I grind my teeth. I breathe. I count exits the way she told me to count breaths.
And then—
A white fire climbs my veins. My skin turns into a drummy heat. My jaw locks. The air tastes of iron and first snow and the old house burning and the first time I learned how to live by becoming something no one could love.
“Taeyang,” Seori says, very calm, very close. “Stay. With. Us.”
I want to answer. I want to sayI choose you over this; I choose her over this; I choose living over burning. My mouth won’t shape it. The peace-cup’s incline tilts; the Korr-brand tugs; Daesin’s laugh drills; the valley tightens to a tunnel; the tunnel fills with light.
I drop to one knee and dig my fingers into the mud like I can anchor myself to the earth by force.
It isn’t enough.
I raise my head. The world has edges it didn’t have a breath ago. Every heartbeat in the valley is a drum I could split. Every breath is fuel. Every face is a shape I could learn to end.
And suddenly my body begins to burn, and I know my wrath is coming undone and I can’t stop it.
War Drums and Warnings
Minji
War ate the horizon and then came for the ground under my feet.
The northern ridge was a throat roaring itself raw—steel on steel, ward-light cracking, shadow gnawing at sun. My signals threaded the chaos: two fingers, palm flat—shift left; blade tapped twice on my vambrace—archers down; a low whistle cutting smoke—run.Seori’s braid flashed like a metronome of mercy. Rheon moved like a storm held together by will. Jisoo—gods—Jisoo flew the way guilt imagines redemption looks: too fast, too bright, too ready to burn for it.
We were holding. Barely. And then Taeyang broke. It started like a fever lifting. He went still in the dead center of the churn, head tilted the way a predator listens to a forest it already owns. His fingers flexed. Heat slicked the air around him. Even the loyalists who wanted to die on his teeth hesitated.
“Taeyang,” I called, useless against the noise. “One breath away—remember?”
He didn’t hear me. Something old rose through him—white fire along his veins, a glow under his skin like a forge someone forgot to bank. He looked up, and the field changed shape. Every heartbeat became a drum. Every breath became fuel. Every face became a problem his body knew how to solve.
He moved. Not like a man. Like consequence.
Three loyalists went down before my mind caught up—artery, tendon, throat. He didn’t look back to see if they learned the lesson. He didn’t look anywhere. Hefeltand answered. The Korr brand under his breastbone had woken; the king’s peace-cup had carved a slope; wrath had found both and called it home.
“Minji—” Jisoo landed hard at my side, wing-bones flaring, eyes dark as a closed chapel. “Stay behind me.”
“Like hell,” I snapped, already moving, already counting the distance to Taeyang, the angles, the ways to get in without dying for nothing. He had taken Garran; he had taken Vorren; Daesin was crawling away with half a mouth and more hate than blood. Now Taeyang turned on whatever moved. A fae sentry screamed. A demon mercenary folded. Friend and foe were justmotionto him.
“Taeyang!” I whistled the sharp, slicing call that meansstand down. He didn’t even flinch.
Jisoo’s hand closed around my pauldron and yanked me back so hard my teeth clicked.
“No,” he said, and his voice wasn’t gentle. “If you step into that, you’ll make Yuna watch you die.”
“I can reach him.” My throat hurt. “He hearsstrategy—he hearsme—”
“He hearshunger,” Jisoo cut in. “And a king’s command ringing in his bones. Let Rheon anchor him. Let Seori box him. You go in and you’re kindling.”
Taeyang cut a line through six men like the world had offended him by being soft. Fire blossomed where his boots touched, not flame—heat,the kind that turns steel into letters. The ribbon at his wrist flashed violet and went dull again, strangled under whatever magic had its thumbs in his throat. I looked up at the balcony.
Yuna was there small as a prayer, hands braced on the warding rail, the chain at her wrist bright enough to hurt. I watched her mouth form his name. I watched the bondkickand find glass. She didn’t cry. She leaned forward like leaning could be a rope.
“Taeyang!” I tried again, because hope is a bad habit. He pivoted so fast the air snapped. For a heartbeat, those ember-dark eyes landed on me—sawme—and then skated off, blank, like he’d looked straight through a mirror and found nothing worth saving.
Rheon waded toward him, shadow-armor peeling off his shoulders.
“Wrathborn,” he called, low and steady. “Eyes. On. Me.”
