He pulls away.
“How did you know it was me?” he asks, the storm in his eyes following mine.
“He didn’t have your eyes,” I reply softly, letting the truth settle between us as I draw him into another embrace. Ryder’s brow knits briefly, then eases as he melts into my touch, pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead before stepping back.
I stare at the edge, forcing myself to breathe, to steady my shaking legs. The wind claws at the bridge, making the ropes groan, and I swear the whole thing tilts toward the canyon like it wants to taste my fear.
I swallow hard.
“I should go first,” Ryder says, worry roughening his voice.
“No.” I shake my head, the word leaving me before fear can catch it. “I started this… all of it.” My gaze drops to my boots, to the dirt scuffed into the leather like proof of every wrong turn that led us here. “I should be the one to do it.”
For a long beat, he doesn’t argue.
He studies me with that quiet, devastating resolve I know too well, then gives a single nod—an unspoken promise to let me lead, and to follow me anywhere anyway.
“Wait for me on the other side,” Ryder says, keeping his voice as steady as he can manage. “I’ll be right behind you.”
I give Ryder a stiff nod, trying to ignore the way my stomach is tying itself into knots. River catches my eye and offers me a small, earnest smile—brave on the surface, but trembling around the edges.
“Be careful,” he says gently.
My throat is too tight to answer, so I just nod again and step forward.
My foot reaches the first panel. It dips under my weight with a slow, complaining groan.
The ropes shiver.
The wind inhales.
And suddenly the entire world narrows to the uncertain wood beneath my boot… and the roaring drop waiting hungrily below. No wonder Ziek insisted we cross one at a time—this bridge can barely handleme,let alone all three of us.
The middle of the bridge is the worst of it. The panels thin out to almost nothing, forcing me to stretch and balance with every step, and the wind surges harder here—shoving and tugging—until my knuckles turn white around the frayed ropes.
The pace of my heart turns erratic, wild and uncontrollable, and I can’t tell whether the bridge is swaying with the wind or with my trembling knees. A quick look back at Ryder and River, both standing on tenterhooks, their shoulders rigid and their breaths held like one wrong step might send me plunging to my death, only makes the air feel thinner, harder to swallow.
I hadn’t said much to River after he hinted that the kiss meant something to him. I didn’t know how to respond then… but out here, suspended over a churning canyon with nothingbeneath me but air and splintered wood, the distance between us feels like a mile of clarity. And I know.
Idolove him—just not the way he hopes. I love him the way you love your favourite sweater: the thing that wraps around you when the world feels too cold, familiar and comforting, something you trust to keep you warm. He’s my safety blanket, and I will always care for him. But the spark he sees—this pull—feels misguided. I think he senses the star inside me, the way Ryder did at first. Except this time it isn’t the serpent venom tricking his instincts; it’s something older, deeper.
River has been tied to both Moon and Sun since the moment he was born—because of Ryder, because of the bond they share. Maybe that connection has always brushed against me too, whispering something cosmic and tangled and confusing. Not love. Not romance. Something else entirely.
The rope in my hand jerks violently, jolting me from my thoughts.
At first, I think it’s just another cruel gust of wind, but then the entire bridgedropsa full foot, boards slamming downward in a sickening lurch. My stomach shoots into my throat.
“Asha!” Ryder shouts behind me—sharp and panicked.
Before I can answer, the left support rope gives a long, tearing groan—the kind that sounds like a death sentence—and a spray of fibres explodes outward in the air.
The bridge is beginning to snap.
“RUN!” River’s voice cracks like lightning. “Asha, run to the other side!”
I don’t think. I just move.
My feet pound against the planks, each step a gamble—some solid, some missing, some so rotten they crumble the moment I land on them. The bridge buckles sideways, throwing my balance off so violently that I slam into the rope railing with enough force to bruise my ribs.
