I look down. The scar where Seori carved me is no longer a cut. It is a sign—two crescents facing each other with that thread between, not a chain, not a leash, a line. On her, the same. When I press our chests together, the thread hums, then sinks deeper, past bone, past breath, to the place where my life split and hers stitched it shut.
“Say the thing,” she urges, eyes bright with mischief and ruin and relief. “The arrogant line.”
I laughed, wrecked.
“I just married a queen in a garden barefoot, and the world will have to live with it.”
“More.”
“I will follow you anywhere,” I say, and it’s not arrogance now. It’s architecture. “And if there’s no path, I’ll cut one. If there’s no light, I’ll carry fire. If there’s no door, I’ll be the hinge.”
She closes her eyes and lets one tear fall. I catch it with my mouth.
“Then hearmyarrogance,” she murmurs. “I will not let this world make you small to fit its fear. I will not let it rename you to make me palatable. You are my mate. You are my home. The realm can learn new words.”
The marks pulse once, hard—law learned—and the ribbon at our wrists warms where it knots skin to skin. Somewhere beyond the garden a bell tolls, not a warning, not a funeral. A welcome.
We sit there until the lanterns gutter and the wisteria sighs itself to sleep and the rain decides it has done enoughfor one night. At some point Seori slips a blanket over our shoulders. At some point Rheon becomes shadow again. Minji leaves a small jar of salve at the edge of the stone without saying a word; Jisoo tucks a singed feather into the crook of the arch. Witnesses know when to leave the holy thing alone.
When we finally rise, our knees are damp and our mouths are swollen and I have never felt more like a man in my life. Not because I burned anything down. Because I didn’t need to.
At the door Yuna stops and tilts my face toward the moonlight. “One more time,” she says, because we are greedy for the truth now that it’s ours.
“Are you mine?”
I take her hand and lay it over the new sign that still warms through my shirt. The thread hums, and my answer moves through it into her bones.
“Always,” I say. “And you are mine.”
The bond sings it back to us—always, always—until the garden, the stones, the sleeping palace all know what we’ve made.
I don’t dream of fire when we sleep. I dream of a door that opens when she says my name, and the life on the other side is the one we chose.
Mates, at last.
Epilogue - Always
Taeyang
2 Years Later
Morning pours itself across the moon garden like warm milk and honey.
Yuna sits on the low stone bench beneath the wisteria, crown forgotten on the table, hair in a loose braid she never manages to finish because I keep touching her. The crescent beneath her collar glows slow and soft, answering the one over my heart. Between them—betweenus—a third rhythm thrums now. Smaller. Stubborn. The court calls him Crown Prince. I call himLittle Drum.
He kicks when I say it. The slip of linen over Yuna’s belly twitches under my palm.
“There,” I whisper to the spot that hits back. “See? Already arguing with me.”
Yuna’s laugh is sunlight on stone.
“He gets that from his father.”
“He gets his spine from his mother,” I murmur, and press a kiss to the place he lives. “Hello, Little Drum. This is your father. I’m the fire at the door, not the fire in the walls. I’m also the reason your mother rolls her eyes before breakfast.”
“She would!” Yuna protests—to him, not to me. Her hand slides into my hair and stays there, idly tracing the line where battle left a pale scar. The ribbon on her wrist—violet, frayed from a thousand knots—brushes my temple. When she shifts, the bond hums a braided song: her pulse, mine, his. I never knew peace had a sound until it took up residence in my chest.
Two years ago I woke to nights that smelled like smoke even when there was none. Today, the palace smells like wisteria and warm bread, like steel oiled because we respect it, not because we expect to bleed. The court walks softer. The rookies plant their feet the way I taught them, shoulders saved for tomorrows that deserve them. The Veil is steady. The peace-cup is dust.
