Page 3 of Frozen Star (Star Touched: Fae Bound #7)

Riven stands beside me in Central Park, his silver eyes scanning the darkness with predatory awareness.

We’re both dressed in clean, formal travel clothes—simple yet elegant fae attire that T provided for us on the plane.

They’re hardly the most comfortable clothes I’ve ever worn—I’ve always been more of a jeans and sweatshirts girl—but at least we’re not covered in volcano ash and dried blood anymore.

Riven’s hand brushes mine, and I glance up to see him watching me, the ghost of a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.

“What?” I ask, smiling from the heat in his eyes as he studies me.

He leans in slightly, his voice dropping into a playful murmur. “Ten thousand feet in the air, and you still managed to ruin me.”

I arch an eyebrow, trying and failing to suppress the warmth flooding my cheeks. “I take it that means you enjoyed joining the Mile High Club?”

Confusion flickers across his face. “The what?”

“The Mile High Club.” My laughter is soft and genuine, chasing away the tension that’s been hanging over us since returning from Italy. “It’s a fancy way of saying ‘we couldn’t wait until landing.’”

His eyes widen slightly before that smirk deepens, edged with amusement and something decidedly more dangerous.

“If that’s what it takes to join clubs, then I want to join every club with you, Starlight.

” He steps closer, his breath cool against my ear.

“The Royal Yacht Club. The Palace Tower Club. The Summer Court Gardens Club. The Winter Throne Club. Sign me up for all of them.”

“Riven!” I gasp in mock surprise, water splashing up from the nearby pond and landing around us. “You’re absolutely insufferable.”

“Only with you.” His voice drops to that velvet register that makes my magic stir. “Only ever with you.”

For a moment, we just stand there, connected by our joined hands and the magic flowing between us, surrounded by the distant sounds of the city that never sleeps.

But it’s impossible to focus on anything—not even on the heat in Riven’s eyes when he stares down at me like he wants to join the Central Park After Midnight Club.

Because the sealed Ember is humming in my satchel, a reminder of what we’ve survived and what still awaits us.

As it does, my mind spirals.

Snow stained with blood. Zoey’s panicked face as she was torn from me at the waterfall.

The agony of Eros’s arrow lodged deep in my chest. Cetus forcing Riven and me into a deadly dance in the Tides.

Riven limp and lifeless in my arms, drained of his blood.

Thalia falling into the magma, swallowed by fire and despair.

Then there’s the battle with the Night Court to come.

“Riven,” I say softly, my voice cracking despite myself. “Is this what our lives will always be like? Moving from one battle to the next, trading one death for another, facing impossible task after impossible task?”

He stills, ice threading through the air, his eyes suddenly guarded.

I continue anyway, needing to get the feelings off my chest that I didn’t realize I had until this moment.

“Will there ever be time for us to just… be happy?” My voice is barely a whisper, but I know he hears me clearly and feels every echo of my fears. That’s how things are between us now, and how they’ll always be. “What if being star touched is as much of a curse as it is a blessing?”

He remains silent, but through the bond, I sense something fracturing within him, spreading beneath his carefully controlled exterior. His breathing grows quieter and shallower. It’s like he’s holding it in, afraid that if he exhales, something inside him will shatter completely.

“I don’t know,” he admits, surprising me with the honesty in his answer.

“I wish I could promise you a life of peace—of mornings spent watching the sunrise instead of planning battle strategies. One where we could be happy and free. But the mystical realm isn’t like the human one, especially for people like us.

The wars, the curses, and the power plays… they never end.”

He steps closer, taking my hands in his. Frost swirls up my arms, but instead of burning, it feels like a caress. Like his magic is seeking mine, offering comfort even as he struggles to find the right words.

“But I promise you this, Starlight.” His voice drops, intensity burning in every syllable.

“I will do everything in my power to bring us happiness. You’re the future I never thought I’d have, and I’ll be anything I have to be for you.

I’ll go anywhere I have to go. I’ll fight anyone who stands in our way, and I don’t care what it costs me.

Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. No hesitation, and no mercy.

Because when it’s over, seeing you smiling and laughing makes it all worth it. ”

I stand there, stunned, barely able to speak. Because he means every word. I feel it in the bond, in the way his magic clings to mine.

But underneath his devotion is something quieter. Sadder. Like some part of him believes happiness is something he can give but not keep. And that’s what makes me remember the vision I saw in the Cosmic Tides. The life we could have had if fate had been kinder.

“I saw it,” I whisper, unable to stop myself. “In the Tides. I saw us happy.”

He stills, his body tensing. “What do you mean?”

“It was a vision. A life they offered me if I stayed.” The words spill out, memories flooding back, clearer by the second.

“We were different there. Softer, lighter, and more at peace. We had a home together. There were no wars, and no death. There was just us, carefree and happy as we got ready for our wedding, with an entire future ahead of us. And you?—”

I’m a second away from telling him that his mom was there, but the pained look in his eyes makes me stop.

“And I what?” he pushes.

I pause, the words caught in my throat as frost patterns race up his arms, a breeze stirring around us.

“You looked happy.” I give him a small smile and let warmth spread through the bond, hoping to ease the anguish written plainly on his face.

“Happy.” He shakes his head, as if he’s having a hard time understanding what the word even means.

But then his expression shifts, morphing into something more urgent, more broken.

“If I was so happy, then why didn’t you go there?

Why come back to… this?” He gestures vaguely around us, bitterness dripping from his words.

“Riven…” I say his name softly, trailing off, looking up into the silver eyes that I know and love with every part of my soul.

The pain in them is unbearable. Because he’s not asking why I stayed. He’s asking why I didn’t save myself from the version of him standing in front of me now.

“The Tides offered you a perfect, unbroken version of me,” he continues, his voice gaining a desperate edge. “A version I wish I could be, both for myself and for you. A version you deserve. Why would you turn that down?”

Guilt slams into me. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

Why did I mention it? I never meant to hurt him.

I only wanted to show him that there’s a world where peace was possible.

But the way his eyes search mine, as if he’s looking and failing to understand why I wouldn’t choose some other version of him over the real him, hurts on a deeper level than I knew existed.

“Because that wasn’t?—”

The world around us shifts, cutting me off before I can explain.

“No,” I gasp, reaching for Riven’s hand as the realm transition pulls us forward. “Not yet?—”

But it’s too late. Central Park dissolves around us, replaced by the vibrant, overwhelming beauty of the Summer Court.

Trees stretch overhead, their branches covered with flowers that shouldn’t exist together. Roses bloom alongside cherry blossoms, morning glories twist around branches heavy with fruit, and bright green vines glisten in the starlight.

Riven’s face is frozen in the vulnerable, questioning expression from before the realm shift.

“Sapphire,” he starts, clearly unwilling to let our conversation end, even as Summer Court guards materialize at the edges of our vision.

“I love you.” I squeeze his hand, my chest hurting at the questions flickering across his face.

It’s like he doesn’t know whether to believe me.

After everything we’ve been through, how could he not believe me? How could he not feel the truth of my love through the bond?

All I know is that he doesn’t say he loves me back. He simply nods once, his shoulders straightening, his chin lifting as he faces the approaching Summer Court guards.

But through our bond, I feel that broken, desperate question still echoing between us:

Why didn’t you choose that perfect version of me?