“You muffled the bond,” I say. “You ringed us.”
“Only for a moment,” he says. “So he doesn’t come in burning.”
He’s shaking. So am I.
“Please,” Kaelen whispers. “Don’t make me force you.”
“You’re my friend,” I say. The words taste like blood and honey. “There is nothing you could force that would come out clean.”
His eyes go bright.
“I can’t watch you be dragged to a war because you loved the wrong man.”
I laugh, and it’s a sound I don’t recognize.
“You would drag me yourself.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It is.”
He closes his eyes, and when he opens them, duty has eaten the boy I knew. He nods to the Sentinels.
“By order of the Crown,” he says, voice shaking, “I claim protective custody of the Princess Yuna of the Summer Court.”
Light flares. Both Sentinels lift their hands. Silver thread spills from their palms, singing like frost. It coils around my wrists, soft as silk, cold as stone. A ward-net—old magic, older than our friendship—tightening, tightening, until it kisses the mark on my collarbone and I bite back a sob.
“Don’t,” I say—too late.
Everything stutters. The bond dims to a candle at the bottom of a well. The ribbon at my wrist goes quiet.
“It won’t hurt,” Kaelen says. A lie even he can’t swallow. “It will… quiet things. Long enough to—”
“To what?” I hiss. “Make me palatable?”
The Sentinels move to lead me toward the door. I rip free on instinct, power striking out like a storm-slicked blade. Vines on the parapet explode into bloom; the lanterns surge, burst, and snow the path with glass. One Sentinel slams into the balustrade—alive, breathing, out. The other raises a shield and braces. Kaelen doesn’t draw steel. He takes a step into my path, palms up, eyes wet.
“Yuna,” he says, broken now, “if you call him, he will kill the King. He will die doing it. You know he will.”
“Then maybe the King shouldn’t have murdered a boy’s whole world,” I say.
He bows his head like I’ve prayed something he’s not allowed to answer.
“Move,” I tell him.
“I can’t.”
“Kaelen.”
“I love you,” he blurts, the kind of confession that belongs to a softer universe. “I have since we were children. Maybe not the way you wanted to be loved, but enough to stand in front of you now and be hated if it keeps you breathing.”
It lands like a blade I didn’t see.
“Love without choice isn’t love,” I whisper. “It’s a leash.”
His tears finally fall.
“Then leash me and call it even.”
