SAPPHIRE
The wedding gownthe Summer Court gave me isn’t white.
It’s a deep, shifting blue, threaded with silver, its fabric rippling like water against my skin with every step I take.
Its weight should feel like a chain. Like a tether forcing me into something I didn’t choose.
But it doesn’t.
Because despite everything—despite Riven, despite Lysandra, and despite the deal that binds me—I’m the one walking forward. The ice magic isn’t digging into my skin this time, punishing me for resisting.
I agreed to this.
The realization settles uneasily in my stomach as I follow the guards deep down the spiraling staircases into the Summer Court’s underground halls.
Eventually, we stop at a rippling, vertical pool of water stretching from floor to ceiling.
I hesitate for only a breath—barely long enough to feel the weight of inevitability pressing down on me—before stepping into the dark chamber beyond.
The floor on the other side is slick stone, and in the center, there’s a pool so deep that I can’t see the bottom. Its surface is as dark as midnight, reflecting the glowing walls as if it’s the heart of the Summer Court.
Lysandra stands at the far end of the chamber, the folds of her dark blue gown pooling around her feet.
Riven’s next to her, watching me. Not with warmth. Not with anger. His eyes simply drag over me, slow and methodical, lingering on the way the gown clings to my body and moves with my every step.
It’s an assessment. He’s ensuring that his future bride is worthy of standing at his side. As if this is just another duty to fulfill.
Resent slams into me so violently that I nearly stumble.
But it isn’t just resentment—it’s grief. It’s the unbearable ache of remembering the way he looked at me when he actuallysawme. The pain isn’t just for the past, or for the love he threw away, but for the way he stands here so casually, as if he never cared in the first place.
But somehow, I force my feet forward, moving closer to the man who ripped out my heart, threw it into a fire, and stood to the side as it burned to ash.
Lysandra nods approvingly when I approach, either unaware or not caring that each step I take forward hurts more than the last.
“It’s time to begin,” she says, and when she raises her hands, the pool at the center of the chamber glows brighter. “Face each other.”
Riven’s expression remains unreadable, blank as ice, his hands curled slightly at his sides. He doesn’t react. Doesn’t shift. He doesn’t betray a single emotion. Not even when I step into place in front of him and meet his apathetic, empty gaze.
How am I standing in this place, marrying the prince who broke me? And how is he standing right in front of me, barely looking at me, pretending like this means nothing? LikeImean nothing?
This can’t be real.
And yet, somehow, it is.
Lysandra shifts in place, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts, and my attention moves to her.
“Water,” she begins, and as she speaks, I feel like I’m here butnotat the same time, “is the element of connection. Of bonds. Of paths carved through stone and mountain until two streams become one.”
Droplets rise from the pool’s surface, floating midair like stars caught in suspension.
“Water is the element of memory.” Her voice is softer now, but no less powerful. “It does not forget. It carves its truth into the land, into time, and into the souls that enter it. Which is why the bond will be recorded within the strongest currents, engraved in the trenches of the deepest seas, and carried forever in the hearts of those who submit to its power.”
Memory.
The word almost chokes me.
Because Riven has forgotten. And I have to live with the memories of the past, while promising myself to a cold, empty future.
