The word hangs between us, heavy as the chain.
“I am not merciful,” I say. “I amresponsible.And responsibility looks like this.”
I lift my hand. The bloom-light gathers at my fingertips, then threads into the chain in Kaelen’s grip. Ivy-iron twines tight; star-silver glows.
“By my word as Queen, I banish you from my sight and my soil. You will not enter our borders, our houses, our dreams. No door will know your knock. No mirror will hold your face. The land will turn your steps aside. The wind will not carry your name. You will live.” My throat burns. “Butyou will not see me again.”
For a heartbeat he’s the father who taught me to braid my hair and hold my chin high. Then he’s the King again—proud,furious, already rewriting this into a story where he’s the injured party.
“I love you,” I tell him anyway, because I won’t leave that word for someone else to ruin. “And I will not let you hurt me anymore.”
The chain tightens like a spell agreeing.
Kaelen’s jaw works. He looks at me—not as his princess, not even as his queen, but as the friend he broke and is still trying to unbreak.
“Your Majesty,” he says, voice hoarse. “Your will?”
“Escort him to the Veil,” I order, steady. “And then come home.”
Kaelen’s eyes close for a breath. When they open, there’s a new oath living there. He bows—once, formal—and turns. Guards fall in around him. The King doesn’t fight. He looks at me like a man memorizing a door he won’t walk through again.
“Yuna,” he says one last time.
“May the realm be kinder to you than you taught it to be,” I answer. “Go.”
They take him.
The room exhales. The vines dim to a softer glow. The bowls settle. Somewhere outside, a bell tolls that isn’t quite mourning and isn’t quite relief. It sounds like change.
My knees give. Taeyang is already there, catching me without jarring the stitches, lowering me back to the cot like I’m made of ceremony and not skin.
“That was—” His voice breaks. He tries again. “That was a queen.”
I try to smile and end up crying instead.
“That was a daughter who ran out of ways to be small.”
He kisses my knuckles again, eyes bright and wrecked.
“You loved him. And you let him go.”
“I chose us,” I say, and the worduswarms the cold places enough that I can breathe all the way down. “I choose us. Every day the realm lets me keep choosing.”
Seori’s palm lands on my ankle—light, grounding. Minji wipes her face with the back of her hand and glares at me for making her cry in public. Jisoo rests a wingtip against the edge of my mattress like a benediction he can’t say out loud. Rheon gives me the kind of nod kings give only when they’ve watched someone do the job and not flinch.
I press my hand over the new crescent under my bandage. It answers with a double beat—mine, then his, then ours.
Cracked, but still breathing.
“I’m not a fuse,” I whisper, more to myself than to anyone who can hear. “I’m the one who decides what burns.”
Taeyang’s forehead drops to mine. His breath is a vow, warm and shaking.
“And I’ll be the wall that keeps the fire from eating you.”
“Not a wall,” I correct, closing my eyes as the pain fades to a bearable low throb. “A home.”
He huffs a laugh that sounds like surviving.
