“This is all very moving,” Eros breaks in. “But tell me,Star Navigator—do you really, truly understand the weight of what the gold arrow will do to you?”
“You already told me what it will do.” I lift my chin, refusing to let him intimidate me—even though as a god, he’s ratherintimidating. “And Riven already loves me. At least, he will love me again, soon. I can handle the gold arrow.”
“Can you? Because I’d like to paint you a better picture of your future.” Eros’s smile is razor-sharp. “Every time he touches you, it will feel like drowning and burning at once. Every time he pulls away, you’ll feel like your heart is being ripped from your chest. You’ll lose yourself so completely in loving him that nothing else will matter—not your mission, not your friend, not your family, and not even your own survival. Your love will be a curse. A poison that devours everything you are, until only a shell remains.”
The stream ripples at my feet, mirroring my unease.
Riven pulls me closer, and I lean into him, drawing comfort in the way his heart’s racing in his chest. It gives me hope. Because his steady presence is a promise of protection, even if that protection isn’t accompanied by love—yet.
“This won’t just be heartbreak,” Eros continues, and more lightning flashes across the dome, as if it’s angering him to see Riven and I standing so close. “It will be undying, unrequited, unbearable love. The type of love that will burn away at your soul and make you lose everything that makes you who you are and everything you could ever be.”
My breathing quickens, panic creeping into my thoughts.
“Are you ready?” Eros asks, drawing the golden arrow back in preparation to release.
Riven’s hand squeezes mine, and I look at him one more time, memorizing the planes of his face and the silver storm in his eyes. Because even though I’m about to risk everything, I want to know for certain that he’ll remain by my side, no matter what.
He gives me a small, encouraging nod.
Eros sighs impatiently. “I can always shoot him with the lead instead,” he says, glancing at Riven.
Riven’s focus, however, remains on me.
“Didn’t you take a hit for me once before?” he asks, looking so deeply into my eyes that it’s like he’s speaking to my soul. “Isn’t that how we escaped the shadows? Did you not bleed for me, from your shoulder to your heart, and say you’d do it a hundred times more? Because I might have bargained away my love for you, but I kept my memories. Which means I remember that night as well as you do. And despite everything, the words spoken then remain true. So, if you remember saying you’d take a hundred hits for me, I want you to prove it by taking this one arrow now. Make the right choice, and we’ll beat the odds and get through this—together.”
Each word falls into place as I string together each sentence, making sense of exactly what he’s asking of me.
Taking a hit.
Bleeding from the shoulder to the heart.
Swearing to do it a hundred times more.
And then, the challenge—the truth of what he’s asking. Of what he’s promising to do with me.
Prove that I remember saying all those things by taking the golden arrow now.
We’ll beat the odds and get through this together.
The smallest flicker of understanding passes between us, so subtle that if I wasn’t watching for it, I would have missed it. The barely-there shift in his expression, the way his fingers tighten ever so slightly around mine.
It lasts less than a heartbeat, but it’s enough.
“I understand,” I tell him. “And it’s what I want, too.”
Because right now, my love for Riven is strong, but it’s mine. It’sreal.If Eros shoots me with that arrow, it won’t be mine anymore. It will be a curse, consuming me from the inside out until there’s nothing left but ashes. And I don’t want to become a hollow shell of devotion, incapable of feeling anything otherthan my love for Riven. I don’t want to lose Zoey, my family, my mission, my sense of self—mypurpose.
I’m more than my love for Riven. I’m more than a choice between his hate and my ruin.
I’m star touched. Chosen by a goddess to help save the world.
And I’m not going to let this power-hungry god reduce me to nothing.
