Her breath hitched.
“And you?”
“I am afraid of forgiving the wrong person and waking up soft in a world that eats softness,” I said. “I am afraid of looking at you and seeing him. I am afraid of finding out that I cannot be both weapon and man and choosing wrong when it matters.”
We stood there—a demon and a fae princess—wrapped in a cold that meant its work and a bond that meant its own. I hadthe ridiculous urge to laugh, because there was nothing funny about any of it and still the skin over my heart felt thin as paper against a candle.
“I don’t look at you like you’re the enemy,” I said at last, thumb still ghosting her lip, as if the wordenemycould be gentled by touch. “I look at you like you might be the end of me.”
Her lashes lowered; her mouth opened the smallest degree.
“And?”
“And gods help me,” I murmured, leaning just close enough to feel the warmth of her breath and not take more than I’d earned, “I don’t think I’d mind.”
Her eyes burned brighter—ember catching. The bond thrummed, quiet and relentless, the kind of rhythm men build houses to and call it home. She tipped her face into my hand like a vow.
“Then stay,” she said. “Even if it’s hard. Especially then.”
“I will.” It wasn’t a king’s oath. It was a man’s. It fit better.
We didn’t kiss. The not-kissing hurt in the clean way a set bone does. The wardlights clicked and steadied. Somewhere, the drums changed cadence to the one that trains bodies how to move together without tripping.
I let my hand fall last. The cold found my palm again and bit down. It kept me honest.
You Lied to Me
Yuna
He looked at me like I was fire—and still reached for the burn.
His palm was warm on my cheek, his thumb brushing my bottom lip like a promise he wasn’t sure his mouth could keep. The wardlights hissed and steadied. Moonstones in my braid ticked faintly against each other when the wind turned. It should have felt like relief—his voice softened, his edges put away.
It didn’t. The ache in my chest unspooled slow and cruel, thread pulled from a dress you can’t stop from coming apart.
Because even inside his tenderness, I saw it: the wall. It rose the moment a crown touched my head. Built from grief herefuses to bury and ghosts that insist on being fed. He hadn’t forgiven me—not the hiding, not the timing. Not really.
“You’re not the enemy,” he’d said, and the words were gentle.
But his silence screamed. I stood in the middle of that quiet, heart raw, staring at the man who used to tilt my world with a glance and now couldn’t hold my eyes without flinching like light hurt.
“I would’ve told you,” I whispered, the truth small enough to choke on.
He didn’t answer.
“I wanted to tell you.”
Wind skimmed the frost from the flagstones at our feet. Still nothing.
So I stepped closer and forced the rest past the stone lodged in my throat. “Every time I looked at you, all I saw was the pain you keep trying to drown. And I knew that if I told you—who I am, who my father is—you’d never look at me the same.”
His jaw tightened. Confirmation, ugly as it was clean.
“I wasn’t wrong, was I?” I breathed.
Taeyang turned his face away, like the sight of me singed. Something small and breakable inside me folded without a sound.
“You said I lit something in you,” I heard my voice climb and tremble, treacherous as a new foal. “I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t ask to be your match or your curse or your salvation. I just—” I swallowed, because truth is a blade with two edges. “I just wanted to be yours.”
