Page 65 of Stolen Star

Thalia clears her throat, pulling me out of my Riven-induced haze. “Do you mind saving the romantic banter until we’re no longer in mortal peril?” she says. “Unless you’re eager to join my soulmate in the afterlife.”

Her words slice through the air, and Riven tenses beside me, frost patterns crawling up his arms before shattering in the heat. Guilt pulses through our bond—raw, fresh, and volcanic beneath his composed exterior.

But I don’t have a chance to say anything, because the platform shudders, sending a spray of rocks skittering into the lava below.

“We need to move,” I say, my eyes fixed on the Ember hovering above the central platform—impossibly far across a sea of molten rock. “Now.”

The distance stretches before us, at least thirty feet of bubbling magma between our crumbling ledge and the stone pedestal.

“It’s too far to jump,” Riven says, his voice clipped. “Even with air magic, the heat would drag us down before we made it halfway there.”

Another tremor rocks the platform, more violent than the last, splitting the stone between my feet.

I leap back, nearly colliding with Thalia.

“Whatever we’re going to do,” Thalia says, “we need to do it now.”

My fingers find my Star Disc at my hip, and I flash back to the disintegrating tower in the Cosmic Tides—to the moment Riven and I leaped through nothingness to reach the spectral ship.

“The Star Disc,” I say, pulling it free. “It can glide us across.”

Riven’s eyes meet mine, understanding flooding through our bond. “Like in the Tides.”

“Exactly.” I grip the Disc tighter, its energy responding to my touch. “I’ll hold onto the edges, you’ll hold onto me, and we’ll use our air magic to propel us forward.”

Thalia’s expression darkens as she glances between us and the Ember. “It can carry three?” she asks.

I swallow, knowing the answer—and hating it.

“No,” I admit, the weight of it settling in my chest. “Only two.”

Riven’s frost patterns intensify, spreading across the ground at his feet and melting into steam.

I brace myself for him to say he’ll stay instead of Thalia. That he’ll sacrifice himself.

He says nothing. His eyes are simply locked onto the Ember, a sharp, dangerous glint in them that I don’t recognize at all. Because it’s not calculation. It’s certainty. If the choice was me or the world, he would let the world freeze over entirely.

The platform lurches beneath us, dropping several inches with a sickening crack.

Panic shoots through the bond, and then Riven’sarms are around me, pulling me flush against him, keeping me steady. His heart is racing—almost like for a moment there, he thought he’d lost me all over again.

I almost tell him not to worry about me—that I’m fine—but something holds me back. Because the fear pulsing through him from the bond isstrong.It’sa living, breathing thing that scares me nearly as much as it scares him.

“It’s okay,” I tell him softly, steadily. “I’m okay.”

He exhales, as if he needed me to say it for him to truly believe it. Which, in its own way, terrifies me. Because if this is how he got after a fake-out drop from a floating platform, what’s going to happen to him when the threat increases? Will he be able to stop looking out for me enough to look after himself? Or will his dedication to keeping me safe be what destroys him in the end?

“I know,” he says, his voice tight and barely audible, as if trying to reassure himself more than me. “Just stay close. Okay?”

“I’m right here,” I murmur, offering him the steadiness he desperately needs.

The tension leaves his shoulders, and his breathing steadies, clearing the fog of fear enough for his logic to resurface.

“Thalia’s right,” he says after taking a few more seconds to make sure I’m not about to slip through hisfingers and fall into the magma below. “If either of us dies, the courts fracture. If the alliance falls?—”

“The Night Court wins,” I finish. “And thousands die.”

“Millions, eventually,” Thalia adds. “I knew what I signed up for when I took my oath to the Summer Court, and when I made the deal with Queen Lysandra to protect the two of you at all costs. This is my duty, and I will fulfill it.”

---