lost in a world made out of words & daydreams ☁️🪶

The laughter that usually drifts through the great room disappears first. Then the music, no revelry, no feasts. Doors begin closing more softly. Servants lower their voices until conversations become whispers carried carefully through the endless corridors of white stone. Even the city bells seem reluctant to ring.

Only one constant remains: the sound of hurried footsteps. Someone is always hurrying somewhere, bringing another physician, another councilor, another messenger, another report no one wishes to deliver. You learn quickly that different tragedies have their own rhythm, and this one wakes long before dawn and continues well into the night.

Hyunsoo survives the first night. Then nearly dies before the next. The physicians and Maesters speak in circles, careful not to promise what they cannot guarantee. They have reported his ribs are shattered, puncturing through the skin of his chest, his lungs badly bruised, rattling with each shallow breath. One leg is broken in three places where the frightened horse had come down upon him after throwing him in the mud.

“The next few days are critical.” You hear that sentence so often it begins to lose meaning. Critical. Everything feels critical; the kingdom, the court, the young prince who suddenly isn’t merely a prince anymore.

Jimin disappears. Differently than he had before. Now, he isn’t giving you space by choice, but by demand of his presence elsewhere. You catch glimpses of him the way one catches sight of a deer slipping between trees—briefly, unexpectedly, before he’s gone once more.

You see him across a council chamber, just before the doors are closed. A flash of him descending a staircase with ministers at his heels. And there, standing outside his father’s room while doctors and Maesters come and go carrying bloodstained cloths and exhausted expressions.

The crown does not change heads. But…everything else does. Council meetings begin with people looking toward Jimin before anyone else speaks. Generals seek his approval, judges request his guidance, foreign envoys bow a fraction lower than they had last week.

One by one, responsibilities settle onto his shoulders with frightening ease, as if they have been waiting all along, like the kingdom had rehearsed this moment long before it came to be. And all you can do is watch.

💝💝💝

Jimin

One moment, Jimin was standing in the spring sunshine, watching you smile for the first time in a long time. The next—

There’s been an accident.

Everything after that becomes fragments. The bow hitting the ground behind him, white blossoms blurry in the edges of his vision…blood, too much blood. Jimin could barely hear the boy over his own heartbeat.

The King. His father. For one impossible, childish moment, his mind refused the sentence. It wasn’t possible for his father to be injured. Father was a mountain, a steady hand on Jimin’s shoulder after a failed lesson. The voice that filled the council chambers without ever needing to shout, the man who rode through storms because kings are expected to arrive regardless of the weather. He survived battles, assassination attempts, winter fevers…years of bearing a crown heavier than anyone ever admits.

Kings simply do not fall from horses. They do not bleed; they do not…

Jimin doesn’t remember crossing the castle, nor the flurry of faces he passed as he did so. All he remembers is someone shouting for the physicians and the Maesters, the guards stepping out of his way as he reached the antechamber to the royal apartments, and the sting of cold air giving way to suffocating warmth as he pushed his way inside.

It was the smell that reached him first. Herbs, burning oil, the undeniable heavy metallic stench of blood. It coated the back of his throat even before he saw the bed; saw his father lying unnaturally still beneath white linen that was quickly staining red.

Jimin blinks away the memory, forcing himself to return his attention to Grand Chancellor Minho, his father’s most trusted advisor, sitting across the council table from him.

“What are your orders, Your Highness?”

Your Highness, not Your Grace. The change in honorifics came more sudden than he realized, from one day to the next, the court adapting and moving ever onward as it must. Decisions need to be made, expectations met.

Should the city gates remain open? Should tomorrow’s audiences be canceled? What message—if any—should be sent to the outlying Lords? Should the Council of Laurels be called into session? The royal physicians request additional supplies; where should they come from? The captain of the guard has asked permission to double security; is that necessary? The chamberlain wishes to postpone next month’s trade summit with the Western Kingdom of Mandar, but Jimin is fairly certain their envoy is already well on their way, considering the trip alone takes almost two months.

What are your orders?

He answers because someone must. They are answers he has been preparing to give his entire life. Jimin grew in knowledge of languages, diplomacy, military history, law, economics… everything he would need to rule Baledryn one day.

So, Jimin makes decisions. Do not cancel the audiences; the people need to see that even in the face of tragedy, the Kingdom remains strong. Double the palace guard, simply as a means to keep the retinues occupied; less time for them to grow somber. Send word to the outlying Lords that Hyunsoo had an accident and is in recovery. Do not announce the severity—not yet.

There is nothing more to do except wait. Wait, and make decisions. Jimin hopes he doesn’t make the wrong one. He hopes every answer sounds confident, measured, precise. On the outside, he remains calm, but on the inside, he feels like he’s suddenly a child again.

The royal chambers are unnaturally quiet. Candles flicker softly against the stone walls. Jimin’s father sleeps—or perhaps merely lies unconscious; it’s difficult to tell. Bandages wrap his chest so completely they rise and fall only faintly with each strained breath. His face has gone pale beneath the days-old stubble shadowing his jaw.

He looks smaller somehow. Not physically, but spiritually. As though the force that has always filled every room has retreated somewhere unreachable. Jimin sits in the chair his mother hardly leaves. It only sits idle now because he insisted she needed sleep; it’s been nearly a week, far too long. He fears for her constitution; her heart.

His father’s hands rest atop the blankets; calloused, scarred. The same hands that taught Jimin how to hold a sword, how to grip reins, how to steady his breathing before addressing the court. Jimin reaches out, his fingers gingerly closing around one hand.

It feels warm, thank the gods. Still warm—alive.

A throat clears softly behind Jimin. “Pardon, Your Highness,” Chancellor Minho says quietly. “I’ve prepared this morning’s council agenda.”

Silence festers, the expectations writhing like worms in Jimin’s gut. Finally, he slips his hand from his father’s and stands. With one final look, Jimin turns and follows Minho into the hall. The Chancellor doesn’t comment or pry, just falls into step beside Jimin as he starts towards the Central Wing.

“I thought I would have more time,” Jimin says after a moment. Minho says nothing, leaving room for Jimin’s thoughts. “He always said we’d rule together for years. He promised he would be there to guide me through my first few years.” Jimin can’t help the hollow laugh that escapes him. As though fathers could control time, as if kings are exempt from mortality.

Minho finally speaks. “Your father prepared you well.”

Jimin closes his eyes for a moment, warring against the raging ache swelling in his chest. “I know.”

“He believed—believes—in you.” Jimin is glad for Minho’s correction, the acknowledgment that his father is still alive, still able to believe in him.

“Thank you,” Jimin whispers.

“You are ready, Jimin, no matter what comes next.”

Cutting through one of the inner courtyard cloisters, Jimin notes that dawn has begun painting the eastern horizon pale gold. Around him and Minho, the palace is waking, or pretending to.

Just before entering the Central Wing, a young page nearly collides with Jimin before stumbling into a hurried bow.

“My apologies, Your Highness.”

Jimin nods absently. The boy doesn’t move; instead, he waits.

“What is it?” Jimin asks after a moment.

The boy swallows audibly. “The kitchens wish to know whether breakfast should still be served to the council.”

Minho sighs. “It’s my turn to apologize, Your Highness. I had meant to sort this before daybreak.”

With a wave of his hand, Jimin dismisses Minho’s concern. “It’s alright, Chancellor.” He turns to address the boy. “Yes. Please inform them that breakfast should be served as usual. Thank you.”

Because, no matter what, the kingdom continues. It doesn’t pause because princes are frightened. It doesn’t stop because sons wish desperately to remain sons a little longer. It simply…moves, with or without them.

The boy bows deeply. “At once, Your Highness.” Then he runs off.

Another problem solved, another decision made. Jimin stands with Minho in the corridor for a long moment. Morning sunlight spills through stained glass, scattering patches of sapphire and ruby across the marble floor. He remembers standing in this very hall as a child, no more than eight years old, hiding behind one of the columns after accidentally breaking a ceremonial vase.

Father had found him within minutes.

“There you are,” he’d laughed. “I wondered where my future king had disappeared to.”

“I don’t want to be king,” Jimin had sniffled.

His father had smiled then. He knelt until they were eye level. “You don’t have to want the crown every day,” Father had said.

“Then when?”

“Only on the days your people need someone willing to wear it.”

At eight years old, Jimin had thought it sounded so noble. Now, in his mid-twenties, standing in a silent palace where everyone suddenly looks to him before looking to anyone else…he finally understands what his father never said aloud. Some crowns are not accepted; they simply arrive—whether you’re ready to wear them or not.

💝💝💝

The palace, following Hyunsoo’s accident, feels impossibly small and brittle. It’s a ridiculous thought, as there are hundreds of rooms, endless corridors, gardens so vast you could spend an afternoon wandering them and still discover some forgotten alcove tucked behind ivy. Yet, somehow, every wall seems to press closer as each day passes.

You retreat to your rooms each day after breakfast because there is nowhere else for you to go. Books cannot hold your attention, and the stars can only bring so much comfort, and only when they’re in the sky. Even the letter you received from Maester Corvin remains discarded on your desk, unable to bring you the joy it had before.

With a sharp sigh, you begin rearranging the brass instruments on your desk, simply needing something to occupy your hands. Your small armillary sphere, a few celestial charts, and an old sundial, a compass that didn’t survive the journey in your luggage. You set it aside as a reminder to seek out a Maester to see if they can fix it. Journals get shuffled around in your idle frustration, revealing your precious astrolabe.

It fits in your palm, cool to the touch. You find yourself automatically turning it, the quiet metallic clicks bringing only a modicum of comfort. Your thoughts are elsewhere, on Jimin, on the king, on a life you no longer recognize.

“I don’t know who I’m supposed to be anymore,” you whisper to the empty room.

You mean to set the instrument back on your desk, but with all the papers and charts covering the surface, you misjudge. The astrolabe wobbles before toppling off the edge, sending a shower of loose papers across the floor. It strikes the stone floor with a sharp crack, the sound echoing painfully through the room.

 You freeze, then immediately drop to your knees. The outer ring has bent, and the facing plate has come away from the mater. You curse yourself for being so careless as you gather the broken instrument in your hands. Something catches your eye as you assess the damage: a small sliver of ribbon. You carefully slide the plate, letting it swivel on the small screw still holding it to the mater.

There, nestled within the small space between the mater and the face plate—where you tucked it away long ago—sits a frayed length of golden ribbon. Once bright as sunshine, now softened by time into the color of old honey. You simply stare…then the memory rushes over you all at once.

You were sixteen, your brand new astrolabe held tightly in your fist, as you scrambled your way to the top of the old watch tower beside your family’s new home. It wasn’t your first time climbing the watch tower since your family moved north to Thornmere, but it was your first time climbing to the top with a purpose other than simply because.

It was no secret you loved the stars, and the watch tower just so happened to provide the highest vantage point. As you were sliding over the top crenelation, your hand caught on a jagged piece of rock and the next thing you knew, something was pulling free at your wrist. With desperation, you snagged at the freed ribbon, suddenly overwhelmed with sadness at its loss.

The ribbon was now too short to retie around your wrist, and the thought of allowing the wind to take the length of gold—the promise—was unbearable. With nowhere else to put it, the one time your skirts didn’t contain a sewn-in pocket, and not exactly thrilled about having to climb all the way back down the watch tower simply to put the ribbon away somewhere, you looked around for a safe space to keep it for now.

Only the watchtower was bare; nothing had been established yet, since your family had only recently taken over. Your fingers clenched around your astrolabe, and almost as if the action sparked an idea, you looked at the instrument with renewed awe. “I think,” you had said to yourself softly. “Yes, I think you’ll do just fine.”

It took only a few tries, working the broken end of the ribbon against one of the metal seams, but eventually you got the ribbon to slide in, feeding the rest of the length in until it disappeared completely. The astrolabe came with a set of maintenance tools, so you knew you’d be able to remove the ribbon later. Only, you never did, having forgotten about it in your excitement over the instrument itself.

Your memory shifts to another night before the watchtower. A hayloft filled with a scattering of stars spilling through the little eyelet window. The warm smell of horses and fresh straw, a ribbon tied around your wrist. A promise that you made, another sworn before the old gods and the new.

You had believed Jimin so completely, but you still wanted to hear him say it again. To swear it just once more. Not because he was a prince, but because he simply was Jimin—the boy who listened patiently while you explained the movement of the stars, who had always looked at you as though every impossible dream was already within reach. The boy you loved…

With a blink, you bring yourself back to the present. Your vision blurs, the ribbon trembling between your fingers. It wasn’t a lie, none of it. He had chosen you, just as you made him promise to do.

Weeks you’ve spent mourning the loss of your future, your apprenticeship and the observatory, the carefully imagined life you had crafted for yourself. Every ounce of your anger had wrapped itself so tightly around that grief that you had mistaken it for the whole of your heart.

But, grief is not the same as truth. Beneath it, something else was waiting. Like the stars behind storm clouds, patient and silent. You grip the ribbon tight. Everything Jimin has done, keeping his distance, writing to Maester Corvin, seeing to your every need…

The knot inside your chest loosens. Not because you no longer mourn the life you lost—you do, and always will—but because you realize another truth that is just as real. You love Jimin. Not because you are his wife nor because of a promise made years ago.

You love him because somewhere between ribbon promises and childish vows, between years of letters, quiet acts of kindness, and all the future that never came to pass…you never stopped. You had simply mistaken your grief for an absence of love.

A tear slips down your cheek, then another. You find yourself laughing softly through them. You’ve been so foolish, so stubborn. There are a million things you wish you could do, the foremost being to make things right with Jimin. You just have to find the right moment.

You see Jimin properly for the first time almost two weeks after the accident. Only because you happen to round the corner outside the council chambers at precisely the same moment he emerges. He stops and so do you. For a heartbeat, neither of you speak. He looks…different. Not older, as that would imply a long passage of time. This is something else, as though exhaustion has hollowed him from the inside out. 

The shadows beneath his eyes have deepened into bruised crescents, and his hair refuses to stay neatly combed despite someone’s obvious efforts to tame it. His jaw carries the faint shadow of a beard he has forgotten—or lacked the time—to shave. But it is his eyes that cleave the breath from your lungs.

Jimin has always had kind, warm eyes. They’ve always been earnest, full of hope and confidence. Now they look far away, like someone standing on the opposite shore of a river too wide to cross.

“Hi,” you say softly, uncertain of the right words to speak to him.

“Hello.”

Your fingers twist together in front of you, and you silently curse the sudden awkwardness that infiltrates your bubble. “A-are…are you sleeping?” Your lips press into a thin line, instantly contrite with your question. Of course he’s not sleeping; you can plainly see that.

Jimin laughs, the sound soft and sad, lacking any humor at all. “Perhaps not as much as I should.” He sighs. “It’s…difficult. There is so much that needs doing.”

“I could help.” The offer comes instantly, almost unbidden. “That is—” you consider backtracking, but forge on anyway “—if there is anything I could help with.”

Jimin considers you for a moment, silence stretching thin between you. Finally, he nods. “I will talk it over with Chancellor Minho and see if there are things your expertise may help with.”

You might have only become a princess recently, but you’ve always been part of this life in some way. Navigating politics, overseeing trade deals, seeing to the allocation of goods to the city—all things you have experience with. It was part of your studies, sitting beside Father and watching him care for his province.

Someone calls his name from within the council chambers. Not Jimin, but Your Highness. Like a second skin, duty takes over, turning him into an entirely different person. He glances back at the heavy doors, his shoulders sagging just a fraction. An apologetic smile slides across his mouth.

You nod knowingly. “We’ll speak again soon?” You don’t mean it as a question, but it comes out as one all the same, your uncertainty holding you in a vice-like grip. It’s hard to watch, the way responsibility steals him away before he can say anything else.

Watching Jimin walk away does something to you. Something that, from the moment you found out what you came to the Capitol for, you hadn’t thought would be possible. You find yourself wanting to embrace your new role. If only to show Jimin that he is not alone, that this mantle isn’t his alone to bear.

You walk slowly along the winding path, slippers whispering over pale gravel. The Queen in the rose garden, you discovered, after asking after her in the kitchens, a place you know is always alive with comings and goings, the staff constantly aware of where they may be needed at a moment's notice. The scent of roses hangs in the air, mingling with the damp earth from the rain that fell overnight in a cloying medley that contrasts to the suffocating somberness that even the gardens can’t escape.

The fountains still murmur over carved stone, bees drift between blossoms, and the climbing roses continue their determined ascent across marble trellises, but the gardens seem drained of color. Spring has arrived in earnest, the first blooms opening exactly as they are meant to, but you’re certain the yellows, pinks, and oranges should be brighter. It’s all subdued, as though grief is infiltrating the very soil.

A small pot of jasmine tea sits untouched on the wrought iron table. One delicate cup has been poured but never lifted. Pink rose petals have collected across the tabletop, some floating silently in the forgotten tea like tiny boats adrift on amber water. The Queen stares off into the distance, her focus on everything and nothing.

For a long moment, you simply watch her. She looks smaller somehow. Grief has a peculiar way of shrinking even those who wear crowns. The Queen who once commanded every room with effortless dignity now seems almost swallowed by the silence surrounding her.

Exhaustion tugs at the fine lines bracketing her eyes and the downturn of her mouth. She looks like a ghost of the woman you’d been having lunch with every afternoon until the accident. It was always a warm exchange, filled with generous smiles and thinly veiled advice for the future that you more often than not barely listened to.

Now, however, you wish you had paid a little more attention. You need guidance, assurances that you can and will be who Jimin needs right now. Not another person who adds more upon his shoulders, but someone who helps take the weight.

“Pardon, Your Highness.” The hem of the buttercream-colored gown Marta helped you into this morning brushes over the tops of your feet as you spread the skirts wide with your curtsey.

Jimin’s mom is looking at you when you straighten, a soft look gracing her face. “Sweet girl,” she murmurs. “Come, sit with me.” She gestures to the empty seat on the other side of the small table. You obey, settling carefully into the wrought-iron chair. Her eyes drop to the teapot, a frown suddenly blooming on her face. “I would offer you some tea, but it seems that this pot has grown cold.”

“It’s alright. Thank you anyway, Your Highness.”

She gives you a fond, if sad, smile. “Please, it would bring me great pleasure if you would call me Yeongon.”

You dip your chin in acceptance. “Of course.”

The silence that falls isn’t uncomfortable. A breeze stirs overhead, sending another shower of rose petals drifting between you. One lands, joining the others floating in her teacup. She watches it float for a moment before a sad laugh shakes her shoulders.

“I didn’t ask for the tea, but the servants brought it anyway.” She glances up, her eyes sweeping the garden. “Hmm, it seems that after the second cold pot they’ve realized it isn’t the tea I came here for.”

You follow her gaze as it drifts to the side, towards the western wing of the castle. Toward the king’s chambers. Your heart aches for her.

“Has there…has there been any change?”

The Queen is silent for so long that you fear you’ve overstepped. But, finally, she says, “No.” A single word, so brittle…so full of helplessness. “He breathes, but he does not wake.” She swallows. “The Maesters say his spirit is strong, but his body remains weakened. He’s fighting, I know that. Every day he remains with us is a blessing from Oris.” Automatically, her fingers trace the tri-mark over her chest, an ode and silent prayer to the faceless gods who reign by Oris’ side.

“Blessings,” you murmur, finding yourself mirroring her and then adding your own silent, beseeching prayer to the stars. Though you can not see them for the spring sun, you know they are there all the same. Some believe the faceless gods and the stars are one and the same. Maester Corvin has his own theories, beholden to science and alchemy more than gospel and hymns.

“I sit here,” she continues softly, “because if I am within his chambers, I watch every breath. If I’m here—” her eyes find the sky “—I can pretend the next inhale happens whether I’m watching or not.”

The confession settles heavily between you. You hadn’t expected such honesty. Perhaps it is in the face of grief where most all ceremony is stripped away. Leaving queens to simply be wives, regardless of who may be listening.

You fold your hands in your lap, suddenly feeling guilt over seeking out The Queen. When, more than anything, at a time like this, the last thing she probably needs is using her energy to retell you things you already should have listened to.

“If you’ll excuse me, Your Hig—Yeongon—” you correct yourself “—I will leave you to your peace. Is there anything I can send for? A new pot of tea, perhaps?”

Yeongon smiles faintly. “Nonsense. You came here for a reason, sweet girl. Please, stay.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

You laugh once beneath your breath. “It feels so…presumptuous.”

“To seek advice?” she asks, raising a brow.

“To ask someone already carrying so much sorrow to shoulder some of mine as well.”

The Queen studies you quietly. Her eyes are the same shape as Jimin’s, but hers are flecked with gold whereas his are so dark and richly brown they often appear black. “Sweet girl, wife to my son, future Queen,” she adds with a subtle nod, “it has been my experience that grief rarely grows heavier when shared.” A wistful smile curves up one side of her mouth. “Quite the opposite, really. It becomes lighter, less suffocating.”

Your throat tightens. You look down at the thin band on your heart finger. The gold catches the afternoon sunlight. Two weeks ago you grimaced every time you looked at it. Now, you find it quite pretty, even in its simplicity. You twist it gently around your finger, buying time as you find the words you want to say.

Finally, you confess in a whisper, “I’ve been so angry.”

“Understandably,” The Queen murmurs. Your eyes flash to hers, completely caught off guard by her remark. She chuckles softly. “I notice more than you may think, sweet girl. I know what it is to be a woman of the court, a woman who has given up a life for one she never thought was meant for her.”

“You know?” you ask.

“I keep a generous rapport with Maester Corvin,” she says matter-of-factly. “I knew of your apprenticeship long before he wrote the letter offering it.” There is a kindness in her eyes as she speaks, her words not intended to wound, though they sting nonetheless. She knew, and yet…you still were summoned. As if she can sense your unspoken question, she continues, “Being a woman of the court does not mean we have to give up everything we love, sweet girl. Sometimes we just need to find a different way to have it.”

You exhale slowly. “I feared that marrying Jimin meant losing everything.” A rose petal drifts into your lap. You pick it up carefully, admiring the scalloped edge that curls slightly. It’s so soft, delicate. “I was so selfish. I never stopped to think about Jimin…not until now. When I fear it might be too late.”

A tiny, broken laugh escapes The Queen. She looks towards the palace again, the western wing. “It’s never too late,” she tells you. “Things may change, as they always want to do, but it will never be too late.”

“I’ve been a terrible wife,” you admit softly, hoping that if you don’t say it too loudly, it won’t hurt as much. If anything, it hurts more. The guilt festers like an open wound, and all you’ve done is pick at it, choosing to bleed instead of heal.

Yeongon shakes her head. “You’ve been a grieving woman.”

“I pushed him away.”

“You were hurting.”

“I blamed him.”

She nods again, unflinching in the face of your honesty. One of her hands reaches out, gently landing on your knee. It feels warm and steady through the linen of your gown. “My husband once told me something during our first year of marriage.” You look up, noting the affection in her eyes. “I had been furious with him. Truly furious.”

“What happened?”

“He canceled a visit with my parents. We were meant to travel back to my home, but the night before we were to leave, he canceled because something came up with a lord over this or that. The details aren’t important. But do you know what was to me in that moment?”

Understanding blooms quietly inside you. “He chose duty over you,” you supply.

“He chose duty.” She nods, confirming. “And I believed, so much, that if he loved me the way I thought he did, that duty should have come second.”

The petal between your fingers drifts to the ground as you release it. “What changed?”

“It took me years to understand that loving a kingdom and loving a person do not have to be opposite things.” She draws her hand back, gesturing vaguely at the surrounding area—the kingdom itself—and then brings it to rest over her own heart. “The burden is that sometimes they demand the same heart for the love. Hyunsoo was but one man, and I had to come to terms with the fact I would be sharing him with an entire kingdom. But that didn’t mean he loved me any less.”

“Jimin…How do I help him?”

“You’ve already begun.”

“I have?”

“You came here, to me. Not to ask how to fix your marriage, but how to stand beside your husband.”

The distinction settles somewhere deep inside you. Because she’s right. Something changed within you. Your anger has not disappeared; you still ache for Thornmere, you still mourn your apprenticeship. Those losses remain real. But so does something else: Jimin.

Not the Crown Prince, not the Future King, but the young man who has forgotten what uninterrupted sleep feels like. Who carries maps beneath one arm and fear beneath the other. Who, before you even arrived, found measures to ensure you still had access to the stars even if it were just through a window.

Jimin couldn’t have expected his life to change so suddenly. Just like you. You had both believed life would unfold differently, more gently. Instead, it had arrived like a storm. You look back towards the palace. “I can’t change what has already happened.”

“No,” Yeongon agrees.

“I probably can’t even make it easier.”

“Perhaps not.”

“But…” You straighten in your chair. “I can make sure he doesn’t carry it alone.”

The Queen smiles, not broadly or joyfully, but with something infinitely gentler—recognition. “There’s the woman my son fell in love with.”

Tears sting unexpectedly. “Thank you,” you say softly.

A breeze sweeps through the garden, sending a flurry of pink and red petals dancing around you both. Neither of you says anything for a long while. For the first time since arriving at the palace, the future does not feel like a prison built by someone else’s hands. It feels frightening and uncertain, yes. Impossible heavy, sure. But, perhaps...managable. And not one you would have to face alone.

That night, you’re unable to sleep. The moon is big and fat in the sky, breathing light into all the darkness of your room. The glass may distort the sky when you look through it, but it also creates something hauntingly beautiful.

The evening tray you were brought sits untouched on your desk. A pot of tea, some dried fruits, and honey biscuits. Any other night, you would have gladly enjoyed the sweets before retiring for the night. But it’s hard to think of anything else when your mind has been so focused on one thing: Jimin.

You wonder if he’s eaten, when the last time he had something to drink, or more than a few hours of sleep? Has he even had time to process and grieve his father’s accident? Somehow, you doubt it. And so, with those thoughts, you find yourself pulling on your dressing gown and ringing the pull-bell beside your desk for a fresh pot of tea.

The kitchens never stop, so you feel less guilty about the summons. Someone prepares the tray without question; jasmine, honey, two cups, with a small plate of sugared almonds because you remember those are his favorite.

You’ve never ventured this far down the hall, despite it being only a few doors down. Silly that you should feel nervous right now, approaching Jimin’s room. It’s strangely quiet. No councilors, no pages with urgent summons, no guards beyond the usual watch posted. They pay you no mind at all as you support the tray in one hand and knock with the other.

No answer. You almost turn away. But then, “Come in.” His voice is rough, sleep-deprived.

One of the guards quickly reaches for the handle, depressing the metal latch. You nudge the door open with your shoulder, carefully stepping inside. Jimin is standing beside the wide table beneath his windows. Maps cover nearly every inch of it. Letters, wax seals, military reports, trade ledgers—it’s all barely contained chaos.

Several candles have burned almost completely down beside him, leaving rivers of hardened wax coating the silver holders. He looks up from a report in his hand, surprise flicking openly across his face.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“I thought maybe—um, I brought tea. If you would like.”

You immediately feel foolish. It seems terribly inadequate against everything else filling the room. Jimin looks at the tray, then back at you. “I think,” he laughs softly, “that may be the kindest thing anyone has done for me in weeks.”

That tight, uncomfortable feeling in your chest instantly eases. You set the tray carefully upon the table; Jimin having hurriedly moved maps and papers just enough to make some room. You pour the tea, steam curling upward in delicate white ribbons. It feels nice to do something so mundane and commonplace.

Jimin gestures to the vacant chair at his desk, but when you hesitate to take it as it seems to be the only seat not covered in books or maps, he gives you a smile and grabs a small footstool. He drags it over, brushes a hand over the top, and then sits. 

You settle into the chair, trying to suppress a giggle at how silly Jimin looks seated on the footstool. It puts him lower than you, his knees hitting a little too high, making him look like a gangly child. The memory of a Jimin from your childhood surfaces, flushed face and trailing behind you to the stables. Both of you unable to control giggles.

Jimin wraps both hands around the warm porcelain cup he takes from the tray after offering you the other. He sits there, undrinking, seeming content to just enjoy the moment. You find yourself doing the same.

Finally, he breaks the silence with a solemn confession. “I never imagined I’d have to wear this mantle so soon.” His thumb traces absent circles on the lip of the cup. “My father always said he’d know when it was time and I, perhaps foolishly, believed him.”

“I don’t think that’s foolish at all,” you offer.

A smile ghosts over Jimin’s face, sad enough to break your heart. “I thought I’d have years left to make mistakes while he was there to correct them. Now, though? Now, I’m not even sure. Everyone expects me to be this—this man.” You know he doesn’t mean man as in an adult, but something more. “The one they already insist that I am.”

You reach out to him before you can stop yourself. Your fingers settle lightly over his wrist. Even through the fabric of his coat, you can feel his warmth. He looks up, eyes locking on yours, and you can see the hollowness there, the desperation to be more than. But there is also something else you can see—gratitude.

“You don’t have to become who you think they expect,” you tell him softly. “You only have to become yourself.”

And that’s the crux of it all, isn’t it? The lesson you should have been learning yourself. There is no use in wishing for what could have been, what you believed should have been, because nothing can change it. You simply have to learn to exist as you are, here and now.

He sighs. The sound isn’t sad or forlorn, just tired. “I’ve missed talking to you.”

Your heart lurches unexpectedly. “So have I.” The admission surprises you, but you mean it. You clear your throat lightly, trying to cover your sudden embarrassment and the wash of guilt that threatens to sweep in. You’re trying now, and that’s what matters. It’s never too late. “There was something you were trying to tell me.”

“There was?”

It’s understandable that he can’t recall. It’s been weeks. “At the, um, the archery practice field. You were trying to tell me something…before.”

Instantly, his eyes brighten. “Yes! Oh, I nearly forgot. I’ve been so busy…” He sets his tea down so quickly that a little spills, staining a corner of one of the many notes on his desk an amber color. Paying it no mind, he shuffles a few other papers, discarding a handful onto the floor without care. “I know it’s here somewhere.”

Curiosity piqued, you safely set your tea on the floor under your chair before moving closer. If Jimin minds you looking over his shoulder, he doesn’t show it. “What is it you’re looking for exactly? Maybe I can help.”

“Schematics. A sheaf of them,” he mumbles, diving into another stack. “Ah! Here!” he shouts excitedly, dragging a twine-bound roll of papers from somewhere in the disarray. “Come on, let me show you.” Jimin drops to his knees then pats the plush fur rug beside him.

You oblige, smoothing your skirts against your knees as you kneel next to him. It’s as if a switch has been flipped, and suddenly, Jimin looks more like the young man you grew up with than the exhausted and stretched-thin leader he’s been forced to become. There is a twinkle of warmth in his eyes as they meet yours, his bottom lip caught between his teeth doing nothing to hide his grin.

“Are you going to make me wait long?” you ask in light jest, your own private smile stealing across your face.

You can tell he’s tempted to tease you, drawing it out longer. But with a shimmy of his shoulders, he snags the tie of the twine and tugs. Papers unfurl in a heap on the floor. You catch glimpses of angular drawings and columns of calculations. “I’ve had everything finalized for weeks now. There’s just not really been a good time for me to move forward with it. But I’m hoping soon,” he explains, smoothing the pages out into a grid-like pattern.

“What?” You laugh. “Jimin, what is this?”

His smile turns a bit sheepish, color lightly suffusing into his cheeks. “Your very own observatory.” You’re not sure what to say, how to even begin to respond. With a fervor, your eyes devour the designs. Everything is mapped out, down to the very last stone. Jimin points at one of the pages. “The main observation tower. Library,” he says, moving to another page. “And here, living quarters for scholars. Oh, and this platform will house the largest armillary sphere in all the kingdom.”

“This is…”

“Going to take a long time, I know,” Jimin guesses at your line of thinking. “But I figure if I can have the masons lay the foundation before the first frost, then we can continue building through winter. The first carts of stone will be arriving within the next fortnight. It was why your father returned to Thornmere so quickly; he agreed to supply the—what’s that look on your face?”

“No.”

“No? Is there something wrong? I can have the architect from Foss redo—”

You cut Jimin off with a kiss. It’s soft, brief. But it leaves you breathless. Your heart hammers inside your chest, threatening to crawl right up your throat. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, your fingers quickly pressing against your lips as you stare at him wide-eyed. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Jimin stares at you, and the corner of his mouth slowly rises. “Why not?”

“Well, I—uh, I just—it’s just that…”

He laughs then, with his whole chest. A laugh that is kind and genuine, and so completely Jimin that you instantly know he’s not laughing at your expense. “By the gods,” he says, laughter finally dying down. “Our first kiss. Better than in my dreams.”

It’s your turn to laugh, light and surprising. “You’ve dreamed of kissing me?”

He gives you an open look, one that says Is that really a question? Jimin opens his mouth to say something, some witty retort or sly remark you’re fairly certain, when a sharp knock at the door invades the moment.

“Brother?” a familiar male voice drifts through the door. “You in there?”

“Jihyun,” Jimin says, more like a soft curse than his brother's name. Then a little louder, “Just a moment!”

Through the door, Jihyun sighs dramatically. “You’ve got one minute, then I’m coming in. Maester Janu made me walk twice around the castle grounds after dinner, saying it was good for my character. Now, my feet ache something awful, and I have great need to sit and rest them.”

You laugh despite yourself, and Jimin joins in a moment later. The laughter seeps into his eyes and softens his shoulders. It feels good, kneeling here on the floor with him, happiness found somewhere between the grief of it all. “I best go,” you tell him, pushing up from the floor.

Jimin catches your elbow, drawing you to a halt before you can make it to the door. “Will you come again, please? Perhaps tomorrow night, I can send for you once my duties are finished?”

His eyes flicker over your face, searching. It would be so easy to say no, to push him away and continue as you have for the last few weeks. Or, no—you realize, it actually wouldn’t. If anything, it would pain you greatly to say no to him.

So, you don’t. “If I say yes, can I kiss you again?”

With a laugh, Jimin presses his forehead against yours, his eyes closing briefly. “By the gods and stars, yes…a thousand times, yes.”

As if moving of their own accord, your lips find the corner of his smile, pressing there lightly. “Tomorrow,” you promise, the word nearly lost as Jihyun knocks again.

You wake before the sun. Not because you have to, but because, for the first time in a long time, you want to. The room is still painted in soft shades of blue-grey, dawn only just beginning to press gentle fingers against the windows. You know the stars are lingering overhead, stubborn and ever resistant to surrendering to the morning.

A laugh muffles into your pillow, the sound purely indulgent. When was the last time you laughed before breakfast? Last night returns to you in fragments. Blueprints unfurled across Jimin’s floor, his elegant fingers drawing your attention to different areas he was excited to show you.

All this time you had convinced yourself that Jimin was indifferent. That he had stolen your future. Instead, he has been doing everything he can to rebuild it. Not exactly as you imagined it, of course, but lovingly and patiently nonetheless. Brick by brick, before the first stone had even been laid.

It’s not lost on you how blind you’ve been. Pain has a way of narrowing the world until all one can see is the wound itself. Last night, for the first time, you had looked beyond it. And there stood Jimin, waiting, soothing healing balm in hand.

A gentle knock sounds at your door. “Your Highness?” comes Marta’s soft voice.

“You may come in.”

She sweeps into the room carrying a fresh pitcher of water, her cheeks flushed pink with excitement. “Oh, Your Highness, it’s wonderful news.” Marta practically vibrates.

“What is it, Marta?”

“The King, Your Highness.” You immediately sit upright, your heart leaping into your throat. “He woke!” She deposits the pitcher onto your dressing table and turns to face you, her hands clasped together in front of her. “Sometime during the night. It was brief, but he was awake. The Maesters say he spoke to Her Majesty and recognized everyone in the room before drifting back to sleep. They say it’s a wonderful sign!”

Relief rushes through you so suddenly that you have to steady yourself with your palms flat on the mattress. “He woke…” Marta nods enthusiastically. “That’s wonderful news indeed!”

“The whole castle seems lighter this morning,” she tells you with a wistful sigh before she begins digging through your wardrobe. As if to prove her point, sunlight finally spills through the window, flooding your room with golden warmth.

Marta helps you dress and pin your hair. Already, you are eager to find Jimin. He said tonight, but surely there must be time to see him before then. To share in the happiness he must be feeling regarding his father.

The palace truly does feel different. Servants smile, not broadly or carelessly, but with cautious optimism. Doors are left open to the spring air once more, filling the galleries and halls with the fresh scent of the rose garden.

Your first attempt to see Jimin comes right after breakfast. You nearly reach him, halfway across the great hall. His whole face brightens when he sees you. But before you can open your mouth in greeting—

“Your Highness!” A Maester appears almost from nowhere, clutching a thick stack of ledgers to his chest. “My apologies, but we just received…” And just like that, your opportunity loses to the vigilant press of duty.

By the third time you’ve brushed against Jimin’s presence, it’s growing to feel like a precarious game of cat and mouse. You see him crossing the gardens on his way to the barracks. Then, you catch sight of him descending a staircase. You’re a floor up, leaning over the balcony. He looks up, meets your eyes and smiles, lifting one hand in greeting. You managed to wave back before someone was pressing documents into his hand. He sighed dramatically, mouthing something at you that suspiciously looked like help before duty took him once more.

Evening falls, and you’re anticipating a knock on the door from Jimin, his routine of escorting you to dinner. Only, the knock at the door doesn’t reveal Jimin.

“Jihyun? Where’s Jimin?”

“Evening to you, too, sister,” Jihyun says, bowing with a sweep of his arm, always one for a flair for the dramatics. “My brother is, unfortunately, busy. So, it’s now my great honor to escort you to our evening meal.”

“Oh.” You don’t mean to sound so crestfallen, but it doesn’t seem to wound Jihyun in any regard.

He offers you an apologetic smile. “I imagine he’s taking his meal in the council chambers. He’s been holed up in there for most of the afternoon,” Jihyun explains, offering you his arm, which you take. “There was an emergency correspondence that arrived. One of the main bridges between here and Foss has collapsed due to all the meltwater coming down the river.”

“Gods, I hope everything is okay.”

Jihyun gives a lighthearted shrug. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

You walk on, hand resting in the crook of Jihyun’s elbow. The silence that falls is peaceful. Jihyun is only a few years younger than Jimin, so he was never too far during your time in the castle growing up. You’ve always found him charming, if a bit sly with a penchant for mischief. But, you know he cares deeply for his family and looks up to his brother.

“How’s your father?” you ask after a moment. No one has said anything more to you since this morning when Marta told you the news.

“Still improving. I assume you heard he woke during the night.” When you nod, Jiyun continues, “He woke once more just after the midday meal. The Maesters managed to get a few more words out of him. We remain in high spirits. We just have to take it one day at a time as we have been.”

“That’s wonderful to hear, Jihyun, truly.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I cut out of the dining hall early tonight. I’d like to go by and visit with Father before the evening grows too late. Maybe he’ll wake again while I’m there.”

You shake your head. “Of course not.”

“Perfect. Now, let’s get you fed. My brother will have me whipped if I allow his wife to go hungry.”

“I’m capable of feeding myself,” you say, laughing.

It’s still nice being escorted to dinner by Jihyun. He makes you laugh, the atmosphere around him seemingly infectious. He makes you forget for a time that you’re missing Jimin’s company. He asks you pointed questions about the stars, offering his own views and opinions—some spot on and others you are quick to good-naturedly point out as nonsensical.

“So, how are things going?”

“How are what things going?” you ask after a sip of your wine.

Jihyun gestures in your direction with a crust of bread he’s been nibbling on for the last several minutes. “With my brother.”

You nearly choke on your next sip of wine. “W-what?” you sputter.

He gives you a dry look. “How are things going with Jimin?”

“They…are fine.”

Jihyun nods thoughtfully. “You know, I’m very fond of my brother.”

“I’m aware,” you mutter as you dab a napkin at your lips.

“I would hate to see him miserable forever.”

The statement isn’t meant to dig nor wound. You can tell he’s meaning in a careful way, a way to bridge a gap between words he wishes to say and words that are appropriate. You decide to offer him a bridge of your own. “So would I.”

Jihyun holds up his own chalice of wine, studying you over the rim before taking a long swallow. “You love him,” he assesses softly after setting it back on the table.

“I…”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to respond.

For all the stars, you want to say it, you want to tell Jihyun that, yes, you do love his brother. Only, you want the first time you say that out loud to be to Jimin. So, you just nod, giving Jihyun a small smile.

Jihyun excuses himself shortly after, intent on keeping his word to visit his father. You bid him a good night and make your way back to your rooms with just your guards as escort.

The moon is high in the sky by the time determination replaces your patience. Jimin asked to see you tonight, but said he would send for you once his duties were done. But you’re awfully tired of waiting.

The guards outside his apartment bow as you approach. “His Highness is not in,” they inform you.

Disappointment stings. “Do you know where he is?”

There’s no mistaking the slight smile on one of their faces. “The old northern tower, Your Highness, meeting with the architect from Foss.”

Your heart skips a beat. He’s meeting with the architect…about the observatory. It’s not ladylike to run, but your feet don’t seem to care as you whip around corners and zip along halls. Your hair catches the wind, and you feel so free, your laughter echoing off the stone.

Lanterns sway gently from wrought-iron hooks, casting warm circles of gold across the winding garden paths. Crickets have begun their evening chorus. And above, the stars are so brilliant, spreading across the sky in a blanket of endless diamonds.

The northern tower rises from the edge of the castle grounds like the skeleton of another age. Half its stones are wrapped in scaffolding, workers having already removed sections of the crumbling outer wall. It’s not even been a full day since Jimin showed you the blueprints; he must have set them to work first thing this morning.

Moonlight catches on piles of old masonry waiting to be carted away. It has begun in earnest. Your stomach swoops, giddiness washing over you. Low voices have you slowing your approach.

“...the foundation is stable?”

“Quite well, if I do say so myself, Your Highness. The wall stones might be crumbling, but you can see here that they’re made of a different material than the foundation itself. Most likely, these walls have been replaced more than once. The histories of the castle are extensive.”

“Perfect. Thank you for getting started so quickly. Please, if there is anything at all that you need, just let Chancellor Minho know.”

You slowly emerge from around a gap in the wall. An older gentleman is rolling up a set of drawings, securing them with a leather strap. He catches sight of you and smiles, bowing at the waist. “A beautiful evening to you, Your Highness.” Jimin turns, his eyes lighting up when they land on you. His entire face softens. The architect gives Jimin a knowing look before politely excusing himself. “I think I shall retire for the evening.”

Jimin barely registers the architect leaving. He disappears into the darkness, leaving just you and Jimin standing there; together, under the stars. “I’m so sorry,” he begins.

At the same time, you say, “I’ve been trying to find you all day.”

He laughs, drawing closer to you. One of his hands stretches out in offering. “Want to see?”

“Of course.” You take his hand and allow him to pull you forward to a clear grassy area just beyond the ruined tower. He turns you, placing your back to his front.

The hand not clasped in yours comes up, extending out in front of you. “This over here is where the armillary sphere will go. And there, the scholars' quarters. Along the back there will be the library where the entire northern wall will be windows so whoever is within can always see the sky.”

You look up, following his finger as it drags across the sky. The stars hold steady overhead. From here, without the palace blocking the horizon, they seem close enough to touch. You can imagine it for a moment, standing in the library, a thick tome in your hands as you watch the moon chase the stars across the sky. Students would hurry through the echoing corridors, charts tucked beneath their arms, just as full of wonder and thrill as the Maesters themselves—as you.

All of this for you. Tears blur your vision. “Jimin,” you say softly, turning to look at him. Your hands find his chest, resting there as if that’s where they’ve always belonged.

“What is it?” His eyes search yours, concern ebbing into the lines of his mouth.

“I’ve been so…awful.” When he opens his mouth to argue, because you can clearly see that sprout in his eyes, you press on, “I was cruel to you. I blamed you for my grief, thought that you had taken everything from me. And all this time, you’ve been trying to give it back. I want you to know that I am sorry.”

Jimin’s expression softens once more. “You don’t have to apologize.”

You shake your head. “I do, though. I was so determined to make you bear my anger…that I forgot—” The blood rushing in your ears makes it hard to focus on the words you’re desperate to say. You lick your lips, trying so hard to manifest your thoughts into sound.

“Forgot what?” Jimin prompts gently.

“That I love you,” you whisper. “That I always have.”

The wind catches his hair, ruffling the blond locks around the golden circlet upon his brow. A smile spreads across his face. He lifts one hand, his fingertips tracing gently along your cheek. “I was willing to weather your storm for all my life,” he tells you. “And, I think I can finally see the stars for the rain.”

Jimin gathers you into his arms, and you let him, soaking in the strong feeling of him pressed to your front. Your hands still rest on his chest, one moving under the cheek where it presses over his heart. The solid lub-thump there is steady, comforting. Jimin holds you tightly, like someone who has spent weeks pretending to be stronger than they feel.

“Do you remember that night in the stables?” you ask into the quiet that follows.

“I remember everything. The straw in your hair, the—”

“Hey, I didn’t have straw in my hair,” you laugh.

“You absolutely did. And somehow it made you even more beautiful, a carefree spirit guiding me by the stars. You asked me if I knew The Archer. We talked about futures and choices…” Jimin grows quiet. Then, he says so softly you have to strain to hear him, “You had the stars in your eyes as you tied that ribbon on my wrist and made me swear before the old gods and the new that I would choose you if I were ever given the choice. I wanted to kiss you for how brave you made me feel. I thought about it every day afterward.” His forehead drops, pressing against yours. “And I rather desperately want to kiss you now, too.”

“Then do it.”

The command barely leaves your lips before he closes the distance. Jimin is gentle at first, careful, almost reverent. As though he’s still asking permission. You answer by fisting your fingers in the lapels of his coat and drawing him closer.

One of his hands settles at the small of your back, the other slides into the hair at your nape. His lips move, offering wordless confessions of fear, relief, longing, and forgiveness. You open yourself to him, welcoming the glide of his tongue against yours.

Something in Jimin seems to break then—not violently, but like a beam that’s held a great weight for far too long. He pulls you impossibly closer, devouring your mouth with a new fervor. A groan rumbles in his chest, vibrating right through your palms where they rest on his chest.

Breaking away from your lips, Jimin trails open-mouthed kisses down your jaw and along your neck. “I’m…getting carried away,” he pants against the hollow of your throat. “I don’t think I can stop if you let me continue. Tell me now, Stargazer…tell me to stop and I will.”

And you would if you wanted that. But that is the last thing you wish. “No, don’t. Please, I want this, Jimin…I want you.”

Jimin’s eyes find yours and your breath stutters in your lungs. The stars have always fascinated you because of their unimaginable distance—their ability to remain steady and without the constraints of man. Yet, somehow, standing this close to Jimin, they seem impossibly near.

They live in his eyes. The moon hangs reflected in them, fractured by the shimmer of emotion, while tiny points of starlight scatter across dark irises like constellations mirrored upon still water. You’ve spent years gazing at the sky, searching for the beauty there. You never imagined you would one day find the sky looking back at you.

“What is it?” he asks softly, smiling with the uncertainty of someone caught being admired.

You shake your head, his thumb catching your cheek to bring your focus back to him. “I was just thinking about how beautiful you are,” you admit. “How, now that I can see, you offer me more than just the stars. You offer me a life…one worth living.”

Jimin murmurs your name before his lips slot over yours once more. The kiss is as hungry as it was gentle before. Inhibition slips away with the wind, and you allow yourself to be swept away with it. All your weeks of grief have left you empty for something more, something decadent and indulgent—something true.

It’s with measured moments of soft laughter and kisses stolen between the untangling of limbs and linen that you bare yourself to him. Jimin shrugs off his coat and smooths it out on the grass, and your gown folds as a pillow beneath your head. With gentle fingers, Jimin traces lines and whirls across your skin, marveling at how the moonlight kisses the curves and peaks.

He chases the light across your skin, teasing and drawing your nipples between his lips, soothing the ache left behind with his tongue. Your fingers find the stays on his shirt, and they come open with ease. The expanse of his chest is smooth like silk, your palms leaving goosebumps in their wake as you explore the skin you expose. His shirt falls off his shoulders, leaving him in just his trousers.

You sit up, Jimin moving with you until he’s resting back on his heels. “It’s okay,” he tells you when you hesitate with your hand halfway to the buckle on his pants. “You can touch me. I want you to touch me, if you wanna.” The leather belt holding the front of his trousers closed slips between your trembling fingers. “I’ll do the thing for you,” he says, helping to steady your fingers and undo the clasp.

His pants fall open, revealing the thick length of his cock to you. You swallow hard, tongue poking out unbidden to wet your lips. The skin is warm and smooth as you take it in your hand, fingers delicately wrapping around it. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Trust me, you’re not,” he sighs, chest heaving as he sucks in a breath when you massage your thumb over the slit of his cockhead. His hand covers yours, adding intentional pressure. The squeeze causes a pearly drop of liquid to seep from the slit, and you revel in its silkiness as you move your thumb over it again. “Oris take me, that feels divine.”

You do it again, just to see the reaction on Jimin’s face, the way his lips slowly part until you can see the pink of his tongue resting over his teeth. His breath hitches, his whole body shuddering as he guides your hand in a downward motion and then back up where your thumb glides through the liquid gathering at the tip. Your eyes drop to where your hand encases his cock, his fingers covering yours. Something at his wrist catches your attention—a thin strip of golden ribbon, still there…just as it was the day you put it there. Warmth, love for this man, swells in your chest.

Jimin moans, mouth hanging open and eyes fluttering shut. His back bows, and you find yourself mesmerized by the incandescence of his skin in the moonlight. Everything about him, the way he’s wreathed in the stars, is so ethereal it takes your breath away. Your body aches for him, fluttering around the emptiness between your thighs; desperate and wanton. 

Your free hand finds the back of his neck, drawing him to you for a languid kiss. “Touch me,” you plead softly.

Jimin nods, his eyes shining eagerly. His hand finds your inner thigh, slowly sliding up until the meat of his palm rests over your clit, his fingers sliding through the wetness seeping from your lower lips. Jimin’s lips strum against yours, plucking and teasing just the way his fingers do over your sex. The tips of his fingers briefly kiss your clit, dancing away before returning in a slow build of pleasure. Your eyes flutter closed, lost in the moment of his touch.

“Open your eyes, look at me. Let me see what I am doing to you.”

You pry your eyes open at the same moment he slides two slender fingers into you. Instantly, you pulse around the intrusion, body already ready to surrender to his ministrations. Everything is so sensitive, so heightened. You feel connected to Jimin in a way you’ve never been before; it’s like you can feel him beneath your skin. “For eternity, your soul and mine,” you whisper against his lips. “Any place that you are, I’ll surely follow.” 

Jimin curses softly, beseeching the nameless gods and the stars. “I need you. I need to be inside you.”

“Yes,” you whine, nodding fervently.

Settling between your spread thighs, Jimin’s eyes bore into yours as he begins to press forward. The universe shifts around you, clicking into place as Jimin truly becomes the stars reflecting onto the depths of your soul. The full-body shudder that goes through him reverberates into you, prickling across the back of your neck and sending chills cascading down your arms.

Jimin gives your body a moment to adjust, the both of you panting, hearts beating frantically to a rhythm created by a promise wrapped in gold. Then, he begins to move. Your body molds to his, hips moving automatically to meet each thrust.

“You are so beautiful,” Jimin tells you breathlessly between kisses. His pace slows, agonizingly so. “I w-want this to, to last.”

You moan with the way his hips roll into yours at the slower pace, the motion making him grind against your clit. It’s that added pressure that has your toes curling and your eyes rolling back. “Jimin, please.”

His forehead drops to yours, eyes locked in. “I love you,” he whispers. “So damn much.” With a groan, he moves his hips faster, giving you exactly what you need.

Your spark becomes an inferno, consuming everything in its path. Warmth blooms deep inside you, Jimin filling you with liquid heat. Your body welcomes his spend, fluttering and pulsing as you succumb to the first wave of ecstasy.

You both cry out, the air echoing with your combined releases, the joining of your beings; hearts, bodies, and souls. As you lie there with Jimin, his body pressed next to yours, his lips finding new places to press gentle kisses, you realize this is a far more beautiful future than the one you thought had been stolen from you. “All I want is you,” you tell him gently, truthfully.

Jimin carries you to your room. “First thing in the morning, I’m going to have the staff move my things in here, as long as that’s okay with you. I don’t think I can stand another night without you.”

He sparks a fire in the hearth, setting a kettle on to warm. You drape across the end of your bed, watching the way his naked back moves as he works. When the water is heated, he dips a clean cloth in and turns to you. The look on his face speaks volumes to the words that do not need to pass his lips. Slowly, gently so, he cleans between your thighs, all the while keeping his eyes on yours. After, he slides into bed beside you, gathering you into his arms.

Hours pass, the two of you content to remain where you are, wrapped within the comfort of one another. You talk of what’s to come, where time and happenstance seem to be guiding you. Beside you, Jimin shows you the depth of his love, the strength of his promise. And through the window, the stars hold steady, distant and yet somehow seeming not so indifferent now to the inner musings of the two lovers below, bound together by ribbons of gold.

⇽Previous Chapter ◅ Back to story masterlist

There is a constant coming and going. That first night of the grand ceremony, servants had bustled into your rooms as you were leaving with Jimin. You now know why. Nearly every surface is covered with some form of wedding-planning paraphernalia. Bolts of fabric, trays of jewels, lists of guests, schedules, all litter your space. Decisions you are expected to make.

Every hour of your day is suddenly accounted for by someone else’s demands and expectations. Strangers' hands in your hair, adjusting your sleeves, subtle nods to your posture. Voices murmur constantly around you. Future queen, royal bride, Your Highness. No matter where you look, you can’t be free from it. The expectation, the veiled glances. 

More people have moved through your space in the span of the last week than have in all your years of living in your father’s northern mining province, Thornmere. Yet, despite all that, you couldn’t be more alone.

Each night, you lie awake in rooms too large, too foreign, and think about what could—should—have been. Your thoughts drift over cold observatory towers and the smell of dusty parchment and fresh ink. You imagine Maester Corvin, back bent with age, leaning over charts by candlelight, muttering calculations under his breath while the southern winds sweep the scent of the gardenia fields through the open window.

In his last letter to you, he praised your passion and intelligence, imploring you not to squander them, assuring you that you had a place in his laboratory and that he would welcome you with glee. The memory of reading those words cuts deeper now. Because you did not squander it, not at all. You spent years preparing, honing your mind in line with the stars. While other girls learned embroidery and court dances, you mapped constellations. You learned mathematical proofs until your eyes blurred from lack of sleep. You studied eclipses and historical orbital charts and records until your fingers cramped from copying them. It was a future you had built, piece by careful piece. And now…it is gone. Just gone. Not destroyed in a violent manner, simply…replaced. As if it had never belonged to you to begin with.

A soft knock sounds at the door, pulling you from your wallowing. You consider pretending to be asleep, as the hour is quite late.

Before you can decide, a voice comes softly through the wooden doors, “I know you’re awake. I can see the candlelight from under the door. May I please come in?”

Sighing, you slide out of bed and snag your dressing gown from where you tossed it on your trunk—which you still refuse to fully unpack—earlier. You’re belting the gown at your waist with one hand as you use the other to flip the iron lock on the doors.

“It’s late. What is it that you want?” you ask when the doors are open a peek.

Jimin stands there without ceremony, his blond hair slightly disheveled as though he’s been running his hands through it all day, golden circlet nowhere to be seen. He looks tired. Good, perhaps that means he won’t keep you long.

“I wanted to see how you were feeling, considering tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. Your wedding day. The day the noose finally tightens all the way, and you’ll be left to dangle until you perish. The macabre thought lingers, etching itself onto your soul as a permanent fixture.

“Does it matter?”

Something in his face falls then. Not dramatically, not visibly enough that anyone else would notice, but you see it. The quiet hurt of someone reaching for a hand that refuses to reach back. Part of you hates what you’re doing to him. But the bigger part of you hates what he’s doing to you, more.

Clearly not sure how to respond, he says instead, “I want to talk.”

You laugh once, the sound bitter. “That’s unfortunate.”

The muscle along Jimin’s jaw tightens. “Can we—”

“No.” You shift abruptly, intent on shutting the door in his face. “No, Jimin, you don’t get to come in here and pretend everything is normal.”

A shiny boot toe catches the door before it can close completely. “I’m not pretending that.”

“Could have fooled me,” you snarl under your breath. “I don’t want to talk.” You give up trying to shut the door, letting it swing open under the pressure of his foot. Instead, you turn your back to him and cross the room to the window. The sky is bright with stars, only slightly distorted by the candles lit behind you, reflecting off the glass.

Jimin exhales slowly, and for a moment you think he might leave anyway. The first drop of rain against the window pane makes you flinch. It’s soft, at first, the patter gentle but swiftly turns into an unrelenting cascade. You’re tempted to throw open the window and let the storm swallow you whole.

The silence stretches, only broken by the incessant rain and the distant roll of thunder. If you tried hard enough, you know you could smell the earthy scent of damp soil and rock that always manages to seep into the castle when it rains. It’s a scent you’ve always loved, but refuse to find the joy in now.

“You haven’t looked at me once this week,” Jimin finally says. “Much less exchanged more than a few words.”

Your spine straightens, shoulder rigid with discomfort. “Because if I do, then I’ll remember that I once trusted you.”

There is pain in his response, so deep and raw. “I never lied to you…”

“No?” Your voice rises to be heard over the rain. “Then what exactly do you call letting me walk into that ceremony without any idea that my future was about to be decided in front of half the kingdom?”

“I don’t know how many times I must tell you, I thought you knew.”

“You assumed.”

“Yes. And that will always be my folly to bear.” His response is so sudden and honest that you find yourself turning to look at him. “And I was wrong. Very wrong.”

Wrong. You can’t help the humorless laugh that breaks free. Wrong feels like an absurd way to look at what he did. Wrong is forgetting someone’s birthday; it’s misplacing a favored pen…it is not this. “What you did was more than wrong. It was cruel. You stole my life.” Jimin swallows hard, and you press on. “A life I spent years curating for myself. I knew exactly what I wanted. I had a purpose! And now it’s all gone. Because of you.”

Jimin’s face twists. Not with anger, but with guilt. “I know.”

“I don’t think you do,” you whisper, willing your words to stab like a knife. Because how can someone born into a palace understand what it means to fight for something for yourself, to earn it? Jimin’s entire life has been planned out for him since the moment his mother fell pregnant. He has never had to worry about the future, never had to consider what more he might want beyond these walls. “You have no idea what you’ve cost me.”

Something flashes in his eyes as they meet yours. “I know it cost you everything.” The sincerity in his voice nearly breaks you. Because he’s not arguing, not defending himself or dismissing your pain. He looks defeated by it…and somehow that’s worse.

“And yet you would still go through with it?” Maybe you’re fumbling at a thread in the dark, but what if? “Call off the wedding, say you were mistaken. If you understand and you truly care about me, just let me go.” And just like that, you’re unable to hold back the tide any longer. “I never asked for this. I don’t want a crown. I don’t want a palace or to rule over a kingdom. I just want my life, the one that I chose.”

A sob catches you by surprise. You press a hand over your mouth, trying to hold it back. But it’s too late. The room blurs, and suddenly all the grief you’ve spent the last week swallowing rises at once. There is no stopping it now. You cry openly. They’re not graceful tears, nor are they quiet. They are the ugly, devastating kind that leave your chest aching.

For a long moment there is only the rain and your shuddering sobs. Then, suddenly, movement and strong arms. If you were stronger, you’d push them away. Instead, you fall into them, broken and unmoored. After a moment, you realize Jimin is trembling against you, mirroring the shuddering of your own destruction.

You look up at him through your tears. His face is white, eyes shining with tears he refuses to let fall. And for the first time since you’ve known him, he looks utterly helpless. “I want to,” he whispers brokenly.

Your heart leaps into your throat. “Then do it!” you urge, shaking yourself back into some semblance of control. You untangle yourself from his arms, suddenly remembering propriety. Jimin lets you go easily, his arms slipping to fall at his sides. “I can be ready to leave in the morning. We’ll do it quietly, away from too many eyes. You can say that I have—”

The sound of your name cuts off your rambling, the rest of your words lodging heavy in your throat. “I want to…but I can’t.” Jimin presses a hand over his eyes briefly, wiping it down his face before it falls back limp by his side.

“What? But you said…”

“It is not my decision to make any longer. If it were, I would have arranged for your departure the moment I knew you didn’t want this.”

“Surely there must be a way. You can make it work, I know you can.”

He’s shaking his head before you’re finished with your plea. “The contracts have already been signed, the council has approved it. If I…if we canceled now…it would ruin everything. It would destroy your family. It would destroy mine.”

And just like that, you hurt all over again. Foolish of you to have grabbed that hope and tried to cling to it. Of course he wouldn’t give in to you. Of course he doesn’t care.

“Right,” you say, unable to hide the anger taking over. “Because those are the important things.”

Jimin makes a disbelieving sound that catches you off guard. “No, you don’t get to say things like that. Not anymore, not when I’ve been trying to make things better for you. I have tried, countless times this week, to meet you halfway, to somehow make up for what I have done to you. I’ve already spoken with my father, begged and pleaded on your behalf, groveled at his feet for a reprieve from this duty that I have brought upon you.” His eyes meet yours, red-rimmed and wild with something you’ve never seen before. All his princely composure unraveling right before you. “I have spent every night asking myself if there was some way I could fix this, anything that I could do to make this right. But there isn’t,” he chokes on a sob. “I can’t fix this. But, please know that I would…if I could, I would do it, because I only want to make you happy.”

Something painful digs inside your chest. Because you believe him. He truly has tried. A tear slides down your cheek, mirrored by the one now making a trek down his. “I hate this.”

“So do I.”

You blink, not expecting such a blunt and honest response like that from Jimin. “What?”

A sad laugh escapes him. “I hate that I have hurt you. I hate that every time you look at me, you look miserable.” His voice lowers, his next words coming out like a confession of shame, “I hate that I was happy.” He looks away from you now, his eyes dropping to where one hand toys with something under the cuff of his opposite wrist. “I thought it was a miracle…when they told me I could choose. I thought that you wanted this, too. I thought it was okay that I chose you. And when I realized it wasn’t, that this was not what you wanted…I didn’t know what to do.”

Suddenly, Jimin drops. The solid thud of his knees hitting the stone floor of your room makes you gasp. You take a startled step forward. “Jimin!”

But he ignores your alarm. His fingers fist into the hem of his doublet, his head bowing so his chin rests on his chest. The Heir Apparent and Future King of Baledryn kneels before you, not as a crowned prince, but as a broken man. “Please,” he begs. “I know I do not deserve it, but please forgive me. I will stay on my knees for the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. I never wanted to hurt you. I—I…I love you…I always have. And I know you don’t love me…I just ask that you please, just stay with me, even on the worst days. All I want is you to be happy, and I know I can’t represent that for you right now. But I will do everything in my power to try and be.”

Your throat tightens. He looks more than exhausted now; he looks heartbroken—human. Not your captor or the future king, just Jimin. The same boy from the stables, the one beneath the stars, the one who kept every letter.

For a long time, neither of you speaks. Rain continues to tap against the window at your back; the candles flicker low in their stands. And somewhere between anger and grief, between love and resentment, the impossible truth settles between you both: Neither of you wants this version of the story…and neither of you knows how to escape it.

It is cruel how breathtaking the great hall is the morning of the wedding ceremony. Sunlight spills through the towering glass windows, making the whole hall glow with myriad colors, complementing the cascades of southern spring blossoms decorating the walls and tables. Music swells soft and aching through the air, strings and voices weaving together like timeless prayer.

The gown you were helped into this morning ripples around your ankles with every step you take. Despite the light, flowing skirts, it feels like you’re walking underwater. Emotions drag at you, unseen but felt nonetheless. After Jimin left last night, you tried to sleep but failed. Every blink feels like sand, and you know there are puffy half-moons under your eyes. If anyone notices your pallid condition, they do not comment on it.

Faces blur on either side of the aisle as you shuffle into the great hall. Nobles, courtiers, endless smiles that you try desperately to return in kind, but your mouth refuses to yield to civility. You search for your mother in the crowd. You find her seated near the front. This time, she meets your gaze in full. And, for the first time in a long time, you realize she looks sad. Not triumphant, not relieved…simply sad. The realization unsettles you.

Your father sits beside her, his stony face breaking only slightly as his eyes meet yours. Father has always been an austere man. You had not expected him to journey to the Capitol, given the unseasonal deluge of snowmelt threatening the northern fields. Part of you is glad he is here, but at the same time you wish he wouldn’t be witness to your plight. You’ve prided yourself on being as strong and resilient as him; you don’t want him to see you show weakness like this.

Maybe it’s knowing your father is here that straightens your back and quickens your pace, or maybe it’s seeing the man waiting at the altar for you. Your eyes snag on his, lingering in their warmth. For a moment, everything else fades.

Jimin is dressed in ceremonial black and gold, embroidered in threads so fine they gleam like starlight across dark water. The crown prince’s mantle rests across his shoulders, heavy with history and expectation. But it is his face, the look in his eyes, that stills you. There is no pride there, no victory, but relief…and nervousness. And beneath it all, something unbearably earnest. He looks at you like you are something precious approaching him—not something acquired or won.

His eyes soften the moment they meet yours. And suddenly, painfully, you understand something that you had refused to before. Jimin never meant to hurt you. The realization lands quietly, not enough to erase your anger, but enough to temper it. Something shifts in your heart. Because Jimin is not cruel, not malicious. He is simply a man who was taught that love and duty aligning was a miracle—and believed, foolishly and wholly, that this was one such miracle.

It’s been so plain to see; you’re not sure why you’re just now accepting it as fact. You can see it in the way he watches you approach the altar: careful, hopeful, almost afraid you might disappear.

Your steps slow slightly. For the first time since arriving here, something other than rage and grief moves through you. It’s not happiness, not acceptance, but something smaller and more fragile. It’s akin to resignation, perhaps. Or maybe it’s mercy. But whatever it is, it grounds you.

You reach the altar, and everything else fades besides him. Jimin’s breath catches softly under the music. You stand beside him, close enough now to see the exhaustion lurking beneath his composure—the sleepless nights, the worry he’s tried to hide but was exposed in truth last night as he begged you on his knees.

He glances at you carefully, eyes flicking across your face. In a voice only you can hear, he says, “You are beautiful.”

You should resent the words. Instead, your throat tightens unexpectedly because you can tell he really means them. Not as a prince speaking to his bride, but as Jimin. The boy from the stables. The man who was only upholding the vow he once swore to you.

As you take his hands in yours, the tips of your fingers brush across the undersides of his wrists. It’s brief, the feeling of ragged fabric against your skin, but you’re instantly aware of it. You glance down, eyes seeking confirmation. And there, just beneath the cuff of his velvet frock, you see it—the tiniest sliver of golden ribbon, ribbon that you put there. You look away, forcing your eyes up. But you can’t bring yourself to meet Jimin’s gaze, either, choosing to focus on the tip of his nose instead.

The ceremony begins. Vows echo through the hall like distant bells. You repeat the words when instructed, your voice steady despite the terrible ache you feel inside. But, somewhere beneath the grief, fury, and loss, another realization slowly settles into place: this is your life now. There is no more trying to outrun it. As Philloa, the High Seat of the Council of Laurels, beseeches the blessing of Oris, martyr-god to all, upon your union with the heir apparent, you make your own silent vow. It is not one to the crown, or Jimin, but to yourself. A vow of survival, no matter what comes next. You will endure and forge on, molding this future you never asked for into something all your own, no matter how badly it might hurt.

The rest of the evening progresses in a blur of curtsies, inclined chins, and well-wishes. You hear none of it, only moving as directed by Jimin's subtle touches. A hand on the small of your back, a request to turn you this way or that; a gentle brush of his fingers over your wrist, a reminder to offer your hand to whatever faceless person stood before you.

By the end of it, you don’t realize you’re back in your own rooms and not in Jimin’s until Marta is helping you into your nightdress. “Will you show me the way there, Marta?” you murmur to your lady’s maid.

“Show you to where, Your Grace?” she questions.

“My…husbands,” you stumble over the word, “chambers. Is that not where I am to go this evening?”

“Oh,” Marta says slowly. “His Grace…well, His Grace told the staff that you were to remain in your own rooms tonight.”

You should rejoice in this revelation. Only…it burns, Jimin’s clear rejection. He may have chosen you as his wife, but have you been too much a fool, blinded by her own rage, to see that maybe you are simply meant to be a wife in name only? You feel the keen sting of loss all over again. If he did not want you as his wife, then why—No, that simply does not matter; Jimin, himself, has made that abundantly clear.

“Very well.” You roll your shoulders back, forcing yourself to stand straighter as Marta picks up the ivory comb from your vanity and begins working it through your hair.

💝💝💝

Jimin

The first time Jimin finds himself deliberately walking the long way around the palace to avoid you feels absurd. The second time, it feels necessary. By the fifth day, it has become habit.

He knows which corridors you prefer when you want quiet. Which gardens you visit just before sunset and which library alcove you disappear into whenever court becomes too loud. You don’t venture far, never truly deviating from the pattern that has become your life at court as his wife.

Jimin has spent years imagining walking those paths beside you. Now, he memorizes them so he can choose different ones. It is a peculiar kind of heartbreak. One measured in left turns instead of right. All because he can’t stand the sadness in your eyes whenever you look upon him.

He’s leaving the council chambers just after midday with a stack of petitions tucked beneath one arm, the spring air drifting through the open colonnades, when he spots you halfway down the corridor. It’s the first time he’s had more than a passing glance at you since he took you to be his wife before the gods nearly two weeks ago now.

You’re standing beside one of the tall windows, completely unaware that anyone is watching. A book is propped open against your hip, one finger tracing slowly across a celestial chart that Jimin can barely make out from where he’s lurking at the end of the hall.

You frown slightly, not in anger, but in concentration. Jimin’s heart does something deeply inconvenient. He smiles before he can help himself, recognizing the book in your hands as one that he chose to place on your bookshelf himself. Then, just as quietly, he turns around. The petitions can wait a bit longer; he takes another hallway, one where he doesn’t run the risk of shattering your peace.

“You know…” The voice startles him enough that he nearly drops the entire stack of parchment. Jimin whips around, fingers clutching at the few sheets that manage to nearly slide free. His younger brother is leaning lazily against one of the marble columns, arms folded across his chest, wearing an unmistakable expression of someone who has witnessed something tremendously entertaining. “...most husbands try to spend time with their wives, not nearly breaking their necks to avoid them.”

Jimin sighs. “Hello to you, too, Jihyun.”

The younger prince grins. “I saw you coming out of the council chambers.”

“How observant.” Jimin makes to step around his brother.

“You walked away so quickly I’d assumed you’d forgotten how corridors work.”

With a barely-contained eye roll, Jimin skirts around Jihyun and continues down the hall. His brother falls into step beside him with infuriating ease.

“So,” Jihyun draws out the word, his voice full of intent, none of it good.

“No.”

“I haven’t even asked anything yet.”

“You were about to.”

Jihyun laughs. “Okay, you got me. I absolutely was.”

Jimin pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “You find this amusing.”

“I find you amusing.” Jihyun glances over his shoulder toward the corridor they’d just abandoned. “That was your wife.”

“You don’t say?”

“You saw her.”

“Want a gold medallion for awareness? I’m sure I can have Smithy Bartle forge one for you.”

Jihyun continues on as if Jimin hadn’t said anything, “And yet you immediately fled her presence.”

“I did not flee.”

“You retreated with remarkable strategic efficiency.”

“I simply chose another route.”

“To avoid your wife.”

“To give her space.”

Jihyun looks thoughtful. “Hm.” Jimin knows that look; it usually precedes trouble. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t particularly care what you believe.” He keeps walking; the petitions suddenly seem fascinating.

“You’ve been married nearly two weeks.”

“So I have.”

“And yet you’ve spent more time with Father’s hunting dogs than your own wife.”

The remark rolls off Jimin’s tongue before he can stop it. “They require less emotional navigation.”

Jihyun laughs outright, the sound echoing off the stone walls. “Finally, there he is.”

“What?”

“My brother. The one who makes terrible jokes when he’s anxious.”

Jimin sighs. “I’m not anxious.”

Thankfully, Jihyun doesn’t comment. Jimin isn’t certain he’d be able to field his emotions much longer around him. They continue through the gallery in companionable silence. That is, until Jihyun can’t take the silence any longer—something Jimin should have anticipated.

“Does she snore? Oh, wait, you’d actually have to share a bedchamber in order to know that.”

“Oh, shove off, Jihyun,” Jimin grouses.

“What? I’m just trying to determine how married you actually are.” Jihyun ticks marks off on his fingers. “Not sharing a bed, avoiding her in the halls, have you even kissed—”

Jimin cuts his brother off by shoving the entire stack of petitions at him. Jihyun stumbles back, yelping as he scrambles to accept the papers. “I would appreciate it if you would speak less about my marriage, Jihyun.” Gone is the soft, brotherly exchange that Jimin was tolerating because he truly does enjoy his brother’s company. “I mean it, okay? You have no idea what you’re talking about. My marriage is…delicate.”

Contrition ghosts over Jihyun’s features. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean—I was only joking with you.”

“I know you were,” Jimin agrees softly.

“Hey,” Jihyun says, just as soft, bordering on concern. “Is everything okay? I mean, truly.”

Jimin sags a little. “It’s as okay as it can be. Things are…complicated, to say the least.”

“I thought you always wanted to marry her? It was your choice—”

“Right, my choice, Jihyun…not hers.”

Jihyun’s eyes, so much like Jimin’s own, flicker across Jimin’s face. Understanding dawns in them, dimming the teasing edge they seem to always hold. “Oh,” he says faintly. “I see.”

To most, you simply appeared shy, reserved, overwhelmed by sudden attention. No one noticed how carefully you measured every word you spoke to Jimin. No one recognized the grief hiding beneath your composure; no one except him.

“She asked me to let her go,” Jimin tells Jihyun, his voice barely loud enough to carry the short distance between them. He looks out across the grounds through one of the arched windows. Ground crews work diligently in the gardens, tending to the blooms carpeting the courtyards. Spring continues arriving, blissfully unconcerned with human hearts. “I couldn’t, of course.” With a heavy breath, he adds, “There are different kinds of kindness, Jihyun.”

💝💝💝

Night has always been your favorite. Not because it is quiet—though it is—and not because it was lonely—though, here it always seems to be—but because the night belongs to no one.

Kings could command armies, queens could shape courts, and councils could redraw borders and decide the futures of people who never asked for their lives to be negotiated across polished tabletops. But none of them could dictate the breath of the night or the movement of the stars, and that had always brought you comfort.

Tonight, though, it only proves to hurt more. What you wouldn’t give to be able to move among those brilliant twinkling specks. To be made of them, free from your invisible shackles, where no one could command your life.

It’s been two weeks since you were wed. You’ve spent those two weeks just as lonely as the week leading up to it. Sure, you’re inundated with tasks and a constant stream of faces. But when the sun kisses the horizon and your duty for the day is fulfilled…you are left to your own sad, lonely devices.

The fire has long since burned low, leaving your chambers awash in the cool blue light spilling through the windows that overlook the eastern gardens. You have the panes cranked open, allowing moonlight to stretch across the room in a pale wash, catching the edges of the brass instruments scattered across your desk and making them gleam like forgotten treasures.

Not for the first time since Jimin showed you to these rooms do you find yourself admiring their beauty. A cool spring breeze whistles through the open windows, fluttering the papers trapped under your instruments on your desk. You wince, realizing you’re allowing your precious tools to be nothing more than paperweights—though, fitting, you suppose, considering.

With a frustrated sigh, you snatch up the astrolabe from your desk, heedless of the sheaf of papers that slide to the floor from beneath it. Its weight settles familiarly in your palm, the brass backing cool against your skin.

The tiny engraved markings on the face are smooth beneath your fingertips after years of use. You pinch the small knob on the alidade, the thin brass ruler mounted on the face, turning it slowly atop the rete, the intricate map of stars that were painstakingly soldered into pattern, listening to the delicate scrape of metal against metal. Once, twice, and a third time, you twist the mechanism, wholly from muscle memory so the alidade lines perfectly with The Archer and The Lantern, your two most favored constellations.

You’re certain you could map the progression from Winter to Spring, when The Archer chases The Lantern across the sky, blindfolded. The astrolabe was the very first thing you bought with the money you had been saving during your first year in the northern province after your family left court. It took nearly six weeks for the piece to be crafted, and longer still for it to be delivered to you from the southern observatory’s shop in Foss. It has become your most prized possession since, a faithful companion through your studies.

Part of you wants to settle at your desk and read the instrument, copying down the precious information it offers even if you already know the numbers by heart. Yet, you find yourself discarding it instead. It lands with a heavy metallic thump on the surface of your desk.

You turn towards the windows once more, pressing as close as the stone will allow. The scent of spring fills your nose, the soft wind catching in your hair and sliding it across your face. If you closed your eyes and tilted your chin against the wind blowing through the window, you could almost imagine you were back home. Or even farther south, at the observatory with Maester Corvin. You’d only met the man once before. But it was akin to how you think Philloa might feel meeting Oris himself. Well, perhaps not on the same level as a god meeting, but near enough. The ache that’s been ever-present in your chest since your mother brought that damned letter into your room blossoms a little brighter as you turn from the window and your gaze slides over your desk. You pause, letting your fingers trace the edge of the paper you dropped the astrolabe onto, your thoughts heavy with a sudden wash of grief, of Maester Corvin.

You don’t need to see more than the corner of the paper to know it’s the last letter you received from him; the one filled with joy at your acceptance of the apprenticeship. The sheet of vellum has already begun to soften at the folds from being unfolded so often over the last few months. You don’t need to pick it up or read it because you already know what it says. Every line is etched into memory.

Curling your fingers inward, you ball your hands into fists at your sides. With another sigh, you can’t help but let your gaze slide back to the open windows, the desire to drink in the stars once more before retiring to your bed impossible to ignore.

The stars have fully emerged now, everything so clear and sharp. You are begrudgingly grateful that Jimin chose these rooms for you; the view really is spectacular. Your eyes flick across the points in the sky, automatically mapping the constellations there. Winter surrendering to spring’s procession, clear for all to see.

You wondered what Maester Corvin was doing right at this moment. Was he also taking note of how The Archer sits lower in the sky than it did last month, making room for The Lantern to shine a little brighter? He was likely standing atop the northern observatory tower, squinting through the large brass telescope mounted there.

You visited Foss once, just after your nineteenth summer. The soaring towers and giant domed ceiling of the observatory were a resplendent sight you’ll never be able to forget; it’s what solidified your desire to pursue study in the stars.

A sad thought replaces your curiosity. By now, Maester Corvin would also be aware that you were not coming for your apprenticeship. Has someone else already taken your place? Are they there now, dutifully taking notes alongside him?

The realization hollows something inside you. Suddenly, the wind coming through the window was too cold. You snagged at the metal crank, using all your might to rotate the handle. The window panes surged inward, landing in place with a loud click. It reminded you of a door closing. Fitting, you think. The observatory would continue without you…A door you once thought open, now shut.

You look down at your hands still wrapped around the metal handle of the window crank. They tremble, your knuckles blanched by your harsh grip. A small streak of ink stained the side of one of your thumbs, probably picked up earlier while you were aimlessly copying a passage from one of the books that appeared suspiciously in your rooms yesterday. The leather tome sits on the end of your bed, still open to the page you left off on.

With the windows closed, your reflection stares back at you through the glass. Royal purple sleeves, silver embroidery that catches the moonlight, a small metal band cuffed around one of your fingers. You hardly recognize the woman looking back at you. She wore a queen’s colors, clashing with her astronomer’s eyes. And somewhere between those two truths, she’d become a stranger to herself.

Outside, a shooting star slipped silently across the sky. Fast enough that anyone else might have missed it. But you were so intently watching the window that you couldn't miss the streak blazing right over your heart. Your breath caught automatically and you moved on instinct, snatching a blank piece of vellum and your pen, your eyes landing on your discarded astrolabe.

The time, the direction, an estimated magnitude, all scrawled out in a practiced hand. When you finished with your notes, you stared at the fresh ink for a long moment. Then, very slowly, you made another note, a smaller note just below the numerical data: right over my heart, a sign from the gods?

You glance back up, eyes searching the sky once more. But there were no answers there among the scattered points of light, no remnants for you to analyze, or even any evidence that the falling star had ever journeyed across the sky.

As you snuff out your candles and crawl into bed, you can’t help but reflect that you might have been more like that falling star than you thought. Perhaps you were always meant for something else. A falling star, brilliant only because it was destined to leave its place in the heavens. People look upon them with awe, make wishes upon their passing, never stopping to mourn the sky that lost them. They celebrate the streak of light without ever asking what it cost for something so luminous to fall.

Maybe that is what you have become. Not extinguished, not stolen or broken. Simply torn from the constellation where you thought you belonged, left to burn your way toward a future you never chose, hoping that somewhere beyond the horizon there is still enough of you left to shine.

Your days grow into a repeating pattern. Wake, break your fast, move to the formal drawing room in your wing, and wait to receive any visitors who may be seeking your counsel—which has been a total of none so far. Not that you blame them, considering your lack of rapport being a Princess and all.

Then it’s lunch with Jimin’s mother or sometimes your own—though she is set to leave at the end of the week, your father already having departed—the conversations always stilted and full of polite niceties. After that, you’re free to do as you please until supper time, at which you are escorted to the great hall by Jimin, sit by his side as you pick at your meal, then walk back to your room where you are to retire for the night. All to wake up and do it again the next day.

Only, this morning, the start of the third week after your wedding, you yearn for some sort of difference. Which is why you wrap a biscuit in a kerchief and snag an apple from the tray you’re brought to break your fast. The biscuit fits easily into the pocket of the work trousers you pull on, much to Marta's horror.

“Your Grace, wouldn’t you prefer one of your new dresses?”

“Dresses aren’t great for adventures, Marta,” you tell her lightly. “And I plan to do a great deal of adventuring. This is now my home after all, and I haven’t had a chance to explore it much since I was a child. I’m sure there are plenty of changes that I should familiarize myself with.”

Marta sputters, her hands flapping against her apron, as you can tell she’s wrestling with how to respond to your declaration. “But—uh—Your Grace, what shall I tell the staff in the drawing room? And the Queen, will you be there for the midday meal?”

You’re tempted to say screw it all, but you know it would be unwise to deviate too far from expectation. “A breath, Marta, take a breath,” you say teasingly, though kind. “I shall be back in time for my meal with Her Majesty, do not fret.”

It would be asking too much for the retinue of guards standing outside your door not to fall into step behind you. So, you do what you can to ignore them. You’re almost out of the East Wing when a courier appears around the corner, his eyes lighting up in surprise.

“Your Grace! I was on my way to your drawing room just now. I have a letter for you.”

The young man can’t be much older than you were when you were last here. Freckles dot his nose, and his mop of copper hair marks him as hailing from the south. A pang of sadness threatens to wash over you, but your eyes snag on the seal embossed on the letter the boy extends out to you.

It’s not the royal crest, or any other Counsel-appointed nobility mark for that matter. It’s simple: a thin circle containing a seven-pointed starburst, set in emerald-green wax. Your breath catches.

“For me?” you ask lamely, even though the young man just said as much.

“Yes, Your Grace. The Prince asked me to bring it directly to you. He said I was to place it into your hands alone,” he explains, giving you a deep bow from the waist, hand and letter still extended.

You glance at your gaggle of guards and then at the boy, offering him a generous smile. “Thank you.”

A short while later, the envelope burning a proverbial hole in your pocket, you find yourself in the eastern gardens. They always look so inviting from your window that you figure they’d be as good a place to start your adventuring as any. But also, they afford some semblance of privacy from watchful eyes—the dozen eyes of your guards notwithstanding.

Your fingers tremble as they break the verdant seal and slip the folded pages from within. Maester Corvin’s wispy handwriting greets you immediately.

Stars be upon you, Your Grace—

He knows. Of course he knows. Your vision blurs before you’ve finished the first line. Maester Corvin writes of the spring skies, planetary conjunctions, a new brass perspicillum he’s been testing for the engineers.

Enclosed are also pages upon pages of careful notes: charts, measurements, corrections scribbled in the margins, and at the very bottom of the last page, a note, thrice underlined.

His Grace insisted I send everything. He was quite adamant that your studies should not cease simply because your title has changed. Keep your eyes on the stars; I will write again soon after the next full moon.

You stare at the words for a very long time. So long, in fact, that you don’t realize you’ve just been standing there in the shade of a laurel tree, staring at the letter, until one of the guards clears his throat. You snap your eyes up, quickly scanning the men. Sweat beads on their foreheads, and you imagine they have to be boiling inside their iron cuirasses despite the relatively mild spring day; the sun is still bright and steady overhead.

“Where’s Ji—” you cough, trying to cover your slipup “—um, His Grace, this morning?”

“The archery grounds, Your Grace.”

“That’s on the other side of the stables, yes?” you ask, squinting as you picture the castle grounds’ layout.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

You nod once, taking only a moment to fold the letter back into its envelope and secure it in your pocket without a biscuit, before setting off toward the archery grounds. The stables are bustling with activity as you draw near. It’s tempting to delay what’s sure to be a riveting confrontation with your husband to spend a few moments in a place you once cherished almost as dearly as the towers back home, but you forge ahead, tucking that desire away for another time.

The sound carries to you first. It’s the sharp thwack of an arrow striking wood. A familiar sound, one that played a large part in the chorus of your childhood. You would sit as your father practiced his bow work, a book in your lap, half-reading but mostly intrigued by the way the arrow flew. Understanding the how may have been your first dive into numerical data; utterly fascinating how there was an entire science behind it.

It was no surprise when you found yourself wielding your own bow in practice shortly after that. Your mother grimaced at how ‘unlady-like’ it was, but Father had shown immense pride, allowing you to continue learning right alongside Jimin and the other boys of court.

Thump.

Several more thumps follow in quick succession. You follow the rhythm through an opening in a hedge, coming to a halt at the edge of a broad practice field. Jimin stands alone, his back to you. He’s stripped off his doublet, the velvet fabric in a haphazard pile on the ground, leaving him in a simple linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. A leather bracer wraps around his left wrist.

You watch as he draws an arrow from the quiver propped against the mound of his doublet. The bow bends, releases—thunk—the arrow hits dead center, narrowly missing the shaft of another already sunk into the wooden target. He reaches for another.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” The words leave your mouth before you’ve fully decided to say them.

Jimin’s hand freezes halfway to the quiver. For a moment, he just stands there, suspended. Then, slowly, he turns. Surprise flashes openly across his face.

“What are you doing here?” The bow drops immediately, hanging limp by his side. “I mean, is everything okay? Do you need—”

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

He blinks, genuine confusion in his voice as he asks, “What?”

You fold your arms tightly across your chest. “We’re married.”

“Yes,” he says slowly.

“I have barely seen you since our wedding.”

His gaze drops to the ground. “I thought that’s what you would prefer.”

Now you’re the one mildly confused, if a little hurt. “Assuming again, are you?”

Jimin straightens, eyes meeting yours once more. “You asked me to call off the wedding, to let you go.”

“I did.”

“But I couldn’t do that. So, I did the only thing that I could.”

“What, disappear?”

His eyebrows lift. “I haven’t disappeared. I was just giving you space. I thought I was respecting your wishes in the only way I have the power to do.”

A short, incredulous laugh escapes you. “You call this respect? I’m sure everyone at court sees it the same way, right after they titter over their afternoon tea about how the Crowned Prince and his new Princess are getting along grandly.” The sarcasm in your words tastes bitter. You had no intention of grousing, but it’s like you can’t help yourself any time you’re in Jimin’s presence.

Jimin frowns. “Have you heard something? I knew they might talk, but if there has been anything said to offend you, I will—”

You wave a hand, cutting Jimin off. This wasn’t the point.

“You still haven’t answered my question: why are you avoiding me?”

He sets the bow carefully beside the quiver. “As I said, I was trying to give you space. I’ve stayed away because every time I came near you before the wedding, it only made you more miserable. I thought if I left you alone…you might be happier,” he finishes in a soft voice.

Your annoyance flags. Because, if you are being honest with yourself, you aren’t entirely sure what you expected from Jimin after your wedding. Not avoidance, certainly. But, perhaps obligation, courtesy, something other than indifference.

“I don’t—I mean, I just thought that I’d be moved into your apartments. Or at least into your wing. That we would at least cross paths, if only to maintain appearances.”

A small smile catches on Jimin’s lips. “You were. Or rather, are…in my wing, that is.”

You frown. “What? No.”

“I took the Eastern Wing as my own some years back. You have been in my wing this entire time.”

“Why is it that I have never seen you, then?”

Jimin lifts a shoulder in a slight shrug. “I am at the end of the hall, on the other side of the drawing room.” You’ve never cared to explore the hall beyond the few doors you’ve been shown. It never occurred to you that the room at the very end of the hall was occupied. “I rise before the sun to attend my duties and retire long after you have.”

“Shouldn’t a husband and wife share chambers?” You’re not sure why you’re asking, or pressing the matter at all. It’s not like you want to share a room—a bed—with Jimin. He tells you as much.

“You made it abundantly clear that you didn’t want to be trapped with me. I would never force you into my rooms, much less my bed.”

Your mouth opens, closes again. You’re not entirely sure what to say, and all that comes out is a mumbled, “Well, I…”

Jimin watches you carefully. “I was trying not to make things worse.” The quiet sincerity in his voice steals what little argument is left within you.

You look away, unable to meet his eyes. The flowering hedge surrounding the archery grounds blurs slightly as you gather your thoughts. Vulnerability has never been something you’ve been comfortable with.

Finally, you manage to offer him some truth, explaining, “I thought you were done with me. That I fulfilled my duty to become your wife and you no longer needed me for anything more than that.”

The confession surprises you as much as it seems to surprise Jimin. But it’s the truth, you realize. Fear that you were made to give up your life for nothing more than to be a prized trophy on a shelf, destined to be paraded around as a name and nothing more.

His response is instant. “No. No, no, never. I would never do that to you. Are there things that I wish were different? Absolutely. But you are my wife, Stargazer, in more ways than just in name. You will be my Queen someday, ruling by my side as my equal.” Jimin pauses, and you can tell he’s deciding whether or not to say his next words. “I’ve dreamed of marrying you since I was fifteen,” he whispers, then a little louder, “I thought that the kindest thing I could do was to stay away until you wanted otherwise.”

Unable to take the look on his face any longer, you flounder with your original desire to seek him out. “What’s the meaning of this letter I received today?” you ask, slipping the envelope from your pocket.

Jimin’s face, as you had hoped it would, brightens. A smile catches at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes crinkle as it grows wider. “A gift, for my wife.” His expression softens slightly. “I was hoping it would bring you some comfort.”

“Oh.” And you realize now that it had. When you recognized Maester Corvin’s seal, it was the first time you’ve felt a modicum of a positive feeling since arriving in the Capitol.

“I wrote to him the day after our wedding,” Jimin explains. “I explained the situation and may have, um, requested copies of all his observations.”

“Requested?” you ask, catching his stumble over the word.

“Well, I may have insisted.”

Despite yourself, you laugh lightly. “I see.” It’s hard to force a smile from appearing on your lips. “Might I ask why?”

He looks at you as though the answer should be obvious. When you continue to wait for his response, he says, “Because you love the stars.” The simplicity of his answer leaves you strangely even more speechless. He continues, almost apologetically, “I can’t give you back your apprenticeship. But I thought—” he shrugs helplessly “—perhaps I could at least make sure you didn’t lose the sky, too.”

You don’t realize you’re clutching the envelope to your chest until the vellum crinkles as your body deflates slightly. “You really do care, don’t you?”

The words wound him; you can tell by the tightening of his eyes and the frown line that forms between his brows. If you could take them back, you would, but you know that’s as possible as waking up tomorrow and this all being a dream.

“Of course I do.” He doesn’t need to say it; your question more rhetorical than not, but he does all the same. “I read all your letters, many times. So many that I’ve practically memorized them. The way you spoke of the stars, as if they were your most precious companions…As if there was nothing more in this world that you wanted. You shared them with me so often that it often felt like they were my friends, too.”

He’s right. The only other constant in your life besides the stars was Jimin. You wrote to him as often as you could, sharing every intimate detail of your life—your love of the stars. Hopes, dreams…You filled pages and pages, and then shared them with him—no one else. Something moves through you, an alarming feeling that you’re not quite sure how to name.

You swallow hard, clearing your throat and forcing your eyes beyond the man standing before you. “You’ve, uh, you’ve gotten better,” you say, nodding toward the target at the far end of the field. The envelope slides back into your pocket with ease, safe from the feelings you can’t—or, rather, don’t—want to process right now.

Jimin glances over his shoulder. “I’ve had just a little bit of practice since I was fifteen.” He glances back at you, a conspiratorial look gleaming in his eyes as the corner of his mouth kicks up in a half-grin. “Want to give it a go, show me how much you’ve practiced in the last decade?”

You laugh softly through your nose. “And if I haven’t touched a bow in years? I’ll embarrass myself.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” Jimin says lightly, eyes twinkling.

He lofts the bow, offering it to you. Not with expectation, just simply holding it between the two of you, giving you every opportunity to refuse. Your fingers hesitate. The polished wood gleams warmly in the afternoon sunlight. You can recall the weight of a bow, the way the wax-coated flax string would slide perfectly along your fingers, and the tickle of the fletching against your cheek as you steadied your aim.

Before you can overthink it, you take the bow from Jimin. It settles into your palm with surprising familiarity—lighter than you remember; perhaps you’ve simply grown stronger. Jimin quietly retrieves an arrow from the quiver.

You take the offered arrow and step forward to the shooting line. Muscle memory takes over, your feet planting shoulder-width apart. You raise the bow, notch the arrow, and pull it taut. The feathered fletching whispers against your cheek as you take aim, but a tremble in your shoulder has your fingers loosing too quickly.

The arrow flies with an embarrassing wobble.

Thunk.

“Well, that was terrible.”

Jimin laughs. “Terrible? You hit it. I’d say that’s not terrible at all.”

You glance back at him, ready to scowl at his teasing, only to realize he’s not making fun of you at all. He’s smiling, proudly. As though you’d just accomplished something remarkable.

“I used to be better than that.” You can’t help defending yourself anyway.

He shrugs, not put off by your self-deprecation in the slightest. “And you will be again.” He walks toward you slowly. “May I?” he asks, gesturing to the bow still clutched in your hand. You nod. He stops just behind your shoulder. “Soften your knees first.” You shift automatically. “There. Now, gently,” his voice is lower now, patient, the same tone you imagine he’d use to calm a frightened animal. You can feel the heat from his body, the brush of his words against the shell of your ear.

“Like this?” Your grip adjusts unintentionally.

“No, no. Here.” His hand reaches carefully around yours, not taking the bow from you, merely nudging your fingers slightly lower along the grip. “There.” His touch is featherlight, gone almost instantly. “Just a little higher with your elbow. Try to relax, you always lock up when you’re concentrating.”

“I do not.”

“You most certainly do,” he chuckles teasingly. “Your shoulders are stiff again. Try to relax.”

You’re about to launch into a tirade about how wrong he is, but a reluctant huff of laughter escapes you instead. Because he’s right. “Fine. Relaxing.”

“Better,” he murmurs, his smile practically audible. “Now—” he reaches for the string, not pulling, but guiding “—draw from your back. Don’t think. You never needed to. Just do what feels good, what you know is right.”

The bow bends smoothly this time. The world narrows; the wind seems to die down just for you. You breathe, just as you know you should, and release. The arrow sings through the air; cleaner, straighter. Thunk. Just left of center.

“Oh.” You lower the bow. “I—” The laugh that escapes you is entirely involuntary. “I almost had it!”

“You did,” Jimin agrees.

You turn around without thinking, coming chest-to-chest with him. “I haven’t shot in years! And I nearly did it!”

You’re smiling. Actually smiling. The realization comes a heartbeat after the smile itself. For the first time since arriving at court…It’s not that you’ve forgotten how, not completely. Just…for a short period there, the anger, the grief, the impossible weight of everything waiting beyond these grounds, they’ve simply fallen away. Your gaze finds Jimin’s, still so close. He’s already watching you. Something gentle lives in his expression.

“I’ve missed that smile,” he says quietly.

Your heart stumbles. “What?”

“I’ve missed seeing you shine like that.”

The words settle between you, so softly. You don’t know what to do with them. You look away first, towards the target where your arrow sits within the clusters of Jimin’s own. “I think, for a time, I had forgotten how.” It’s a painful admission, but you know Jimin won’t fault you for it. “Thank you for reminding me.”

A comfortable silence settles, the kind you once shared so easily as children. Jimin takes a polite step back, giving you room to breathe. His eyes stay on you, but you find yourself unable to hold his gaze for fear he might notice how your cheeks warm. You turn to the side, letting your eyes take in the hedge around the archery range.

Tiny white blossoms dot the green shrubbery. Bees bumble drunkenly among the beds of lavender along the edges. Somewhere beyond the hedges, a fountain chatters happily to itself. Birds call from their nests, sequestered somewhere in the branches of the trees that stand scattered throughout the gardens surrounding the range.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you something…”

You glance back. Jimin’s expression has changed, more serious now, though with an undercurrent of excitement.

“What is it?”

A smile begins pulling at the corner of his mouth. “The northern tower overlooking the river isn’t used anymore. There is this wonderful architect from Foss who has already agreed, and so, I’ve decided to—”

“Your Grace!” The voice rips across the range, sharp and panicked.

Both of you turn. A boy no older than fourteen comes sprinting through the hedges. The purple livery denotes him as one of the royal squires. His face is blanched, breathing ragged, and—

Your stomach drops. His hands and arms are covered in blood. Not smeared, but soaked. The cuffs and sleeves of his cotehardie are so thick with it, they look nearly black. He nearly stumbles as he reaches the interior edge of the range.

Jimin’s retinue of guards combined with your own automatically fall into formation, intent on intercepting the boy. “Stand down!” Jimin commands them, already moving towards the boy.

“Your Grace!” the boy cries again.

“What is it?”

The boy struggles for breath, finally jerking to a halt before Jimin. “The—” he gasps, a hand clutching at the front of his coat “—it’s The King.” Everything inside you goes still, the bow falling from suddenly weak fingers. “There’s been an accident.”

Next Chapter⇾ ⇽Previous Chapter ◅ Back to story masterlist

You don’t startle, only sigh, long-suffering, and slip backward off the feathered mattress, your bare toes cushioned by the thick runner on the floor. “If I don’t, they’d never listen,” you say, turning. “And someone has to be the sensible one in this house.”

Your mother stands in the doorway, composed as ever, one hand resting lightly against the frame, the other held close across the deep burgundy linen covering her midsection. There is something in her expression—tight, measured—that makes your easy smile falter just a fraction.

She dips her chin in your direction. “As you say.”

“I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I imagine you wouldn’t have heard a cavalry charge with all your mutterings,” your mother replies in gentle jest. Her gaze moves, briefly, to the open trunk, taking in the books, the scatter of papers and instruments among the clothes…assessing the haphazard disorder of it all.

You follow that look, then straighten slightly, automatically defensive without meaning to be. It may look like chaos to someone else, but you know precisely what you are doing.

“I was just finishing up,” you tell her. “I want to leave early tomorrow. If I can reach the lower pass before midday, I might make up half a day’s journey by nightfall. Maester Corvin’s last letter said the skies have been clearer this month, and if I miss—”

The sound of your name slices through your rambling. Something in the way your name is spoken—quiet, but firm—has your breath quickening. Mother hardly ever uses your real name when addressing you. “My heart,” she amends softly with the nickname she’s called you since you were little, clearing her throat as if to ease the panic she can see in your face.

Your mother steps fully into your room, then closes the door behind her with a soft click. From the hand pressed to her belly, she produces a letter, sealed in deep purple wax, the imprint unmistakable even from across the room. Your gaze catches on it, dread slithering down your spine.

“No,” you say immediately, before your mother can speak further. “No, I’m not—”

“You haven’t even heard what it is.”

“I don’t need to,” you shoot back. “If it’s from the crown, it isn’t anything that concerns me.”

Your mother’s expression does not change. “It concerns this family. That is enough.”

The breath you let out is sharp as you turn away and absently smooth a hand over the front of your skirts. “I leave tomorrow,” you say, more tightly now. “You know that. We’ve spoken about this. Everything is arranged—Maester Corvin is expecting me, he’s already written to the observatory that—”

“You will not be leaving tomorrow.”

The words land like a heavy stone on your chest. Your hand stills against your skirt, but your heart continues to pound violently. Slowly, you turn back to look at your mother.

“What?”

She holds out the letter once more. “It arrived this morning. A summons from the court.”

“I don’t care,” you balk. “Send our regrets. Say I’m ill, say I’m—anything, it doesn’t matter—”

“It does matter.”

“No, it doesn’t,” you cry, throwing your hands up, your voice rising despite your attempt at maintaining control. “I have spent years—years—working toward this. Maester Corvin has only taken three apprentices in the last two decades, and I am one of them. You can’t take this from me, if I miss even a week—”

“Now, my heart,” your mother begins, trying to placate you.

“I will fall behind,” you push on, words tumbling now with little heed in manners. “Do you understand that? The spring observations alone. He said there are alignments we won’t see again for years, decades, or more! I need to be there when he—”

“You will attend the Festival of First Bloom in Baledryn.” Your mother’s tone cuts cleanly through your plea, an executioner's axe beginning its descent.

Silence follows. So heavy and oppressive that you find it hard to draw your next breath. All you can do is stare at your mother, certain you must have misheard.

“The…festival!” you parrot, incredulous. “You want me to give up this opportunity—for a festival?”

“We have been requested to attend.”

“Then decline it,” you snap. “We are not obligated to dance attendance every time the court so desires.”

Your mother’s eyes sharpen. “This comes from the king himself. We are obligated when the crown issues a summons.” You had spent so long clawing yourself into existence beyond the walls of the Capitol that you had almost believed the girl you used to be was truly gone. The court—the King—it seems, had not forgotten her at all.

You can’t help but laugh once, harsh and disbelieving. “Since when?”

“Since always.”

“No,” you insist, shaking your head. “No, that’s not—this is different. I have plans. You agreed to them. You promised.”

“I promised that you would be allowed to study,” your mother agrees evenly. “And you have. For the last year, you have diligently worked alongside Maester Boris, and we are so very proud of the work you have done. But it is time to move on from these silly fancies.”

Silly fancies. The words strike harder than the summons itself. As though every sleepless night bent over charts by candlelight, every frozen dawn spent recording celestial movements, every ink stain on your fingers and burn mark from overheated lenses amounts to nothing more than childish play.

“Silly fancies?!” you echo, the words sharp and biting on your tongue. “It is because of the last year of silly fancies that I have earned this! Maester Corvin chose me. I wrote to him for months, I—”

“And you will write to him again,” she interrupts, an uncharacteristic sigh passing her lips. “Explaining that you will be delayed.”

“Delayed?” You stare at her. “Do you know what a delay costs in work like this? In work like mine? It isn’t something you can simply…pause. The sky doesn’t wait for court invitations…it does not pause for festivals and senseless frivolity!”

“The sky will remain,” your mother says. Her eyes sharpen even further, reminding you of a hawk about to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse. You’re afraid you know who the mouse is in this scenario.

You press one more time, “That isn’t the point, and you know it.”

“Then what is?”

The words falter, your breath catching because you know that no matter what you say, it will make no difference. But you have to try anyway. “The point,” you say, forcing the words out, “is that this matters to me. More than…than standing in a crowded hall while nobles pretend to notice me. More than watching people I don’t know make decisions that have nothing to do with me.”

Your mother’s gaze does not soften, much to your chagrin. “You are a member of this house. Their decisions have everything to do with you.”

“No, they don’t,” you insist, quieter now, but no less fierce. “Not anymore, not since Father took over lordship here. We are no longer a family of the court. We are free from that! You have to understand, please, I beg of you. I’m not a girl of fifteen summers anymore, destined for a lady's life. I know who I am now. Who I really am. And that’s why I’m leaving.”

A flicker—something brief—passes through your mother’s expression, but it is gone almost as quickly as it comes. “You are not leaving. At least, not tomorrow,” she says, the words ringing with finality.

Your jaw tightens. “You can’t do this to me.”

“I can,” your mother replies coolly. “And I will.”

“On what grounds?” you demand. “Because a piece of paper with a seal arrived at our door? Because someone with a crown deems we hold a celebration that is, to all intents and purposes, a farce? It’s a mockery of the season, this Festival of the First Bloom. You know that, right? The first blooms will not come to the Capitol for another fortnight!”

A sardonic smile graces your mother’s face. “Now who is missing the point?”

“You, clearly. Because you still do not see my point!” Tears prick at the backs of your eyes, but you blink them away quickly, refusing to let them fall.

Your mother steps closer, closing the distance to you. When she speaks again, her voice is lower, but no less firm. “I do see your point, my heart, trust that I do. But it is not a point that matters more than the others. You will go to Baledryn in two days' time. You will present yourself at court. You will attend the festival with a gracious smile on your face.”

“And after?” You sniffle, fighting so hard to keep it together. “How long must I endure? Maester Corvin—”

“Will understand.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know that he is a reasonable man,” she offers. “And that this is not a matter you have the luxury to refuse.”

Casting a helpless glance around your room, you try to find something to hold onto, something to ground you in this moment. “I cannot believe you are doing this to me. After I have done everything you asked of me. I stayed here with Maester Boris when you told me to, I learned what I was meant to learn, I kept my head down and my voice quiet when everyone else around me was doing as they pleased—now that I have something that is mine, something I worked hard for—” your voice breaks, your resolve swiftly abandoning you. “You would take it from me,” you finish, softer, defeated.

Mother is silent for a moment. Then, carefully, she places the letter on your bedside table. “I will send for Marta to help you clear your trunks and repack appropriately,” she says. “You leave in two days. Carriages have already been arranged.”

You blink in surprise. “Already—?”

“Yes.”

“You already answered the summons? Without having spoken to me first.”

“I answered because the response was not yours to give. I was simply here for the sake of propriety.”

You let out a strangled laugh and turn away, floundering, like the walls are closing in around you. “Of course you were.” Your fingers tremble as you press a hand to your mouth to stifle the next hysterical laugh. This is it, truly it. Your knees grow weak. Strange that the body could prepare itself for grief before the mind fully understood it. “This is absurd,” you mutter. “This is—this is a festival. A party. And you would have me abandon everything for it?”

You weren’t speaking to your mother, not really, but she answers anyway, “It is not merely a party.”

“Then what is it?” you demand, spinning back to face her. “What could possibly be so important that it—”

“That is not for you to question.” A vague, ominous answer. Silence falls again, heavier this time. Oppressive in a way that brings back the dread you felt earlier, in full force. What could be so important? What is she not telling you? Your chest rises and falls, thoughts racing, searching for some argument that would make everything right once more as it should be.

“Maester Corvin will replace me. He will not wait,” you say finally, quieter, more controlled this time—but you hope she can hear the utter devastation in your tone. “If I’m not there when he expects, he will assume I’m not serious. There are others who would take my place in a heartbeat. I might not get another chance like this.”

Mother’s gaze does not falter. “Then you will find another path,” she intones.

Something in your heart shifts—sharp and sudden. “And if I do not want another path?” 

For a moment, just a moment, your mother’s composure wavers. But when she speaks, her voice is steady: “You will do as you are required to do. As I did when I was your age. As all women do…”

You swallow hard. There’s something there, something she is trying to tell you. Except your brain is so jumbled you can’t quite put the pieces together. You had thought yourself already halfway out the door of this life. Now you understand that the door had never truly been open at all.

“And if I don’t?”

Mother does not hesitate. “You will.” It wasn’t a threat. It was worse—it was certainty. The final swing of the axe.

You look at her for a long moment, searching for something—understanding, softness, doubt—but find none.

Finally, you let out a slow, unsteady breath, gaze drifting, almost unwillingly, back to the open trunk—the books, the precious astronomical instruments, all the accoutrements of the life you had believed was about to begin. Your eyes move to the letter, resting where Mother had left it, the seal catching the light from the multitude of candles lit around the room.

You cannot stand the sight of either, so you turn to stare out the open window instead. Judging by the cast of the moon and the faint rumble in your belly, you gauge that it is approaching supper time. Only, the thought of food leaves the taste of ash on your tongue.

“I will go,” you say to the window, hoping your words get caught on the northerly wind and are swept away to never take root in reality. “But, I will not unpack my things. They will go to court with me.”

“As you wish,” Mother mutters in acceptance.

You close your eyes and, for a moment, imagine the observatory—the cold air, the open sky, Maester Corvin’s wizened voice as he maps the stars with ink-stained fingers. Then the image slips, replaced by marble halls and watchful eyes. You shudder.

When you open your eyes again, the room feels smaller. “Two days' time?” you ask in a voice so quiet you’re not sure your mother can hear you.

Behind you, the door opens. “Two days, my heart,” Mother confirms, not unkindly, “be ready.”

The door closes, and the soft shuffle of your mother’s slippers grows quiet as she disappears down the hall. You are left to your thoughts, torn between two futures—one you had chosen, and one seemingly chosen for you.

Finally, you let the tears fall.

The Gilded Bastion of Baledryn, Evenfall Keep, rises from the horizon, like something dreamed into existence by men who once mistook themselves for gods. White stone streaked through with veins of gold catches the morning sun until the entire city seems aflame with light. Tier upon tier of terraces climb the mountainside in impossible symmetry, threaded together by hanging gardens, narrow bridges, and waterfalls engineered so precisely they look enchanted rather than built. It all seems too clean, too bright, too carefully constructed to feel real after nearly a decade away. You stare out the carriage window as it rumbles through the outer gates and into the northern bailey.

“It hasn’t changed,” your mother comments quietly.

The last time your family was within these walls was the time between your fifteenth summer and fall. You have fond memories of your life within the bustle of court, but there was always an itch to be away from it all. Far too many eyes and tittering gossip for your liking. It was why you were so relieved when your father accepted the lordship of Thornmere, a sizable mining province some three days north in the foothills of the mountains.

“It has,” you whisper to yourself, so quiet your mother doesn’t catch it. It’s that, or maybe you’re the one who has changed. Once, you had believed the towers touched the heavens. When you were a child, you spent entire afternoons trying to count the windows from the gardens, convinced if you were allowed to go into the highest towers, you could pluck stars straight from the sky. Now the towers only looked tall enough to keep people trapped inside them.

The city swallows the carriage quickly—narrow streets giving way to wide avenues, the air thick with the smell of incense and voices genteeled with polished civility. Perfumed smoke drifts lazily from bronze censers hung above storefronts. Silk awnings ripple overhead in shades of plum and gold.

Flower sellers wander among the crowds with baskets filled with early-spring gardenia blossoms that have been brought up the southern road from Foss. They call sweetly into the bustle, drawing your attention. You stare at the white blooms and can’t help but feel annoyed as you’re reminded of the festival and its falsities. The flowers having to be carted up from the south confirm that the first blooms in the capital are still weeks off yet.

You grimace, forcing your eyes away from the flower peddlers, away from the reminder of why you’re here. Except, everywhere you look, there is preparation for the festival. While the court will observe within the pearly walls of the palace, the townspeople will celebrate in their own ways. Sighing, you turn to stare at your hands clasped in your lap instead.

To anyone else, it would seem magical…to you, it presents everything but. By the time the postern gate leading to the castle's courtyard comes into view, you’ve already folded yourself into something smaller, more docile, ready to be contained in a cage. Your shoulders automatically draw inward in anticipation of what’s to come.

Evenfall Keep, your prison until the Festival of the First Bloom concludes, looms in stark contrast to the clear blue sky overhead. It glitters in a way that once brought you comfort because it resembled the stars you so love. Now, it looks more like the mocking flicker of flame, meant to char you to the marrow of your bones.

You don’t realize how much you remember of the castle until you see it again. The steps, the purple pennants attached to the multitude of spires snapping in the wind, the guards in their gleaming armor. It is a place wholly familiar, where you had once traipsed without thinking, yet completely foreign at the same time.

The carriage draws to a stop. The horses whicker as stable hands approach, deft in their practice of bridle and tack. Guards move in, their booted steps heavy on the cobbles.

“Sit up straight,” Mother murmurs, not unkindly. You automatically obey, steeling yourself as the carriage door opens. Light floods in along with a proffered hand—you ignore it, stepping down and out of the carriage of your own accord.

“You’re here!”

You freeze. The voice is older, deeper—but unmistakably familiar. Turning, you see Jimin standing halfway down the front steps, as though he had started forward and forgotten how to continue once you appeared. For a heartbeat, he just stares at you.

Then he smiles, not with the measured etiquette of a prince, but more like the boy who once climbed into haylofts with straw in his hair and moonlight on his cheeks. It is immediate, bright, and completely unguarded. He lights up like the sun, golden circlet catching in the midday light, and his blond hair haloing around him as he resumes his descent. The purple cape attached to his shoulders streams behind, adding to the air of playfulness emanating from him. 

“Your bag, My Lady,” Marta murmurs from beside you. “I will see your things safely to your room.” You absently slip the leather satchel from your shoulder and hand it over, body moving on autopilot.

“You’re here,” Jimin says again, and this time, there is something like relief in it, like something long-held had finally settled back into place. He comes down the rest of the steps quickly, too quickly for decorum, ignoring the faint shift of the guards around him. “You’re—” He stops in front of you, almost laughing under his breath. “You’re actually here.”

You don’t realize how still you’ve gone until he is standing just a foot away. He looks…different. Not just older. But refined…taller, the boy you remember stretched into something more—but there are pieces of the old him still there, clear for you to see. Especially in the way his eyes light up when he looks at you. In the way that he doesn’t seem to think before stepping even closer…

Grabbing the edges of your dark green skirts, you dip low at the waist, bowing as you greet him. “Your Grace.”

Jimin flinches as if the honorific pains him. He blinks as you straighten. “What?”

You shift slightly, hands folding in front of you.

“It has been some time, Your Grace,” you say, tone polite, precise as it should be when addressing the heir apparent. “I trust you are well.”

For a moment, he just stares at you. Then he lets out a short, disbelieving breath. “All right,” he says with a shake of his head. “That’s—no. No, no, no, we’re not doing that.”

You don’t move. “Doing what?”

“That,” he exclaims, jabbing a very unprincely finger in your direction. “That ridiculous formality. It’s me, for godssake.”

“I’m aware, Your Grace.”

“Oh, Oris, take me, then stop calling me that!”

Your gaze dips to his feet, demure just as you were taught as a child when faced with a royal visage. “It is what you are.”

“It’s not what I am to you.” You glance up, watching the way his expression shifts at your silence—not wounded, exactly, but unsettled in a way. When you roll your lips between your teeth, swallowing whatever response you may have, Jimin presses on, “I thought—” he starts, then stops, shaking his head slightly as if dismissing the thought. “Never mind.” Silence lingers, the air growing stiff with awkward tension. “It’s just, it’s been years,” he finally explains. “I thought at least…I don’t know. That you might be glad to see me.”

You bring your eyes up further and hold his gaze. “I am glad you are well,” you tell him.

It isn’t an answer. At least as you can tell, not the one he was probing for. Silence falls once more. Behind you, you can feel your mother watching. Around you, the guards and footmen pretend not to. Whispers of this exchange will be working their way through the halls soon enough.

Jimin seems to realize it, too. He straightens, some of that easy fondness drawing back—not gone, just…tempered. “Come,” he says after a moment. “You must be tired from the journey. I’ve taken the privilege of having rooms prepared for you in the East Wing. I think you will enjoy the changes we’ve made to them. It’s also quieter now than it once was. Let me walk with you there.”

“That won’t be necessary,” you say with a polite incline of your head.

“It is my intention nonetheless,” he replies, a little more firmly. Then, softer again, “Please allow me this.”

You hesitate. Then nod once. “Very well.”

Something in his shoulders eases, just slightly. “Good,” he says. “Very good.” He turns, gesturing for you to follow. As you move toward the palace doors, he glances back at you, as if trying to reconcile some inner warring. “I’ve kept all of the letters,” he says suddenly. “The ones you sent.”

Your steps falter—just barely. But you manage to catch yourself before beginning the ascent up the stairs, following Jimin into the castle. Something tightens beneath your ribs. “How…kind of you.”

“Kind?” he laughs. “Would you rather I have tossed them out? Not a very friend-like thing to do, Stargazer.”

“Why—why did you call me that?” you can’t help asking, even though you know it is impolite.

Now it’s Jimin’s turn to falter. He spins, continuing in a backtrack across the threshold of the large double doors that open into the grand foyer. The click of his boot heels is softened by the plush rug covering the granite floor. “Do you not study astronomy? Your last letter spoke of Maester Corvin and the observatory. You made it seem like you still—”

“I do,” you cut in, words terse. You shake your head in frustration and amend softly, “Did. I did.”

“Did.” He rolls the word around his tongue as if testing it out. Jimin’s brow furrows, lines marring the otherwise perfect skin of his handsome face. You always did find him fair on the eyes. He’s perhaps even more so now than when you last saw him. A decade of maturity sits in the straight line of his shoulders and the tilt of his chin as he assesses you. After a moment, he hums. “You’re different.” A beat more, and he adds, “I guess you were right all those years ago.”

“About?”

“Things always change.”

💝💝💝

Jimin

The corridors hold that same polished quiet that they always have—light spilling across marble, footsteps muffled by thick carpets, voices kept carefully low. Everything is measured. Everything is witnessed. The spectacle in the courtyard will be spared no quarter. There will be raised eyebrows and titters before nightfall. Something Jimin is not looking forward to fielding, especially considering what else is happening tonight.

Jimin walks half a step ahead of you, then slows, then adjusts again because he can’t quite decide where he is meant to be in relation to you now. Torn between what is proper and what is familiar.

The silk of your skirts whispers faintly across the floor. There is no hesitation in your stride, no curiosity in your gaze. You’re not looking around, not taking in the place that had once been your home. That, more than anything, unsettles him.

“You used to hate the East Wing,” he remarks, a small, almost tentative smile touching his mouth at the fond memory of how you’d grumble anytime you visited its halls. “You said it felt like a tomb.”

“I was a child.” Your words are flat, emotionless…unnerving. 

Jimin’s smile lingers a moment longer than it should, then fades. “Yes,” he agrees. “We both were.”

Turning a corner, a pair of servants bow as Jimin passes; he acknowledges them automatically, but you do not seem to notice them. Or perhaps you do—and choose not to. Jimin steals another glance at you, his brow furrowing and his concern growing.

You look the same in ways that make his chest tighten unexpectedly—the line of your profile, the way you hold your chin as you take light and measured steps, the slight crease between your brows that has always appeared when you were irritated or concentrating.

But there are differences, too. Sharper ones that needle at his thoughts, his heart. Your expression doesn’t move as freely as he remembers. Your eyes—when they aren’t fixed ahead—seem to weigh things rather than take them in. Even your silence feels different. Not companionable as it once was, not thoughtful in the way Jimin knows—or knew?—you to be. You’re guarded. And Jimin can’t decide quite how that makes him feel.

“Your travels were well?” he asks, more as a question, searching for something—anything—that might bridge the distance. “I wasn’t certain when you’d arrive. The roads out of Thornmere can be difficult this time of year. We were prepared to push the Festival as needed.”

“They were manageable.”

“That’s good.” He smiles, but it falls just as quickly as it graced his lips. “I had the roads checked over the winter. We had repairs done along the lower passes. I thought it might make the journey easier.”

A pause. “It did.”

It should have felt like something. It didn’t. Jimin felt at a complete loss.

He exhaled quietly through his nose, trying not to let the frustration show. Not frustration with you—he corrects himself immediately—but with…whatever this was. This strange, brittle space that has formed between the two of you without his knowledge. Your letters had never sounded like this. They had been quieter over the years, yes. More measured, more mature. But there had always been something beneath them—warmth, wit, a kind of dry keenness that made him read them twice just to catch everything you didn’t put to pen.

Jimin had kept every single one, as he said. They are stowed in a trunk under his bed for safekeeping. He had read them enough times that he could still recall the way you described the sky along the northern mountains—how the stars looked closer there, sharper, as though they might cut if you reached up to touch them. That voice, that awe, feels very far away now—as far as the stars themselves.

“Your rooms are just ahead,” he tells you. He comes to a stop in front of a set of tall double doors, carved with intricate patterns of curling vines and constellations worked subtly into the design. He pauses, hand lifted toward the handle. “I thought you might prefer these rooms,” he says. “The windows face north, with a clear view of the sky at night.”

For the first time since you had left the courtyard, Jimin watches as your gaze shifts—really shifts. You blink a few times, eyes flashing hungrily over the relief etched into the doors. He watches for a breath as you drink it in. He had them made especially for you…but he leaves that part unspoken.

“The northern sky?”

He lets out a small breath, relief stealing the air from his lungs, before pushing the doors open. “That was your favorite view, right? Or at least it once was. I had the masons come and cobble the windows wider. Maester Jovin also created these fantastical contraptions that let you swing open the window's glass panes. You used to complain about the windows,” he continues. “Too much glass distortion. I believe you said it ruined the stars.”

“I said it altered their shape,” you correct automatically.

And there it was. Not warmth—but something closer to it. A small look into the person he remembers, slipping through before you could stop it. He catches it; holds onto it, perhaps too tightly, but there’s nothing to be done for that.

“Right,” he says, softer now. “Altered.”

Jimin lets you precede him into the room. It is spacious but not ostentatious—light spilling in from a rotund skylight overhead, pale fabrics, a writing desk positioned deliberately near the new windows. Shelves line one wall, already filled with a careful selection of books—mostly books on astronomy, but a few of Jimin’s personal choices as well.

You take in the space, and Jimin holds his breath, waiting for any sign from you. For a moment, he’s certain you’re going to turn to him and shed whatever it is that has you in such a tight grasp. But, instead, you simply say, “It is lovely. Thank you, Your Grace.”

Crestfallen doesn’t even begin to describe it. Jimin nods, the movement automatic; the honorific lands heavier than it did in the courtyard. Are you truly lost to him?

“If anything is missing, we can have it brought in,” he tells you. “Or I can have things moved. I wasn’t certain what you’d prefer after so long.”

“It is fine.”

“I know it’s…a lot,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “Coming back. After so much time away.”

You move toward the window, fingers brushing lightly over the brass contraption Maester Jovin had created upon Jimin’s request. It’s a hinged mechanism that allows the entire window pane to pivot and swivel in and out. It took the Maester nearly five years to perfect it. You let out a quiet breath—something that might have been a laugh, if it had held any humor. “That’s one way of putting it.”

Jimin stills. There it is again—the sense of something just out of reach. Something he can’t quite see, but can feel pressing at the edges of everything you say. “The timing was sudden. I’m sure you would have much rather waited until summer.”

“Yet, we were summoned now,” you mutter. “What choice did I have?”

Something in the way you say that makes him pause. “Did they—” he starts, then stops, adjusting his train of thought. “Did they not explain everything clearly?”

Your shoulders stiffen, just slightly, but Jimin catches it nonetheless. “Mother explained everything perfectly. I know what is required.”

Required. The word snags in his mind. He steps closer to you, though not too close this time; careful, where he hadn’t been as much before. “If something about this is—”

You turn then, finally facing him fully. “If something about this is what?” you ask, your tone so cold and distant.

Jimin searches your expression, looking for something to give him a clue as to what is going through your mind, what you’re looking for as an answer here. “You seem…” He hesitates, then forges on, “Not yourself.”

“And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he explains, with a measured tone, “that you used to tell me when something was wrong.”

“What makes you believe that anything is wrong?”

A tart reply rests on his tongue, one that you do not deserve. “I know this wasn’t your plan,” he says instead. “You had your studies, your love for the stars.” You flinch, but Jimin presses on, “I remember. You wrote about it. I know how important it was—is—to you.”

Your expression doesn’t change. “I did tell you,” you agree. And perhaps there might be a flicker in your eyes, something that tells Jimin this conversation is not helping the chasm that has grown between the two of you.

“And this—” he gestures lightly, encompassing the room, the palace, the unspoken future stretching between you both, “—this doesn’t have to erase that.”

You look at him then, in a way that makes something in his chest tighten further and then loosen all at once. “You truly believe that?” you ask in a voice so quiet Jimin has to strain to hear it.

“I do,” he says, without hesitation. “We can find a way to make it work. Together. I’ll make sure you have what you want.”

The word lingers in the air, potent with so many unspoken things—together. For a moment, something like disbelief crosses your face. Then it vanishes. “How can you be so certain?”

He gives you a small, almost self-conscious smile. “I’ve had time to think about it.”

Years, in truth. Years of letters. Of memories. Of something he had never quite let go of. A childhood promise come to fruition, a choice finally his to make. Jimin takes another step, closing just a fraction more of the distance to you. “We can do this together, if we just try,” he says. “But your journey was long. You’re probably exhausted. I should let you rest for now.”

You do not deny it, simply dip your chin and murmur, “Quite.”

“Rest. You’ll feel differently after some time, I know it. After tonight, perhaps.”

Your gaze flicks to his. “Tonight?”

“The opening ceremony,” he explains. “The formal announcement.” He watches your face carefully as he says it—waiting, expecting recognition or understanding. Perhaps even a flicker of that shared anticipation he has carried himself for so long.

But nothing. It does not come. Instead, you hum softly. “Yes. The ceremony.”

You’re too tired, he tells himself. Of course you are. The journey along the north road alone would have been enough to wear anyone thin, and returning here—to this place, this life—would be disorienting at best.

That has to be it.

“I’ll come for you before it begins,” he offers. “There are a few formalities, but nothing you’ll need to worry about. I’ll handle everything.”

You incline your head once more. “As you wish.”

It isn’t quite an agreement, but Jimin accepts it anyway. He steps back toward the door, his hand resting briefly against the frame. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says, the words slipping out before he can bid them stay.

They feel too honest in the quiet that follows. You don’t respond immediately. For a heartbeat, he thinks—hopes—you might say something that would let him know he hasn’t, in truth, lost you. But as the seconds stretch on, Jimin wishes there was a way to pull his words back, to take them and tuck them close to his heart where they belong, instead of letting them loose in a world where they are clearly unwanted.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” you finally say. “I’ll be ready this evening.”

He nods once. “Good,” he intones softly. Everything he had hoped this moment to be is disappearing far more rapidly than he thought possible.

Before he can make a further fool of himself, he turns and leaves, the door closing behind him with a quiet finality. The corridor is darker than it was before. Jimin walks a few steps, then slows before coming abreast of his personal guard. He just needs a moment longer by himself. His disposition slips as the composure he had held in front of you loosens.

Something is wrong. He knows it. It’s not just the distance—not just time. Some other force is at work here. Something he can’t quite name but feels the cold embrace of all the same.

He leans briefly against the rough stone of the wall, exhaling slowly as he tries to make sense of it all. Your letters hadn’t prepared him for this. Yes, they had changed—become more restrained, less frequent—but they had never felt…hostile. Never this sharp-edged and biting. He was so certain you wanted this…

For a small moment, he finds himself tugging at an old bit of ribbon sitting beneath the cuff of his coat. It’s stayed there since it was tied in place. It once felt like a tether to hope, a future as bright and unyielding as the sun in summer. Now, though?

With a sigh, he pushes himself upright again. It was the journey, he tells himself, tucking the faded length back under his cuff. It has to be. You had been pulled from your work, brought back here with little warning, expected to step immediately into something…so wholly significant.

Anyone would be unsettled. Anyone would need time. “And you gave her absolutely none,” he mutters under his breath to himself. “Fool.”

Jimin swipes off his circlet and cards a hand through his hair before replacing it and pacing a step or two before forcing himself to still. Now is not the time for him to come undone. One of you needed to keep strong, and he was determined to do that for you. Tonight would be difficult, perhaps. The ceremony, the attention—but afterward, things would settle. You would have a chance to talk. Really talk. It would be like it was all those years ago.

Because the alternative—that the distance between you was something more permanent, something that couldn’t be bridged by time or memory…He wasn’t ready to consider that.

Not yet. Not when you had only just returned in full to his life. Not when you were about to become his gods-sworn wife.

💝💝💝

You’ve been standing at the window, watching the sky dim into evening, the first stars just beginning to sparkle across it. You don’t turn right away when a knock sounds at the door, choosing to take another moment to drink in the deepening twilight. Once, you had loved living in the Capitol because the castle and city glittered like a constellation. Now, you understand constellations can be lies just as much as they are stars. Just humans drawing lines between distant things and pretending they belonged together.

Another knock comes, louder, more insistent this time. “Come in,” you say.

The door opens. And there he is.

Jimin—Crown Prince and Heir Apparent, you correct yourself automatically—fills the doorway. He’s dressed in formal court attire, deep violet accented with silver embroidery that catches the candlelight with every small movement. The fabric looks rich, supple in the way it molds to his body.

Your gaze moves to your own reflection staring back at you in the windowpane. Purple. Silver. Matching. Something in your stomach twists. The gown was waiting for you in the wardrobe in the corner, with slippers to match. The silk bodice nips in at your waist before giving way to a cascade of velvet skirts embroidered with silver filigree along the hem.

He steps inside, closing the door behind himself, and for a moment, he just looks at you, and you could almost imagine him fifteen again, caught somewhere between boyish awkwardness and manly charm, always ready with a private smile just for you.

“You look—” He exhales, appearing at a loss for words. “You’re—”

“Appropriately dressed,” you offer.

“Yes,” he says. “That, too.” You wait patiently, watching Jimin fidget with the lapels of his jacket. “We should go,” he adds after a moment. “They’re waiting.”

Of course they are. You move past him without another word. In the hall, an entourage of livery servants waits, which confuses you. Most are dressed in the simple robes of house staff and not the garments reserved for special occasions. As soon as Jimin exits behind you, the majority of the cluster automatically files into your room.

You’re about to comment on the oddity, but Jimin offers you the crook of his elbow in a silent gesture. Propriety moves through you on instinct, and you find yourself with your fingers curled over the bend in his arm.

People bow as you pass along the route to the refectory, where the ceremony will begin. To him. And then—after a fraction of hesitation—to you. You don’t acknowledge it, knowing that it’s not exactly commonplace, but you have been away from the central workings of court for so long that perhaps things have changed.

Keeping your eyes ahead, you begin to search the crowds that are gathered near the great hall, voices filtering in controlled murmurs, all silk and jewels, and expectation. You scan faces, something tight and restless heaving in your chest. Where is she? You haven’t seen your mother since arriving. Not since the courtyard. You told yourself it didn’t matter. You find, now, that it does. It matters deeply.

“Looking for someone?” Jimin asks quietly.

You don’t look at him. “No.” It’s a lie. You don’t bother to make it convincing.

The doors to the great hall open. Light spills out—golden and overwhelming in its splendor. And then the noise floods in. Music, voices, the rustle of garments—an entire world shifting to accommodate Jimin’s arrival and subsequently your own. You step inside and immediately begin searching again. Faces blur past—nobles you half-recognize and strangers you don’t. Your gaze moves over them quickly, impatiently, until—

There, near the edge of the crowd, stands your mother. Relief hits first. It’s quick, instinctive, in a childhood-longing kind of way. Your mother has always been your island of comfort, a never-yielding pillar of guidance. You take a step forward, intent on untangling yourself from Jimin and going to her—

But she turns away. Not by accident. Not with hesitation. The action is immediate…deliberate. Heat coils tightly around your insides. Her gaze fixes somewhere else, her posture smoothing into something composed and distant, as if you are not there at all. The relief you felt at finding her curdles.

Why did you have to be so obstinate with her? The argument, despite being days old, still has a bitter taste lingering on your tongue. Your defiance and strong-headed nature are nothing new, but perhaps you pushed your mother too far this time. You press your lips together, something stinging settling in your chest.

“Everything all right?” Jimin murmurs.

“Yes,” you say. Another lie. Jimin can tell. But you can’t bring yourself to care nor explain right now. But he doesn’t press. And for that, at least, you’re grateful.

The banquet hall is just as grand as you remember. Floor-to-ceiling windows stretch from one end of the hall to the other, their stained-glass panes depicting the faceless gods, old and new, with the largest window at the end of the hall bearing a relief of Oris the Martyr, the only god graced with a name in the tongues of man.

Revelry happens all around you; the ceremony begins without you even realizing. One moment, there is noise, and the next it’s so quiet that you find yourself holding your breath for fear of breathing too loudly.

You move on autopilot, letting Jimin guide you to a spot in the hall. You listen without quite hearing the words being spoken by Philloa, the High Seat of the Council of Laurels.

“…the turning of the season…”

Her voice carries easily through the hall, practiced and measured. You are focusing on the sound rather than the meaning. It’s easier that way. Safer to stay inside your head when your heart is still in mourning for what you’ve lost to be here.

“…the strength of our alliances…”

Jimin stands beside you. You can feel it—the energy coming off him, barely contained. Not nerves, no, not quite. It’s something more akin to anticipation. His arm flexes just a fraction tighter around where your fingers rest in the crook of his elbow.

“…the continuation of the royal line…”

Your other hand curls slightly into the fabric of your skirt. Something is wrong. The thought comes suddenly. Not with vague unease, but with stark realization. The words begin to register. You shift your weight, your gaze flicking—just briefly—to Jimin. He’s already looking at you. There’s something in his expression you don’t recognize—expectation limed with adoration.

Your stomach drops, gooseflesh sheeting down your arms as your heart leaps into your throat.

“…it is with great honor…”

No.

“…that we announce the betrothal…”

No.

Your pulse stutters. You don’t breathe—can’t breathe.

“…of the Heir Apparent and Crown Prince, to—”

You hear your name before you understand it.

All sound in the air around you collapses in on itself. The room tilts—not visibly, no. But inside of you, deep down, something shifts violently out of place. You sway on your feet, only staying upright when Jimin steadies your weight along his side.

This isn’t—

This wasn’t—

No one told you…

The applause comes like thunder. You snap upright, steeling your spine. You stand exactly where you are, forcing your face to remain composed—perfect.

But on the inside, you combust. A lone star whose destruction is not seen with the eye, yet is no less devastatingly real. You are empty. So, painfully empty. Beside you, Jimin exhales—a sound of relief, of something long-held finally released, the supernova to your black hole. He turns toward you, smiling. You turn to him slowly.

“You knew,” you whisper. Your voice doesn’t sound like your own. It’s distant, flattened by the sudden weight of what is happening, what this means.

He falters, just slightly. “Of course,” he says hesitantly. “Didn’t yo—”

“You knew.” Panic is evident in your voice, your vision narrowing to a pinprick. You can feel eyes on you; everyone is watching.

“Please,” he starts, lower, careful.

The rest of Philloa’s proclamation filters through the hall, a declaration that your life will indefinitely be tied to Jimin’s in one week’s time, when the sun rises on the first day of Spring, all followed by thundering applause. You catch sight of your mother once more; her eyes hold yours for a moment, and in them you see the truth. She knew…

Perhaps you were the only one who didn’t.

Philloa leads everyone in a prayer to close out the ceremony and proceed on to the evening meal. The rest of the Council of Laurels flit about the room, their brown floor-length robes swishing as they move, giving blessings for the change of seasons. They all approach you, one by one, offering their congratulations on your part in strengthening the kingdom. Philloa is the last to approach, her pewter-colored eyes focused on your mouth, where you’re not certain you are hiding your grimace well.

“A blessing from Oris and the Faceless gods be upon you, Your Grace. May you fill these halls with the laughter and strength of many children.”

You must respond with something acceptable because she smiles before moving away, only to be replaced by someone else offering a bow and praise that sounds far too hollow in your ears. You’re numb by the time the line becomes a trickle, Jimin imploring those left that you are in need of food as a way to explain your lack of liveliness.

“We will talk after dinner,” Jimin murmurs as he leads you to the head table where his parents and his younger brother, Jihyun, are already seated.

All around you, people are rejoicing…for you. And all you want to do is scream at them to stop. Music starts up near the entrance to the hall; flutes and harps come together in a soft crescendo. The meal is lavish, several courses long. Any other time, you would have relished the tasty morsels and succulent bites. But now—now it’s all ash on your tongue. With every bite you take, your freedom goes with it.

Mother promised you could leave after the festival concluded. All you had to do was attend, and then you would be free to continue southward to Foss, where Maester Corvin is—was?—waiting. Who knows if that is even true at this point? Perhaps your mother sent word to him just as she did to the Capitol before she even stepped into your room that day.

There is no way you would be allowed to leave now. Not when you are tied irrevocably to the man who sits by your side, chatting idly with his younger brother about the cost of barley seed. Anger wells in your belly. How can he sit there and pretend like everything is right in the world, like a harvest is more important than your freedom?

“I would have a word with you now,” you whisper harshly in his direction, unable to contain yourself any longer.

Jimin startles, jerking his head around to look at you. His smile falters, dropping to get caught somewhere between concern and annoyance.

“We can’t very well leave right now—”

“Watch me,” you sneer under your breath before abruptly standing. Your chair squeaks backward, drawing all eyes to you. Voices trail off, and heat blooms in your cheeks. “Apologies, Majesties.” You direct yourself towards the King and Queen. “I am feeling a bit overcome. I would like to retire for the evening, if that is okay?”

The Queen gives you an affectionate smile. “Of course, my dear. I remember my betrothal day well. The excitement can be overwhelming.”

King Hyunsoo nods his assent. “See to your future wife, lad,” he tells Jimin. “She is your duty, now.”

Jimin mumbles something to his brother before standing to join you. Eyes trace your movement as he escorts you towards the exit. Just before stepping through, he pauses and then turns to take in the crowd once more. A few gazes linger in your direction, curiosities alight. Being ever the dutiful son and Prince he is, Jimin bows low at the waist to the room, offering his silent respect to the court.

You can’t get away from the hall fast enough. You’re running by the time you reach the foyer leading to your rooms. The people you passed, staff going about their evening tasks, were just a blur. It’s not until you stop in the middle of your room that you realize everything is still blurry; tears spill down your cheeks in hot waves.

“I th-thought that you…were feeling…ill,” Jimin rasps from behind you, his words stuttering between heavy intakes of breath. “You ran so fast…”

“You knew.”

“Wha—?”

“You knew!”

Shaking his head, Jimin pinches the bridge of his nose before saying, “Look, I know this probably wasn’t what you had in mind for when you were married. But it’s customary for new betrothals to be announced during the Festival of the First Bloom. It just makes sense. We can take things slow if that’s what you—”

“You knew!” you cut him off, words sharp as a blade. “And you didn’t tell me?” you demand, the words breaking through the numbness from before. “You didn’t think that was something I should know about, too?”

Confusion replaces the exasperation in his expression. “I—what? Tell you? But, you already knew,” he says. “It was in the letter—”

You throw up your hands. “What letter?” Over the last decade, you and Jimin have exchanged hundreds of letters. Not a single one mentioned…marriage.

He blinks, lips parting in confusion. “The summons. From the capital. The letter that brought you here—”

“I didn’t read that gods-forsaken summons!” you snap.

Silence follows, just for a brief moment. “You didn’t—” he stops, adjusting quickly. “I had just assumed—”

“You assumed,” you repeat, incredulous. “You assumed I knew I was being dragged here to be—” You cut yourself off, breath catching, anger rising too fast to control.

“To be what?” he presses, quieter now, urgency threading through it.

“Displayed,” you offer, gesturing wildly at nothing with your hands, needing somewhere for your pent-up energy to go. “Traded. Bound to something I never agreed to.”

His expression shifts—hurt now, undercut with something defensive. “That’s not what this is.”

“It’s exactly what this is.” You jab a finger in his direction.

“But our fifteenth summer…We promised—”

“We were children!” you shoot back. “Children say things that they don’t understand.”

“I understood,” he says, fire entering his tone. “I meant it.”

“And you didn’t think to ask me if I still did?” The question cracks like a whip in the air, and part of you feels guilty when Jimin flinches. You can still hear the applause echoing around you, people stepping closer, smiles bright, voices rising—you shove it aside.

“I thought this would make you happy,” he says softly, the fire in his voice winking out.

The honesty in his words almost makes you laugh. Instead, it makes something inside you snap. “You thought,” you say slowly, “that taking away my future and replacing it with yours would make me happy?”

His jaw tightens. “Is that how you really feel? Like I stole something from you?”

“You did! You took my choice.”

“That—that’s not fair. You said that if I were ever given the choice, I should choose you. For once in my life, I was given the choice…I thought I could choose you. You made me swear it before the old gods and the new that I would choose you!” Hurt shines bright in Jimin’s eyes; unshed tears line his lashes. “I was just keeping my promise.” The last part is said so quietly that if you hadn’t been listening intently, you would have missed it.

“But you didn’t think to question it after all this time?” you ask in turn. “You didn’t think to ask whether I wanted this before you stood there and smiled while it was announced to the entire court?”

“I thought you knew,” he says again, more stable now. “I thought…this was something we both wanted.”

“I was meant to leave tomorrow. Maester Corvin accepted me as an apprentice, just as I had always dreamed of. I was going to study the stars,” you say. “Did you know that?”

He hesitates, sniffing and clearing his throat before answering. “I knew…your studies. Maester Corvin? Truly? No…I did not.”

“Of course you didn’t,” you say. “Because you never asked.”

A beat passes between you. Something in Jimin’s expression shifts again—cracking, just slightly. “We will figure this out. I will do whatever I can to make this right. I promised then, and I will promise you now: we can find our path in the stars you so love…It may just look a little different from what you thought it might. I promise—”

“This isn’t a promise you can keep,” you say, each word like a bolt being driven home on your new, gilded cage. “It’s a life being taken.”

His hand lifts—instinct, perhaps—but stops short of touching you. “I never meant to hurt you,” he tells you gently.

You hold his gaze, trying so hard not to shatter in this moment. “But you did all the same.” And then you turn away, unable to stomach the look of utter devastation in his eyes.

Jimin quietly excuses himself from your room, understanding that you are done with the conversation. It hurts, perhaps even more so than before, now that you know the whole truth of it. Nothing he says can change the outcome now; it’s far too late for that. In one weeks' time, you will become the crown princess of Baledryn, Jimin’s wife, sworn to his side before the gods.

Whatever you once were to each other will no longer be. He will no longer be the boy-turned-young man to whom you poured your heart out through ink and paper. This has broken that, severed some unseen string…allowing everything to completely unravel, the stars be damned.

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Catching Jimin’s wrist, you pulled him along the shadowed corridor, your laughter pressed into the back of your hand to keep it from echoing. He followed, trying—and failing—not to smile. The thin golden circlet he’d worn earlier was abandoned somewhere along the way, his hair left to fall loose around his shoulders, softening him into something less princely and more boyish.

“You’re going to get us caught,” he whispered.

“You’re the one who stopped to bow to a statue,” you shot back, not slowing.

“It was Oris, I was paying my—”

“It is merely stone, not the martyr god himself.”

“Blasph—”

You dragged him around the corner before he could finish, both of you stifling laughter as a pair of guards passed at the far end of the hall. You waited, pressed into an alcove, shoulders brushing. Jimin could feel the quick rise and fall of your breath, the way you held still only by force of will.

When the guards were gone, you pulled him once more, out through the servants’ door and into the cooler dark beyond. The stables loomed low and wide against the night, lanterns dimmed, the air thick with the scent of hay and leather and the warm, earthy musk of horses. A few of them stirred as the door creaked open—soft snorts and the scuff of hooves.

You slipped inside like you belonged there—instead of in the council chambers that your family held. Jimin hesitated just long enough to glance back toward the palace, its towers rising pale and stark against the night sky. Then he followed you in and shut the door behind himself.

“You’re certain this is wise?” he murmured in question. The grin you threw at him over your shoulder was full of mirth. “Not at all. And that is precisely why it’s worth doing.”

The way you moved between the stalls was full of easy familiarity. Jimin held his breath as you paused to murmur to a restless mare, your fingers brushing her nose until she settled. He watched you, something quiet and steady in his expression as he drank you in. It wasn’t fair; you never seemed out of place—not in the polished halls of his home, not here among the straw and dust. He envied that, though he would not have known how to say it.

“Up,” you said, nodding toward the ladder at the far end of the stable.

The loft above was dim and the ceiling low, the air warmer somehow. Straw lay scattered in uneven drifts, and through a small, eyelet window near the roof, the night sky spilled in—a scatter of cold, bright stars glittering in a fathomless well of ink.

You climbed first, quick and sure, gathering your skirts into a fist. Jimin followed more carefully, the wood creaking faintly under his weight. When he reached the top, you were already sprawled on your back in the straw, hands tucked behind your head, looking up through the window.

“Well?” you teased, glancing at him. “Are you going to stand there like a visiting dignitary, or—”

He dropped down beside you, stirring a soft puff of straw. Motes danced in the air, highlighted by the brilliant light shining through from the moon and stars.

For a moment, neither of you dared to speak.

Below, the horses shifted and breathed, the only sounds to break the still air. Above, the stars held steady, distant and indifferent to the inner musings of the two teenagers sequestered away in a hayloft.

“It’s clearer here,” Jimin said at last.

“It always is,” you replied with a contented sigh. “Less smoke from the city. Fewer lanterns.” You tilted your chin toward the window. “Can you see the long line there, just above the mountain ridge? That’s the—”

“I know what it is. It’s the Archer.”

“You know the name the court calls it,” you corrected, letting out a soft, derisive scoff.

Jimin turned his head toward you, taking in the slope of your nose and the way your lashes brushed the plump swell of your cheeks every time you blinked. “And what do you call it?”

You considered his question, eyes still on the sky. “A path,” you said finally. “I’ve read stories…stories that say it points the way out of the valley, away from the Kingdom. If you follow it far enough, it leads beyond even the mountains…”

“Beyond Baledryn?” he asked, unable to keep the bewilderment from his voice.

You smiled faintly, as you might at a small, clueless child. For all his princely composure, he still sometimes looked like the boy who used to fall asleep during lessons with ink on his cheek. “There’s always a beyond, Jimin.”

He was quiet at that. Uncertainty crept into the line of his shoulders, the straw beneath him prickling his neck. He couldn’t help but wonder: when did you start thinking of such things?

“I suppose there is.”

The hay shifted as he adjusted, wishing away the uncomfortable sensations, folding one arm beneath his head. Of course Jimin was aware there were things beyond Baledryn. He’d seen the maps and catalogs in his father’s chambers. He knew very well what lay beyond the mountains, the names and descriptions of far-off nations. It was clear: the truth of their existence; it just felt more like excerpts from storybooks than a tangible reality. And to hear you speak of such things, as if you desired them…made Jimin feel insecure. Why would you even entertain thoughts outside of Baledryn? Everything you could possibly ever need—want—was right here. Not to mention the fact that he’d always thought of you being an ever-constant in his life. A companion and familiar face destined to be there, watching him on his journey to the throne. Now, though, your words have made him realize that may not always be the case. For a while, the two of you just lay there, side by side, the space between his being and yours small but not quite closed. Jimin became abruptly aware of everything at once—the heat trapped between his shoulder and yours, the lavender oil worked into the ends of your hair, the fact that if either of you breathed any deeper, your ribs might touch. The worry he felt before slowly drifted away with the breeze through the window.

“Do you ever think about leaving?” you mused softly, not looking at him.

He let out a soft breath, refusing to let your words rekindle the fear. “I don’t think I’m meant to.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He hesitated. “Yes,” he said, after a moment. “I think about it.” A beat more of silence. “I just don’t let myself think about it for very long.”

You turned your head then, studying him in the moonlight.

“But if you could?” you pressed. “If there were no crown, no court, no expectations—would you go?”

He met your gaze, and something, surprisingly unguarded, flickered there. “With you?” he asked, almost without thinking.

The words hung in the air. For once, you didn’t have a quick answer, no witty remark aimed to tease, educate, or best him. You looked away first, back toward the stars, but there was a softness in your voice when you finally spoke again. “I think you’re right…Best not to dwell on it too much.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t get to stop being who you are, no matter your thoughts.” You idly picked at a piece of straw, twisting it between your fingers. “You’re going to be king.”

“Eventually.”

“Sooner than you think.”

“And you?” Jimin asked. “What are you going to be?”

Once again, you stilled, the piece of chaff forgotten between your fingers. It was such a simple question, and yet—

“I don’t know,” you whispered. “But I’d like it to be something I choose.”

He nodded slowly, as if committing that to memory. It was a luxury he, himself, would never know—choosing. “That would be nice…”

A breeze slipped through the window, cool against his face. Somewhere outside, an owl called into the night. It felt like an omen to Jimin. But, once again, he found himself without the words to explain it to you. For that matter, he wasn’t entirely sure whether it was a good or bad omen anyway.

You pushed yourself up onto one elbow, glancing down at him with a sudden, conspiratorial spark in your eyes. “Come here,” you beckoned.

“I’m already here.” Jimin gestured vaguely with his free hand at the small area around him.

“Closer,” you insisted with a laugh. “Closer to me.”

He frowned, but shifted toward you, propping himself up as well. You reached into the pocket of your skirts and pulled out a narrow strip of gold ribbon—faded, a little frayed at the edges. “I took it from the sewing room,” you explained. “Don’t look at me like that—it was going to be thrown away anyway.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were,” you insisted firmly, though your smile took out the sting of the words. “Give me your hand.”

He did, without hesitation or asking why. You ripped the ribbon right down the middle, the frayed edges making it easy. You wrapped one of the ribbon halves loosely around his wrist, securing it with a knot, and then the other around your own. It wasn’t neat. It wasn’t ceremonial. Just a simple, worn golden ribbon made into two.

“What is this?” he asked finally.

“A solution,” you offered, tracing a finger lightly over the ribbon’s edge circling Jimin’s wrist. His eyes followed your finger as he hung onto every word. “A promise. You’re always saying how you’re going to be made to marry someone important, someone useful, someone you’ve never met.”

“That’s not exactly—”

“It is,” you said lightly, giving the knot a small tap with your finger. “Always some faceless woman from another place chosen just for you by the Council of Laurels. But, this is how we fix that, how we give you a choice…maybe.”

He finally forced his eyes away from the ribbon and looked up at you through his lashes, brow furrowing slightly. “Fix it how?”

You grabbed his hand, pinching his wrist between your thumb and forefinger. The ribbon caught the starlight as you held his arm aloft.

“It’s a promise, from me to you. If ever you are given the choice, just ask me, and I will say yes,” you explained, as if it were obvious.

He stared at you, unblinking. In all Jimin’s years of knowing you, growing alongside you on the apron strings of the many nursemaids within the castle, to watching you blossom into the witty and wholly complex girl of fifteen summers sitting before him, he’s always found you fascinating. And perhaps he did notice how pretty you’ve grown, too. Not that he could ever muster up the gall to tell you that. But, he’s fairly certain if he did get to choose…

“That is not—”

“But, why not?” you pressed. “You said it yourself—you don’t get to choose much. This way, at least you might get a say in one aspect of your life.”

“That isn’t how these things are decided.”

“Perhaps not, but maybe they should be,” you said with a small flash of stubbornness. “And anyway, it’s just a promise. Not a decree.” Your voice softened just a little as you held your wrist up next to his, making the ribbon seem as if it were one. “We’re still kids, we’ll make it real when it truly matters.”

He looked between his wrist and yours, at the thin golden ribbons mirrored there. Something settled in his chest—something was steadying about your words. You were trying to offer him some semblance of control in his life. It warmed him.

“You’re serious,” he said.

“Of course I am.” You gave him a brilliant, indulgent smile. “You don’t have to look so surprised.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said automatically, though even he knew it was clear he was.

“You are,” you said, pleased.

Jimin liked how easy it was to believe you. A little too much, perhaps. That was the dangerous thing. You spoke about escape as though it were not only possible, but waiting patiently somewhere beyond the mountains for the two of you to arrive.

Jimin huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. Then he grew still again, more thoughtful now. “If we say it,” he said slowly, “you can’t take it back.”

“I won’t.”

“And neither can I.”

“I know.”

“And if things change—”

“They always do,” you conceded without preamble. “That doesn’t mean we pretend this never meant something.”

Jimin studied your face in the soft light—absorbing the certainty there, the determination, the strange, bright sincerity of the look in your eyes. You believed in this, not in the way of court contracts or alliances, but in something simpler—and, somehow, harder to argue with. You believed in the ability to give Jimin a reprieve from what you know is the proverbial mountain that will soon rest upon his shoulders as heir apparent.

“Then we should say it properly,” he suggested.

You grinned, the twinkle of mirth back where it belonged in your eyes. “Properly?”

“As properly as we can manage,” Jimin amended.

You paused, considering, then nodded. “All right. You go first.”

He drew in a breath, suddenly aware of how ridiculous—and how important—this felt. “I promise,” he began, voice quieter than before, “that if I am ever made to marry—” he hesitated, then corrected himself, “—when I am made to marry, I will choose you. If I am allowed to choose at all.”

Your smile softened, but your eyes grew more intense. “My turn.” You shifted closer to Jimin, your knees pressing into his through the silk of your gown and the wool of his trousers. “I promise,” you said, “that if I ever have to marry—” you paused, mirroring him without quite realizing it, “—I’ll choose you. Even if I don’t have to.”

He blinked at that. “That seems unfair,” he said, a sardonic laugh eeking its way out.

“It is,” you agreed cheerfully. “I’m allowed a choice after all.”

He laughed—quieter this time, but real. The sound lingered, warmer than the night air. For a while, you both said nothing, letting your exchanged words build into something fathomable. The ribbons stayed where they were. It was light and unyielding against Jimin’s skin, a reminder of the words spoken with the stars as witness.

Eventually, your voice came again, softer now. “Don’t forget,” you implored, not quite able to meet Jimin’s eyes.

“I won’t.”

“You might.”

“I won’t,” Jimin repeated, more firmly.

“Swear it, before the old gods and the new,” you challenged, your eyes reflecting the stars from where those very gods may be watching.

Without hesitating, Jimin said, “I swear it. May the blade of Oris strike me down if ever I do forget.” And in that moment…he knew. Before you, duty had always felt inevitable. You were the first person who made inevitability feel negotiable. You made him imagine a life he was not supposed to want. Only, maybe he could? Maybe you were right.

Your eyes met his then, darted between them, searching. Whatever you found there must have satisfied you because you nodded, though something in your expression flickered—too brief for Jimin to name.

Through the window, the Archer stretched across the sky, pointing toward somewhere neither of you had ever been—a beyond of uncertainties. Below, a horse nickered softly, and in the distance an owl sounded once more, the night meandering on as it always had and would continue to do. And in the quiet space between who you were and who you would become, you and Jimin lay side by side, two wrists bound by a silent promise that felt, in that moment, more certain than anything else in all the world.

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