I looked down, ashamed.
“I didn’t know how to want something good, Yuna. Not until it was too late.”
She walked past me, brushing my shoulder — but not stopping.
I turned quickly.
“Yuna—”
She froze.
My voice dropped.
“Do you feel it now? The bond? The ache? Because I feel it like it’s tearing me apart.”
She didn’t speak.
So I stepped closer.
“It’s not just fate,” I whispered. “It’s you. It’salwaysbeen you.”
Finally, she looked at me — but her eyes were full of tears she refused to shed.
“Then why did you run?” she whispered.
I swallowed hard.
“Because I didn’t think I deserved you.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then she said the one thing that broke me.
“Maybe you don’t.”
And she walked away.
The wind howled through the trees behind her, and the mark on my chest blazed like fire licking bone. But I didn’t follow.
I just stood there, alone in the smoke of my own regrets, as the storm of war rolled in.
Minji
What burns between us
The demon steel felt heavier in my hands than usual.
I tightened the leather straps on my wrists, the roughness grounding me as I moved through the camp’s edge. The others were quiet—preparing in silence, faces carved in war-readiness—but my thoughts were anything but still.
My bond mark pulsed beneath my skin. Each beat sharper. Hotter. As if something was calling to it.
Or someone.
I turned just in time to see Jisoo watching me from the treeline. His wings—those dark, half-formed shadows—were folded close. His face was unreadable. But his eyes? They held fire.
I tried to turn away.
“Minji,” he said, voice rough and low.
