Page 15 of Burning Star

Step into it. Into him,the Tides continue to tempt me.If you do, everything between the two of you will be perfect and easy, just like you’re seeing now.

I move closer to the vision, reaching out to touch it. And when I do, I see the Winter King standing nearby… holding the hand of a beautiful, radiant woman with the softness Riven’s face sometimes shows when his guard is down.

She’s his mother.

In this world, she never died. The Winter King never lost himself to grief. Riven never knew the heartbreak of pain and loss. He never had to push down his emotions—to force himself to feelnothing.

Join him there,the Tides continue.You can be happy. You can be a family.

One more step. That’s all it would take.

But somewhere, distantly, I hear a voice. Riven’s voice. Not the perfect version of him in the vision, butmyRiven. Real, broken, and desperate.

“Sapphire. Come back,” he says, and I stagger, the warmth around me cracking at the edges.

“What’s wrong?” Happy Riven asks, reaching for my hand and taking it in his. “I thought you wanted forever?”

“I do,” I say at the same time as myself in the vision.

But my Riven’s voice cuts through my thoughts again, stronger this time. More insistent.

“Don’t leave me. Not like this. Notever.”

I turn, looking back through the thinning veil between realms.

My Riven is hovering over my body, his hands touching my face, my hair, and my arms, as if he can pull me back through sheer force of will. As he does, his magic spreads in uncontrolled patterns across the cosmic sand, and when he speaks, his voice breaks on every word.

“You’re the only thing holding me together,” he says, curling himself around me and pressing his forehead to my lifeless one. “If you leave me, I’ll never come back from it.”

Then, something happens that I’ve never seen before.

Riven—my cold, controlled Winter Prince—begins to cry. Not the silent tears of someone who was trained to never show weakness, but broken, wracking sobs that tear through his body.

The sight of it pulls me back, anchoring me to reality in a way nothing else could.

Because this ismyRiven. The boy who stood stone-faced at his mother’s funeral, refusing to shed a tear as his father told him emotions were a weakness. The prince who buried his pain beneath layers of ice so thick that no one could reach it.

And he’s breaking for me.

I look back at the vision of us—at the Riven who smiles easily and loves without reservation.

And suddenly, I understand.

That’s not Riven. Not really. It’s a shadow of him—a false promise. Because the Riven in that vision has never fought for me. He’s never suffered for me, or sacrificed for me. He’s never held me while we both bled out, choosing death together instead of a life apart.

He doesn’t know what it means to love someone when it costs him everything.

“No,” I say, stepping back from the vision. “This isn’t real. It doesn’t belong to me.”

It could,the Tides insist, the vision growing brighter, more tempting.Give the word, and it will be yours.

“I don’t want it,” I say, turning away from the scenes of perfect happiness. “I want him. Therealhim.”

Suddenly, the Tides change, the whispers transforming into screams that tear through my mind.

You will regret this.

I press my hands over my ears, but it does nothing to block the assault.

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