Page 2 of Burning Star

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.”

RIVEN

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