Taeyang’s jaw tightens.
“Good.”
Rheon’s gaze hooks mine.
“We’ll need your name on it,” he says. “Guest-right was twisted in your court. Your voice untwists it.”
I breathe once, deep.
“Then take it.”
We don’t go to the Archive. We make the room a temple instead. Vines answer; the bowls of honey-light rise. Minji chalks a circleon the floor in three quick arcs; Jisoo salts the threshold with ash. Seori cuts her thumb and dabs starlight onto our crescents—you two are the fuse, we are the switch.Rheon speaks the part that only a king can speak without breaking the world; I speak the part that belongs to a queen who is done being quiet.
“By bloom and bone,” I say, voice steady, “by law and mercy, by the pulse that lives in two—what was stolen becomes returned; what inclined is leveled; what was a leash is now a line back home.”
The page smokes, then goes still. Somethingtiltsinside Taeyang—small, distinct. His breath leaves him like a weight being set down he didn’t realize he’d been carrying since before he had language.
“How does it feel?” I ask.
“Like the ground stopped sloping toward hell,” he says, half-laughing, half-wrecked. “Like I can choose where to put my feet.”
“Good,” I say, and kiss him once, quick, because we have a war to finish and because crowns behave better when they know you aren’t starving.
We dress—armor for me that doesn’t hide my throat; leathers for him that won’t let the old marks pretend they own him. I take the ribbon off my wrist and tie it around his palm, knot sure, a little mean so he’ll remember it’s there.
“For luck?” he asks.
“For obedience,” I answer sweetly. “Tome.”
His grin could start religion. We step into the corridor together. Courtiers freeze; whispers grip the walls like ivy.
“The queen walks,” someone murmurs.
“The demon walks,” someone else breathes, and the word lands like a slur trying to remember how to be a title.
I don’t let it fester.
“The queen walks with her mate,” I say clearly, and every lantern along the hall bows its flame in agreement. “Get used to it.”
Later we’ll break the cup at the Veil. Later we’ll make the uncles learn humility at swordpoint. Later we’ll retrain the court until it can saymercywithout choking. For now, I lead him out into a garden that remembers us—thorns and wisteria, the air sweet with both apology and hunger—and I stop under the arch where the light always makes people look like themselves.
“Yuna,” he says, softer than the vines. “Before the day eats us—give me something to hold.”
I take his hand and press it over my crescent so he feels the double beat from the inside.
“Hold this,” I say. “When the court questions your place, hold this. When old magic whispers, hold this. When you look at me and think you’re too much fire for this garden, hold this.”
He swallows.
“And you?”
“I’ll hold you,” I say simply. “Even when you’re flame. Especially then.”
He bows his head. I crown him with my touch, a queen making a new ceremony out of what power’s always been for. We start toward the Veil with our family at our backs and a realm at our feet. The day is loud; the plan is sharp; the future is a thread between our hands.
I glance up at him. His mouth tips into that small, private smile that belongs to me and no one else.
“Still mine?” he asks.
