River would have traded the world to be back in Tristan's arms, but the Goddess had other plans. For two days, she foolishly hoped that maybe things could work out and Tristan could just ignore the woman in the dungeon.
But she knew. She had always known. Sometimes love doesn't look like holding on. Sometimes it looks like letting go, and the letting go is the hardest thing love ever asks for, and love asks for it anyways.
The corruption came back on the third day.
Tristan woke at dawn with dark veins threading across his forearms, the black lines surfacing beneath his skin with the patient precision of a disease that had been temporarily evicted and had returned with a lease agreement. The healers confirmed what the first round had taught them: the fated tie was keeping him alive, but the tie required participation, and participation meant proximity, and proximity meant Vesper Willow.
After that, River insisted she move back into her old quarters in the palace.
