He studied me the way he would a battlefield. “You were born of court and covenant. You were made for duty. And yet you chose filth. You let a demon lay claim to the blood of a queen.”
“I chose love,” I said, quietly. “And love did not unmake me.”
“Love,” he repeated, as if trying on a foreign word. “What you call love is a fever. It will pass.”
“It won’t.”
For a moment the mask slipped. Something like rage lit his eyes; something like fear lived beneath it. Then the mask returned, immaculate.
“You will return to your station,” the King said, each syllable precise, “and you will submit to the warding rite. The bond will be silenced. Your future will be secured.”
“No.”
He did not blink.
“Then hear my alternative.”
The chain tightened until I had to swallow to breathe.
“You will present yourself at dawn as Princess of the Summer Court,” my father said, “or I will put your demon down like the dog he is.”
The chamber did not gasp. Itstilled—a lake under ice, waiting for the crack.
“Do you understand me, Yuna?” he asked, almost gentle. “Choose the crown, or I will choose the blade.”
My heart didn’t crack. Ittore.
“You would kill him to keep me.”
“I would kill anything that endangers this realm,” he said. “Even your illusion.”
I wanted to scream. Instead I said, very softly,
“He is not the danger here.”
Before he could answer, the herald’s staff struck the marble.
“Envoys at the gate!” the voice rang, thin and bright. “Delegation under truce from the demon court.”
My father’s fingers curled on the arm of his throne. “Curious timing.”
The doors opened on a tide of whispers. Four figures crossed the span of glass: Seori, head high and iron steady. Rheon, shadow-crowned, rage banked like a blade in a scabbard. Jisoo, calm and lethal, parchment cradled like a verdict. And behind them My lungs forgot how to breathe.
Taeyang.
No armor, no crown, just a dark coat, scarred hands, eyes like embers strangled in snow. He stopped at the line Seori marked with the edge of her boot. He didn’t bow. He didn’t breathe. He only found me.
The bond was still muffled, but itkickedlike a trapped bird. The ribbon knot he’d tied around my wrist the night before—stay—warmed under the ward, stubborn and violet, proof that something of us lived even here.
My father spoke first.
“You come with a flag and an army in your eyes.”
Rheon answered, smooth steel.
“We come with a writ.” Jisoo stepped forward, unsealing parchment that smelled like old dust and blood.
“An order, Your Majesty, bearing your hand. Extermination. House Korr. Witnessed by three councils and a scribe who never quite learned how to die.”
