Below us, a horn calls once from the eastern ward—Minji’s signal, the quiet one. Work waits. Danger waits. Dawn thinks about happening.
I lace our fingers. “I’ll take the north watch,” I say. “Perimeter. One breath away.”
She squeezes back. “And I’ll take the throne room. I’m done letting men tell my fear who it belongs to.”
I start to step away, then stop and turn her hand over. The ribbon is still in my palm; I tie it around her wrist, a simple knot, nothing anyone at court can read except me.
“What is it?” she asks.
“A reminder,” I say. “That I’m learning to stay.”
She smiles, and it’s small and devastating and brighter than the lanterns below. “Then I’ll meet you at staying.”
I kiss her knuckles. “One more thing,” I manage, because the boy in the burning house needs to hear it out loud. “I am not worthy of you because you’re a princess.”
Her brow lifts.
“I am worthy of you,” I say, steady now, “because I will spend my life becoming the man who doesn’t flinch when he is.”
Her eyes shine.
“Then come back from patrol and prove it.”
I go. The roof stones are cold under my boots and the sky begins to pale, and for the first time in a long time, the weight in my chest feels like something I’m strong enough to carry—with her hand at my throat when I forget how to breathe, with my hand at her pulse to remember why I still do.
I am wrath. She is light. We are not opposites. We are instructions.
Shattered Trust
Yuna
The palace sings differently at dusk.
Windows breathe, vines whisper, and the bridges hum like harp strings when you cross them. I used to love that sound. It meant home.
Tonight it sounds like a warning.
Minji’s net is in place. Jisoo’s shadows are listening. Taeyang is one breath away on the northern ridge, ribbon tied at my wrist like a promise he’s learning to keep.
I tell myself I’m safe. Then Kaelen finds me.
“Walk with me?” he asks, gloved hands clasped behind his back—formality where there used to be ease. His smile is careful. Everything about him is careful tonight.
“Only a little,” I say. “We have to meet Seori at moonrise.”
We take the archway path that overlooks the mirror lake, past the lantern sugar-plums and the tooth-white lilies that open for moonlight. We’ve walked this route a thousand times. We learned to sword-fight here. We cheated curfew here. We hid from mourning here.
“Do you remember,” Kaelen says, “the night we jumped from the Star Bridge and your mother pretended not to notice?”
“She noticed,” I laugh. “She just didn’t want to give us the satisfaction of punishing us.”
“You were always brave,” he says. “Braver than me.”
We stop under a canopy of night-bloom wisteria. A wind glides through. The lanterns tilt, whispering. Everything smells like old stories.
“Kaelen,” I say, because I hear that carefulness again, “what is it?”
He looks at me then, really looks. And I see it. Grief. Fear. Something like resolve.
