“Go to him.” His knuckles whitened on his sword. “Save him. Or we lose the only honest thing that ever happened to this court.”
Guards surged at his flanks. He moved like the day we learned to fence under the Star Bridge—economy and grace anddesperation. Two went down. A third snagged his pauldron. He tore free, planted himself, blade steady, back straight. Prepared to die not for a king, but for a choice.
“Kaelen,” the King warned, and power bled into his voice, cold and absolute. “Put down your sword.”
“It’s the only thing I have left that’s mine.” Kaelen didn’t lower the point. “And I’m using it to buy her time.”
The bond tugged like a tide. On the field, Taeyang clawed at his chest; heat shimmered; Rheon staggered, shadow-cage buckling. Seori sprinted for the stairs, hair unbraiding like a banner. Minji’s whistle needled the sky—Violet, balcony, now.
“Go,” Kaelen said again, softer this time. “Before I change my mind about being brave.”
I ran.
The balcony rail was a white-bleeding wall of blossoms. I split them with a thought; honey-sweet petals rushed past like snow. The drop was obscene—stone, banners, air—but the garden answered. Vines surged, thickening into a lattice that caught my boots and flexed like living stairs. I took them two, three at a time, breath tearing my chest, the ward’s broken hum behind me turning into shouts, steel, Father’s voice slicing the air like a decree that could still make me small.
No.
I hit the landing. Seori met me halfway up the inner stair, eyes bright, mouth set. “Yun—”
“I’m going to him.”
“Good.” She shoved a small glass ampoule into my hand—liquid the color of broken dawn. “Crack it on your palm whenyou reach him. Jisoo thinks it’ll snarl the cup’s rune long enough to get through. Thencallhim.”
“I’ve been calling,” I said, and the raggedness of it shamed me.
Seori’s hand squeezed my shoulder, fierce and fast. “Call like you’re not asking permission.” Then she was past me, blades singing, racing for the balcony and the father I wanted to unmake.
I ran again.
The palace stairs became the garden steps became the courtyard slop turned battlefield. Heat hit my face; ash clung to my teeth; the air tasted like regret and iron. I sprinted along the path Minji had drawn inside my palm the night before—under the arch, right of the fountain, cut the low wall, duck the breach—until the world narrowed to a single, impossible person in the eye of a storm he never asked to be.
Taeyang.
He was ruinous. Beautiful in the way an avalanche is beautiful one breath before it carries you away. Shadow locked around him, cracking; Rheon’s hands on his shoulders; Jisoo above, warding arrow rain with wings that bled at the tips; Minji a streak of intent at the perimeter, knives singing.
I pressed the ampoule to my palm. It shattered, stinging. Light crawled up my arm—old fae, older than crowns, stubborn as dandelions between flagstones. I pushed through the last rank of guards and into the heat.
“Taeyang.” My voice didn’t ride the air. Itstruckit. “Look at me.”
His head jerked. His eyes—gods—were full of everything he’d been taught to carry alone. Wrath, yes. But also the small boy who learned to survive by burning first.
“I’m here,” I said, the words shaking. “Come back.”
He snarled—at the chain, at the cup, at the brand under his bones, atme. The sound cracked the world. My knees almost went. I planted my feet in the mud and lifted my marked palm.
“Enough,” I told every spell pretending to be law. “He isnotyours.”
The light jumped from my skin to his. The rune under his sternumscreamed.The incline the cup had carved shivered, then bucked. For a heartbeat, the leash lost the shape of a leash and became a line between us, bright and hurting and ours.
“Stay,” I said, a sob and a command. “Please.”
His breath hitched. Heat wavered. The white fire guttered, flared—held.Behind me, the palace roared. Guards. Orders. A king shouting a word that used to be mine. I didn’t look back. All of me was facing forward now. Toward the ruin who chose to kneel earlier because loving me taught him how. Toward the boy who never had anyone teach him a softer word thanwrathand learned it anyway.
“Come back,” I whispered, stepping into the cage, into the heat, into him. “Not angry. Not empty. Just… you.”
Somewhere above, steel rang on steel and Kaelen yelled my name like an apology he’d spend the rest of his life paying down. Seori’s war-cry cut the balcony. Minji’s whistle scythed the chaos. Jisoo’s wings broke the light.
I reached for him.
