I ran.
Time stuttered—the way it does when choice stretches seconds thin. The world narrowed to a line of silver humming toward a throat I love. The sigil in my palm burned hot enough to blister. I slapped it into the air. A circle flowered—brief, imperfect, mine. Metal screamed across light. The dagger clipped the edge, bounced, and bit my bicep instead of Rheon’s neck.
Heat. Wet. I didn’t look at the wound. I looked at Jisoo, because some instincts die slow.
He stared back like a man already standing at the edge of a door between two rooms—one with me in it, one without. He looked like he was about to lose me again.
And this time—I didn’t know if I would stop him.
The Treaty Summit
Taeyang
The summit grounds glittered with a gold that wasn’t honest sunlight sieved through glamour until it made everything look forgivable. Wards thrummed under the turf in perfect circles. Incense from a dozen courts lacquered the air in citrus and resin and something sweet that did not belong to mountain wind.
Too many eyes. Too many mouths practicing truth without touching it.
Demons, fae, a few spirits in borrowed human faces—ringed around the ceremonial circle as if witnesses could make this safe. Rheon stood at the dais with his jaw set, a kingpretending to be patient. Seori’s magic held the wardlines the way a spine holds a body.
I wasn’t watching them.
I was waiting for her.
The mark under my ribs stirred—one tight pull, then another. That damned thread, older than crowns, rude as hunger.
Yuna.
And then she stepped into the light—and the world forgot what it was doing.
Emerald and gold wrapped her like a story the forest would keep. Moonstone pins slipped through dark brown hair braided low, and the braid moved when she did—river-smooth, glossy as wet ink, catching motes of light and hoarding them. Her hair wasn’t just dark; it was a night sky with the stars trained to behave, a secret waterfall at midnight. I could have watched it and believed in gentleness again.
But her eyes—gods. Ember. Not amber, not gold: ember. Lit from within, like banked coals coaxed back to flame. When she turned her head, those eyes caught the sunlight and threw it back as warmth, not glare. A fire meant for hands. A hearth in a house I had never owned and already missed.
She wore no iron. She didn’t need it. The circlet on her brow wasn’t a threat; it was inevitability. Birthright sat on her the way breath sits in a chest.
Fae. Not just fae.
Princess.
The word lodged in my throat sideways. Courtiers bowed in a silken wave. Guards parted on cue, the sea remembering itsmoon. The whisper moved before I breathed againSummer blood, the daughter, the lost star returns.
And at her side
Him.
Silver hair, Summer-cut armor, a face too familiar with the way she smiled when she let herself. Kaelen. He moved like a shield that had learned to walk, hand hovering near her elbow in a habit I hated on sight. He leaned and murmured something; she answered with a small, reluctant laugh that curled in my chest and refused to leave.
Blood began to thunder in my ears. I have faced monsters. Torn down walls. Endured betrayal until the word lost its teeth.
Betrayal and disbelief braided into a rope I could neither climb nor break. Because behind her—crown of summer stars, cloak the color of old honeyed light—stood the Fae King. Not a rumor. A man. The same smile carved across a different year. The same hands that signed villages to smoke. The same gaze that never blinked while my world burned.
Theron. High king to Queen Elara. Yuna’s father.
The floor tilted. Old ash filled my mouth. Fifteen again, cupboard air in my lungs, the roses catching flame so fast it looked like they wanted to.Do not love what you cannot carry out of a burning room.
Rheon’s shoulder angled toward me on instinct—space made if I needed to move or break or leave. His eyes found mine and held like a hand on a wrist, checking for a pulse. I couldn’t answer him. Couldn’t do anything but stand in the bright lie of afternoon and let the truth peel me.
Then her eyes—those ember eyes—found me.
