“Kaelen,” Minji breathes, the name a bruise.
I nod once.
Seori steps into the ring and closes her eyes.
“It’s keyed to the inner palace. The old wing. The chamber the King keeps for… corrections.”
“Severance,” I snarl, and the glass under my hands fractures.
Jisoo crouches beside the circle, fingertips hovering over the ash.
“Transport wards leave a shadow. I can track the echo for a few hours, maybe less.” He glances up. “But getting in won’t be a matter of stealth. He’ll be waiting. With law behind him.”
“Law,” I spit. “He wrote orders to wipe out my family. He can write a thousand more. I’ll write the last one in blood.”
“Taeyang.” Rheon’s voice tightens, steel sheathed, not soft. “If you storm the palace now, you’ll start a war you can’t finish alone. And he’ll use you as proof you’re exactly the monster he warned them about.”
I’m already moving. He steps into my path. I don’t shove him. I want to. Seori’s hand finds my wrist. Not a cage. An anchor.
“Breathe,” she says, the word a command I’ve learned won’t break me. “We are getting her back. Hear the part where I saidwe.”
The bond flares—distant, bruised. Yuna is alive. Fear spikes through me anyway.
“She was right there,” I whisper. “I touched her. I”
“I know.” Seori squeezes once. “You get her back by choosing a door we can all fit through.”
“What door?” I growl. “He sits on a throne made of rules, and every rule is built to break me.”
Minji straightens, eyes already mapping.
“Then we make the rule work for us.” She looks to Rheon. “We bring a banner. We ask audience.”
Rheon’s mouth lifts at one corner.
“A white flag in a black court.”
“Not white.” Jisoo pulls a folded parchment from his coat and sets it, very gently, on the broken table. Wax seal. Old. Fae crest. “We bring awrit.The extermination order from the High Archive. The one the King signed against your blood. We put itin front of his Council and call it what it is—an act of war he hid under ceremony.”
My vision narrows.
“You have it.”
“I have a copy,” Jisoo says. “Authenticated. Enough to force a hearing. Enough to make him think twice about trying to sever a royal-bonded princess while representatives of another realm stand witness.”
Seori nods, catching the rhythm.
“We offer terms he can sell to his own fear.”
I hate that I understand. I hate that I’m already agreeing.
“Terms,” I grind out.
Minji ticks them off, clean and ruthless.
“Immediate, unharmed release of Yuna into neutral custody. Public suspension of all severance rites. A joint task—yourtask—sanctioned by the Crown to remove the House Korr uncles and their loyalists from the borders. In return, the demon realm recognizes the treaty line, withdraws active hunt parties, and delivers proof of each uncle’s defeat to the Fae Council.”
My stomach turns.
