The throne room smells like rain on marble.
Wisteria braids the pillars in heavy white ropes; petals drift whenever the lanterns exhale. The floor is starstone—slate-dark, constellations hammered in silver by hands that believed beauty could hold a kingdom steady. I stand at the foot of the dais with a crown in my palms that feels less like gold and more like a vow I chose with my whole throat.
Behind me: Seori and Rheon, shadows and starlight, the Under’s sovereigns standing like a promise that no door will close on me again. To my left: Minji in ink-stained formal whites, chin up, eyes wet and unabashed. To my right: Jisoo,wing rebuilt and bandaged, gaze iron-steady on the balcony where too much ended and began. Kaelen holds the inner line with the Sentinels—gauntlet on the chain of office instead of a blade, the seal-scar on his palm visible by design. Every rank of the Court waits, breath held the way people do when they’re certain a story will go their way and afraid they might be wrong.
And there he is.
Taeyang stands at the bottom step, black leathers fitted clean, hair tied back, throat bared in a gesture that is not submission butchoice. The crescent over his heart glows faint through the fabric; the ribbon at his wrist—my violet—knots like a spell that learned how to smile. He meets my eyes and the bond hums a low, certain note inside my ribs. I could find him blindfolded in a hurricane.
The High Cantors begin the old verse. I let it wash past. I am not here to be sungat. I am here to speak.
Seori steps forward first, as the law requires the nearest sovereign to witness. She holds the crown between her hands and tips her head, underlight flickering along the filigree.
“By bloom and briar,” she says, voice carrying like a blade thrown exactly true, “by rite and right, by oath freely chosen Yuna, do you claim this crown?”
I look at my people. I look at the man who has learned to make his fire a shelter.
“I do,” I say, and the starstone answers with a soft chime like frost cracking.
Rheon’s shadow spills across the steps, stopping at Taeyang’s boots as if to bow.
“Do you claim its costs?” he asks, mild as winter, merciless as truth.
“I do.” My fingers tighten on the circlet. “And I will keep count where others pretend not to.”
Minji clears her throat—too loud, on purpose.
“And do you claim itsmercies?” she adds, because somewhere there’s a version of this ceremony that forgot to write that part down.
“I do,” I say, and the breath that leaves the room is the kind that learns it can be more than a weapon.
Seori lifts the crown. I don’t bow. I lift my chin and let it find me. The metal settles in my hair with the softest click—like a door opening. Lanterns lower. Vines bloom. A hundred sleeping spells lift their heads to see which way the wind will blow.
“Rise,” the Cantors intone, formal and slow. “Rise, Your Majesty.”
I rise. Then I turn—not to the throne, but to the step where Taeyang waits. For a beat, there’s only the sound of petals falling.
“Come here,” I say.
He mounts one step and stops, careful, pulse sharp in our bond. His eyes flick to Seori, to Rheon, to the Court that has done its worst to men like him and called it order. He is braced for ceremony’s teeth.
“Further,” I say, and when he reaches me, I take his hand.
Soft gasps ripple the chamber like a mistake people are afraid to claim.
“I was taught,” I begin, and my voice doesn’t need a spell to carry, “that a queen is a door the realm walks through. That what happens on this dais decides how the world will treat those without the height to see it.”
I turn so all of them can see our joined hands—ribbon and crescent, callus and ink.
“Hear me,” I say, and wisteria shivers.
“This is Taeyang of House Korr, last of his line and first of his kind to stand on this stone byinvitation.He is wrathborn and war taught. He is the blade that saved your children from a night that had too many mouths. He is also the man who learned to kneel only when love asked him to. He is my mate.”
A murmur crests—shock, anger, relief, a tide of everything crowded courts mistake for law. I let it spend itself against my shore.
“I do not hide what binds us,” I continue. “Two crescents, one drum. Half a heart, shared by vow and price. I name himConsortby my crown andBelovedby my breath.”
I lift our joined hands and kiss his knuckles. His exhale hits my cheek like summer.
