Page 24 of Burning Star

“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 maybeourheartbeat. I can’t tell where mine ends and his begins anymore.

“What did you do, Sapphire?” 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 forus.”

“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.”

SAPPHIRE

A loud,obnoxious snort shatters the moment.

My water magic surges to my fingertips in sharp, crackling waves, while frost explodes from Riven’s hands, forming daggers of ice. Our combined magic swirls together in a defensive perimeter around us, water and ice fusing into something new—something powerful.

And then, we freeze.

Because the enemy we’re ready to obliterate? It’s not some cosmic horror.

It’s pigs.

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