

Still, nothing. Just the steady flow of my blood, unable to help the one person I would give anything to keep safe.

“Take everything,” I tell her, my desperation bleeding into the words as much as my life bleeds into her mouth. “All of it. My blood, my magic, my life. Whatever you need. I don’t care, as long as you live.”

Desperation claws through my chest, a sob rising, choking me. Because the one thing I have left—my blood, my life—isn’t enough.

And then—a flicker. The faintest, smallest movement as she swallows.

“Yes,” I murmur in her ear, guiding her mouth more firmly against my wrist. “There you go.”

The pull of her lips is intoxicating. It’s fire and ice, pleasure and torment, colliding brutally in my veins. It’s an exquisite destruction—a ruin I crave more than sanity.

Her body arches against mine, hungry and insatiable. Her hands, once limp, now grip my forearm, her nails digging into me, marking me, claiming me even in her weakened state.

“Sapphire,” I groan, my voice barely audible, caught between agony and ecstasy, between warning her and begging her never to stop.

She doesn’t listen. She doesn’t care. Her focus is on consuming me—on devouring me whole.

This isn’t just drinking. It’s obliteration. It’s the annihilation I’ve yearned for, the destruction of everything I am. And gods help me, it feels incredible. Like being unmade by the most exquisite torture imaginable.

Her teeth—sharper now, more defined—sink deeper into my wrist, and the sensation sends a jolt of pleasure so intense it’s almost unbearable down my spine.

She’s taking too much, I realize. Far too much.

And I don’t care.

A weak, breathless laugh slips past my lips. Of course this is how it ends. It was always going to be her teeth in my skin, my life bleeding into her body, my love for her burning me alive.

Darkness creeps into my vision, the edges blurring, the world fading.

I should stop her.

But I don’t. I won’t. Because if I stop her and if it’s not enough—if the life flows out of her again and I’m left on this cosmic floor without her—it will all have been for nothing.

“You’re doing great,” I murmur, dizzy from blood loss, from pleasure, from her. “It’s yours. All of it’s yours. It’s always been yours.”

My heartbeat slows, pain and pleasure fading into numbness. Darkness calls me, but I’m not afraid. Because it’s peaceful. Like falling asleep after the longest day.

With my last fading strength, I pull her closer, my lips brushing her ear as she continues drinking, desperate and deep, consuming my soul.

Maybe she can.

Maybe she already has.

And somehow, it feels right.

Because this is what love is, isn’t it? A sacrifice. A surrender. A willing, brutal, beautiful destruction.

This is what I was made for.

Not to rule. Not to be a prince. Not to fight in a war that never mattered.

I was made to burn for her. To bleed for her. To shatter completely, offering her every last, broken piece of me.

“If love is destruction,” I murmur, my lips grazing her temple, “then let it destroy me. At least this way, I’ll be part of you forever.”

And as the last threads of my life unravel—as the world tilts into blackness and I fall into her like she’s gravity—I find myself smiling.

Because she’ll live. She’ll save Zoey. She’ll be the incredible, beautiful, star touched warrior she was born to be.

And throughout it all, she’ll carry me with her, always.