Page 51 of Burning Star

“You think I’m unstoppable,” I eventually say.

His fingers tighten around mine. “Because you are.”

I shake my head, my breath catching. “I’m not. You know I’m not.”

“You are to me.” His voice is steady. Quiet. Certain. As if all of this is simplefact.“I’ve seen the cracks. I’ve always seen them. And I love you even more for them.”

As I look back at the reflection, his words hit me harder than any magic ever has.

“I want to believe I’m her,” I say softly.

His thumb brushes my palm, steadying me.

“Then believe it,” he says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the universe.

I close my eyes, inhaling deeply as I breathe in his vision of me. The strength he trusts, the heart he values, and the warmth he adores.

And when I open my eyes again, I’m not afraid.

“I accept it,” I say, the words steady, quiet, and absolute. “I acceptme.All of me.”

RIVEN

“Now you,”Anteros says to me, and the thought of being seen—truly seen—sends frost spiraling up my arms.

Sapphire squeezes my hand, her warmth melting through my cold, and I force myself to stare into the water.

The mirrored surface trembles, clears, and then I’m looking at myself through Sapphire’s eyes.

The shock nearly knocks me backward.

Because the man reflected isn’t the man I know. He isn’t the cold, ruthless Winter Prince who pushes everyone away. He isn’t the failure who couldn’t save his mother, who can’t heal his father, and who deceived the only woman he’s ever loved.

He’s radiant.

Not with warmth or light, but with a different kind of brilliance. Like moonlight cutting through darkness. Like the deadly beauty of an ice storm.

“This can’t be right,” I mutter, shaking my head as frost forms in my hair. “This isn’t me.”

“It is,” Sapphire whispers. “It always has been.”

The mirror shifts, pulling me deeper. I watch myself at the bar in the Maple Pig, dangerous and magnetic. She noticed the exact moment my gaze landed on her. She felt the charge in the air between us.

I feel her fascination with the frost patterns I create. How she finds beauty in my control, rather than coldness. I feel her admiration for my loyalty, my steadfastness, and my refusal to break, even when she doesn’t know how shattered I am inside.

“You see warmth in me,” I say through my surprise. “Even when I’m at my coldest.”

But it’s not just good she sees.

I also see my arrogance. Infuriating—and intolerable—at times. The way I dismiss her ideas, and the way I act as if I know better than everyone else—even though, let’s be honest—I usuallydoknow better than everyone else.

Then, the perspective shifts, and I flinch as I see myself after the dryad took my love. The hollowness, the casual cruelty, and the way I wielded her feelings for me like a weapon.

“How can you possibly love me after this?” I demand, ice daggers exploding in a circle around us. “I deserved the hatred you threw at me after getting struck by that arrow. Every sharp word, every furious look—I earned themall.”

The reflection doesn’t answer with words.

Instead, it shows me dying in her arms, and her terror and refusal to let me go. It shows me the way she tore her soul apart to save me, and how she touched every broken piece of me and loved them all.

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