“I vow to never forget what you did,” I tell him, the words searing through me like poison, thick with the grief I’ll never escape. “To never let myself be weak enough to believe in you again. I vow to remember that every word you ever spoke to me was a lie, that every touch was manipulation, and that every promise was empty. And I’ll never—ever—forget that whatever love I thought I felt for you was based on something that didn’t exist at all.”

He’s as still as a statue.

Then, finally, a breath escapes him. Barely there. A flicker of something—regret, hesitation, or maybe even longing—before it vanishes.

Lysandra looks back and forth between us, as if waiting for something more.

It doesn’t come. Because I’m not giving anything more toeitherof them.

They don’t deserve it.

“It’s time,” she finally says, and I pull my hands out of Riven’s, my skin burning from the contact. “Enter the water, kiss while surrounded by your element, and be bound as one.”