But now—
Now I stand on starstone with my mate and my family and a court that has begun, finally, to learn the sound of mercy when it speaks like law, and I let the white petals fall in blessing.
I squeeze his hand.
“I love you,” I say, not loudly. Loud isn’t the point.Trueis.
His mouth tilts, eyes bright.
“I’m yours,” he answers—no title, no flourish—just the sentence that made the crown worth lifting.
The realm listens. And for once, it says yes.
I’ll Follow You Anywhere
Taeyang
The night before Ashen Vale tastes like rain trying to remember where to fall.
Yuna leads me into the moon garden—wisteria bowed with white bloom, lanterns burning low, the air sweet as if the palace itself wants to apologize for everything it’s about to ask of us. Her palm is warm in mine; the crescent under my sternum answers the one beneath her collar with a slow, hungry thrum.
“This is reckless,” she says, though her mouth curves like she hopes I’ll disagree.
“I’ve built a life out of worse,” I murmur, and the bond humscloser.
She stops under an arch of vines, light pooling over her shoulders like a mantle. For a heartbeat we only breathe. The war, the court, the knives waiting to learn our names none of it finds us here.
“Taeyang,” she says softly, and it unstrings me the way only she can. “If tomorrow takes everything—”
“It won’t,” I cut in, because I need one true thing tonight. “But if ittries, I’ll follow you into whatever comes next. Door, river, darkness—name it.”
Her lashes lower.
“And if I run?”
“I’ve never chased anything worth catching until you,” I tell her, honest as blood.
She steps into me. I feel the bondcatch—that fierce tug low in the ribs, breath syncing, two pulses testing the rhythm that wants to be one drum. I lift her hand and kiss the inside of her wrist where the ribbon lies violet and stubborn; her breath hitches like a string pulled sweet.
“Color?” I ask, voice rough.
“Green,” she whispers. “Always green with you.”
“Hands,” I say, and thread her wrists together with the ribbon—no tighter than trust, no looser than want. I lift them above her head and brace them to the cool stone arch, my body locking hers safely between my arms. “If you want out—say.”
“I wantin,” she says, and smiles like sin learned manners.
I take my time. A kiss at her temple, then lower cheekbone, the hinge of her jaw, the hollow just beneath her ear where her pulse is a secret she lets me learn. She trembles; our marks flare. When my mouth finds the edge of the bandage above her heartI slow again, reverent, heat and breath instead of teeth. She arches anyway, offering, and the sound she makes ties another knot in me I never want undone.
“Good girl,” I murmur before I can catch it.
“Again,” she breathes, eyes gone dark.
“Good girl.”
She shivers hard, the bond spiking—violet-gold heat skimming skin to skin. I let my free hand map her: the curve of waist, the small of back, the place at her hip that makes her gasp and tip her chin. When she tries to rise, I press her gently to the stone and feeleverythingin her answer me—need, trust, command.
“Say please,” I tease, because she likes to rule and I like to serve and somewhere between those truths is a country we both belong to.
