“An answer,” he says, because he can’t bear the other word in my mouth.
“And where will you be?” The question comes out small, and I hate it for being honest. “Don’t say ‘one breath away’ if breath means miles.”
He exhales like it hurts.
“Front line to the north with Rheon. We punch a hole, draw your father’s eyes away while Minji moves supplies and Jisoo sabotages the east wards. We make a spectacle there so the real work can happen here.”
I nod even as the room tilts.
“And after?”
“After,” he says, and the word is a cliff, “I come back to you.”
I want to believe that so hard my bones ache with it. But belief and war share a spine.
“They told me to watch,” I say. “To keep my hands pretty on the railing while I let the court measure my composure. I am to be proof our house is unshaken.”
“You’re not proof,” he says. “You’re purpose.”
“Don’t feed me poetry to make this easier,” I snap, and then I’m crying, furious with myself because this was supposed to be the day I learned how not to. Tears burn hot down my face; the chain flickers brighter, like it wants to translate my fear into something useful for the crown.
“Yun.” His hands lift—stop—lift again. “May I?”
I nod and he wipes my tears with a thumb that shakes. He doesn’t shush me. He doesn’t tell me to be strong. He lets my grief have a face and doesn’t look away.
“I am afraid,” I say, words tumbling. “I am afraid he’ll take you from me the way he takes everything, and I’ll be stuck on a balcony pretending that I don’t know how to scream.”
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” he answers.
“I don’t want to be left behind.” I hear the girl I used to be, the one who leapt from the Star Bridge and trusted the water to rise. “Don’t leave me again. Please.”
His face goes soft and wrecked at the same time. He takes my hand and presses it to his chest, over the mark that mirrors mine. His heart is a hammer.
“I will walk away from you,” he says, steady, “only to walk back.” His voice thins. “If I’m late, it’s because I’m carrying what tried to kill us.”
“It could kill you,” I whisper, and my fear finally finds its name. “He could.”
“He’s already tried,” Taeyang says. “I’m still here.”
“Promise me,” I say. “Not with pretty words. With something ugly enough to be true.”
He nods, inches closer until his forehead rests against mine, until our breaths learn each other again. He speaks in the old vow of his house, low and rough, and I feel the syllables thrum through bone.
“I will be the wall,” he murmurs, “and if the wall breaks, I’ll be the ground you land on. If the ground gives, I’ll be the hand that pulls you out. If death comes, it will hit me first. And if it takes me, I will still be facing you.”
I bite my lip until I taste blood.
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” he says, and there’s the ghost of a smile. “It’s love.”
I laugh, broken. He takes something from his pocket and folds my fingers around it. Warm. Small. Heavy.
“What is it?”
“A charm,” he says. “From the old house. My mother sewed it into my collar once and called it luck. It wasn’t. But it’s stubborn. Like me.” He closes my hand tighter. “Wear it. If the wards crack, you burn this before you burn yourself.”
“Taeyang—”
