Starlight

by chimcess

Chapter 7: What do Stars Do Best?

The interior of the witches’ lair reeked of mildew and centuries-old smoke. Shadows clung to the stone walls like old regrets. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of rotting herbs and charred bone. Brighid, stooped and muttering to herself, shoved the slave girl toward the crusted iron stove in the corner. Her wiry hands clenched the girl’s shoulder, not harshly, but with the casual cruelty of someone long used to obedience. She thrust a filthy rag into her palm. “Make yourself useful, girl,” she hissed. “There’ll be blood to clean soon enough.”

Across the room, Elspeth, gleeful and humming some old tune that may once have been a lullaby, secured Y/N to the grim wooden table at the center of the chamber. The ropes bit into her wrists and ankles with a familiarity Y/N didn’t want to admit. Her face was composed, as if carved from stone, and her eyes held none of the shimmer they once had. In this dim, terrible place, the starlight within her had dimmed to a memory.

Morwen lingered near the far wall, leaning heavily on her staff, watching it all unfold with hooded eyes. The firelight painted her face in harsh, shifting lines, deepening every crease, every shadow beneath her eyes. She looked older here, stripped of illusion by the lair’s unforgiving glow. Older, and impatient.

“Mind the knots,” Morwen said, voice rough as gravel. “We don’t want her slipping free before we’re ready.”

Elspeth snorted softly, fingers deft despite their gnarled appearance. “Please,” she crooned. “I’ve tied stars before. They scream just like the rest.” She gave one rope an experimental tug, satisfied when Y/N’s wrist jerked painfully against the wood. “There. Secure.”

Y/N’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t cry out. She fixed her gaze on a crack in the ceiling above her, following the slow drip of blackened water as it gathered, fell, gathered again. Each drop marked time. Each drop reminded her she was still here.

The slave girl stumbled toward the stove, rag clutched uselessly in her trembling hand. The iron was cold, thick with soot and old stains that never quite came clean no matter how hard one scrubbed. She cast a glance over her shoulder at Y/N, eyes wide and shining with fear.

“I…” Her voice caught. She swallowed hard and bent to her task, scrubbing at the stone floor where dark stains bloomed and overlapped like old bruises. Her movements were small, careful, as if she feared the stones themselves might strike back.

Brighid watched her with narrowed eyes, head tilted. “Not like that,” she snapped, swatting the girl’s hand with the back of her knuckles. “You’ll spread it. Press harder.”

The girl flinched and obeyed, biting her lip until it bled.

Y/N closed her eyes for a brief moment, a flicker of anger burning hot behind her ribs. When she opened them again, she turned her head slightly toward Elspeth.

“You don’t need her,” she said quietly. Her voice was steady, though her throat felt tight. “Let her go.”

Elspeth paused mid-hum, looking almost offended. “Oh, listen to her,” she said to Brighid, smiling wide. “Still thinks she gets to make requests.”

Morwen straightened a fraction, staff tapping once against the stone. “Save your breath,” she told Y/N. “You’ll need it for screaming.”

Y/N met her gaze then, really looked at her. At the way Morwen’s hands trembled faintly where they gripped the staff. At the exhaustion barely masked by cruelty. At the hunger gnawing behind her eyes.

“You’re afraid,” Y/N said.

The room seemed to still.

Morwen’s lips curled. “I’m practical.”

“You’re dying,” Y/N replied softly. “And you think this will save you.”

Brighid laughed, a harsh bark of sound. “Smart little thing, isn’t she?”

Morwen’s eyes flashed. She stepped closer, looming over the table, her shadow swallowing Y/N whole. “It will,” she said, low and certain. “Because stars burn. And when they burn out, they leave something behind.”

Y/N didn’t look away. “Not what you think.”

Morwen’s hand shot out, fingers closing around Y/N’s chin, forcing her to look up. Her grip was iron despite her age. “You don’t get to lecture me about what I think,” she hissed. “You don’t get to decide anything anymore.”

She released her abruptly, straightening with a sharp breath as if the contact itself had cost her something. She turned away, pacing stiffly, boots scraping against stone.

“Prepare the circle,” she snapped. “I want everything ready before nightfall.”

Elspeth clapped her hands together, delighted. “Oh, yes. The good chalk.”

Brighid shuffled toward a shelf lined with jars, teeth, feathers, small bones suspended in cloudy liquid. She selected a vial filled with crushed white stone and began to sprinkle it onto the floor, muttering under her breath. Symbols emerged as she worked, curling and intersecting, etched with care born of long habit.

The slave girl watched from the corner, rag forgotten in her hands, eyes darting between the witches and Y/N. Her breathing hitched when Y/N met her gaze.

“It’s all right,” Y/N mouthed silently.

The girl shook her head, tears streaking through the grime on her face.

As the circle took shape, the air grew warmer, heavier, pressing down on Y/N’s chest. Her skin prickled, a familiar ache stirring deep beneath her ribs. The starlight within her stirred, not bright, not blazing, but restless. Unhappy.

Somewhere far above, beyond layers of stone and spell and shadow, the sky shifted.

Y/N felt it.

She drew in a slow breath and held it, anchoring herself to the table, to the moment, to the certainty that she was not alone. Not truly. Not while the stars still burned.

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Outside, the wild terrain of Norvoss stretched on in bleak sweeps of stone and scrub, a land scoured raw by centuries of wind and neglect. The sky hung low and colorless, the clouds moving like bruises across its face. Hoseok leaned forward in the saddle, eyes burning as he searched the cliffside ahead. Then he saw it, the cave’s mouth, a crooked black gash torn into the rock face, barely visible unless you knew how to look. Less than a kilometer. So close it made his chest ache.

Relief hit him hard enough that his breath stuttered. He kicked his heels into the horse’s flanks, murmuring a frantic plea that was lost to the wind. The animal surged forward for half a heartbeat, then screamed.

The horse reared violently, hooves slicing the air, its eyes rolling white as it snorted and fought the reins. It was as if the earth itself had warned it away. Hoseok swore, hauling back, his teeth rattling as the beast came down hard and then locked its legs, refusing to move another inch. The sudden stop nearly sent him flying. He barely managed to swing a leg free before he hit the ground in a cloud of dust and gravel.

“Fine,” he rasped, bent over with his hands on his knees, lungs burning as if they might split. He yanked the reins loose and slapped the horse’s neck. “Go, then.”

The animal didn’t need to be told twice. It bolted, hooves pounding, disappearing back into the wasteland it had come from.

Hoseok straightened, wiping grit from his mouth, and turned his gaze back to the cave. His muscles already ached, his legs trembling from the ride, but he didn’t hesitate. He ran. The world narrowed to breath and heartbeat, to the sound of blood rushing in his ears. He ran faster than he thought he could, faster than pain, faster than the image in his mind of what waited inside that cave if he was too slow.

Deep within the cavern, where the light of the outside world died completely, Morwen stood beneath the halo of a single oil lamp. Its flame trembled, throwing long, crooked shadows that danced along the walls like things alive. She dragged a whetstone down the edge of a jagged blade, slow and deliberate, savoring the sound. Sparks leapt with each pass, brief and bright, like dying stars.

Her smile was small and sharp. Whatever innocence she might once have possessed had long since been ground away, worn down by time and blood and patience. A hundred years had not softened her. If anything, they had taught her how to wait.

Outside again, Hoseok slowed, dropping low as the terrain shifted into snarled underbrush. The bushes clawed at him, their branches catching his cloak, tugging as if trying to hold him back. He ignored them, breath shallow now, careful. Just ahead, a cracked window split the stone wall, light leaking through like a thin wound.

He crouched, knees sinking into damp earth, and crept forward, craning his neck to look.

Steel kissed his throat. The cold was immediate and intimate, a promise pressed just beneath his jaw. Hoseok froze, every instinct screaming at him to move and telling him at the same time that movement meant death. Slowly, carefully, he turned his head.

A man stood behind him, half-swallowed by shadow, his expression carved from something harder than stone. Quiet fury radiated from him, contained only by discipline. For the briefest moment, surprise flickered across his face, gone as quickly as it came.

“Who are you?” the man demanded, his voice low and sharp, matching the blade at Hoseok’s neck. “And what business do you have here?”

Hoseok swallowed, his pulse loud in his ears. Then his eyes narrowed, recognition sparking as he took in the man’s features, the set of his jaw, the familiar weight of grief behind his stare.

“You must be Taehyung,” Hoseok said quietly. “I knew your brother. Namjoon.”

If the name struck, Taehyung didn’t show it. His grip didn’t loosen by so much as a fraction. “Then unless you’d like to renew that acquaintance in the afterlife,” he said coldly, “you’ll answer my question. What are you doing here?”

The wind sighed through the branches above them, leaves whispering secrets neither man cared to hear. They stood locked together, breath visible in the night air, neither yielding ground.

Then, in a blink, the balance shifted. Moonlight glanced off steel as Hoseok’s sword flashed up, already drawn, already pressed firmly against Taehyung’s stomach.

“I might ask you the same thing,” Hoseok said evenly, his gaze unwavering.

Taehyung’s eyes flicked down for half a second, then back up. If he was impressed, he didn’t show it. “I’m here to collect something,” he said, tone deliberately vague.

“As am I,” Hoseok replied. “My girl is in there. And they plan to kill her.”

The Star, Taehyung thought, the word lighting up his mind like a crown already resting on his brow. He couldn’t let this boy see the truth, not yet. Yes, he was here for the same thing, but the boy didn’t need to know that. Captain Min had spoken highly of Hoseok. Loyal. Desperate. Useful.

And afterward, when it was done, disposable.

The thought nearly made him smile.

“I’m here for my necklace,” Taehyung said aloud instead. “My brother was looking for it, actually. I’m sure you’re aware. The girl who has it is inside. I simply want it returned.”

Hoseok studied him in the thin wash of moonlight, eyes sharp, taking in every detail, the steadiness of the dagger, the way Taehyung stood as if violence were an old companion. Not cruel. Not yet. Hoseok’s sword remained firm, his knuckles white around the hilt.

“Your brother never mentioned a necklace,” Hoseok said after a moment. “He mentioned a stone. And a girl who shouldn’t have been anywhere near it.”

Taehyung’s mouth curved, just barely. The smile never reached his eyes. “My brother had a habit of oversharing,” he said. “It got him killed. Being overeager, too. A shame, really. Naked. In a bathtub. Such a sad, sad way to die.”

The words settled between them like ash.

Hoseok’s jaw tightened. His grip flexed once on the sword, but he didn’t rise to the bait. He shifted his weight instead, boots crunching softly, cloak whispering against the brush. “Namjoon did me a favor,” he said. “Didn’t ask for anything in return. If he was after this… necklace,” the skepticism was clear, “then it mattered. Especially if you’re after it too.”

Taehyung’s eyes flickered, annoyance, quick and sharp, before the mask slid back into place. “You didn’t know him as well as you think.”

“No,” Hoseok agreed softly. “But I know this. No one hunts a simple stone for nothing. And no one dies over one by accident.”

The dagger pressed closer, the edge a whisper away from breaking skin. Hoseok felt its chill seep into him, a cold that traveled through breath and bone alike, but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t give Taehyung that satisfaction. His eyes stayed steady, his jaw set, even as his pulse thundered against the blade.

“You’re asking dangerous questions,” Taehyung warned, his voice low, edged with something sharp and final, like a blade drawn only halfway from its sheath.

“And you’re giving thin answers,” Hoseok shot back without missing a beat. His gaze slid past Taehyung’s shoulder toward the cracked window set into the stone wall. Light flickered inside, unsteady, sickly, casting warped shadows that bent and stretched unnaturally along the rock. The sight made his stomach knot. It was the wrong kind of light. The kind that belonged to rituals and endings. “Whatever you’re here for can wait. They’re preparing to carve Y/N’s heart out. I don’t know the ritual, but I know how these things end.”

His voice dropped on the last words, roughened by urgency and a fear he refused to let fully surface, even now.

“And I won’t let it.”

For a heartbeat, Taehyung didn’t speak.

The forest seemed to lean in around them, listening.

“I’m a prince,” he said finally, matter-of-fact, as though stating the weather. “The king is dead. Before he passed, he left a requirement for his children to ascend the throne. Whoever retrieves the stone first becomes the new king.”

Hoseok blinked once, then grinned, sharp and crooked. “Ah,” he said. “This is all making sense now.”

“Yes,” Taehyung replied, irritation flickering briefly across his face before smoothing away. “So you see why Namjoon and I were so… committed to retrieving it.”

Hoseok didn’t answer. His attention had drifted back to the window, to the faint pulse of light leaking through stone like a wound that refused to close.

Taehyung followed his gaze despite himself. The smug certainty he’d wrapped around himself like armor cracked, just slightly, replaced by something colder, tighter, focus. He felt it then, unmistakable. A low hum beneath the ground. A pull in his chest that made his breath hitch despite himself.

The star was close.

Close enough that it sang to him.

“She’s alive,” Taehyung said, the words tighter than he intended, urgency threading through his voice before he could stop it. “Barely. If we don’t move…”

“We?” Hoseok echoed, arching a brow, even as the dagger still hovered dangerously close to his throat.

Taehyung turned his attention back to him, meeting his gaze squarely. “You want what she has. I want her alive. Our goals overlap.”

He studied Hoseok then. The dirt streaked across his face. The tension locked into his shoulders. The way his grip on his sword never wavered, not even with cold steel threatening his pulse. Fear lived there, yes, but it was contained, sharpened into resolve.

Not a fool. Not easily broken. Useful.

“Let’s say,” Hoseok said slowly, each word weighed and measured, “that I agree.”

Taehyung’s fingers flexed almost imperceptibly around the hilt of his dagger. “Then we go in together.”

A beat passed.

Hoseok let out a short breath, something caught between a laugh and a weary sigh. “I don’t like you.”

Taehyung’s mouth curved into a sharp, humorless smile. “That makes two of us.”

They stood there another moment, weapons still drawn, the forest holding its breath around them. Even the wind seemed to pause. Somewhere deep inside the lair, a voice rose, Elspeth’s, lilting and cruel, sweet as poison, before cutting off abruptly.

Hoseok moved first. He eased his sword back an inch. Not sheathing it. Not lowering it. Just enough to signal a ceasefire, fragile, conditional, temporary at best.

Taehyung’s dagger lingered at his throat for one heartbeat longer, a silent test. Then it withdrew with deliberate slowness. He stepped back into the shadows, the blade sliding into his sleeve as though it had never been there at all.

“How many are in there?” Hoseok demanded.

“Four,” Taehyung replied without hesitation. “If we do it together, we stand a better chance.”

“Show me.”

Taehyung didn’t answer immediately. He shifted his weight, boots sinking soundlessly into damp loam, and lowered himself into a crouch. With two fingers, he brushed aside a curtain of fern fronds, careful not to let them snap back, and angled his head toward the cracked window again. His eyes narrowed, calculating, stripping the scene down to what mattered.

“Watch,” he murmured.

Hoseok followed, dropping beside him, every movement deliberate. The stone beneath his palm was cold, slick with moss. From here, the lair revealed itself only in fragments, firelight stuttering against warped stone, shadows bending in ways that made his skin prickle. The air leaking through the crack was thick with heat and rot, layered with something sharper beneath it, like iron left too long in the rain.

Outside the cracked window of the witches’ lair, the world smelled of wet soil and lichen. Wind rustled through the thorn-bristled shrubs surrounding the structure, whispering against stone as Taehyung and Hoseok crouched low in the underbrush, their bodies pressed close to the earth, watching.

Through the dusty pane, Brighid stood in profile, arms crossed as she watched the slave girl sweep soot from between the warped wooden floorboards. The girl moved mechanically, head bowed, each motion stripped of will. In the deeper shadows of the room, Elspeth and Morwen loomed over Y/N, who lay strapped to the ancient table like an offering to forgotten gods. Leather bit into her wrists and ankles. Her chest rose and fell shallowly, uneven but unmistakably alive.

The witches gestured sharply, movements at odds with one another, fingers slicing through the air as if shaping something unseen. Their voices didn’t carry through the glass, but their energy did, angry, erratic, dangerous. The air itself seemed to vibrate with it.

Taehyung motioned with two fingers and slunk away from the window, Hoseok following close behind. They ducked behind a twisted boulder, its surface slick with moisture and shadow, barely visible from the lair.

“Just as I said,” Taehyung murmured, voice barely audible above the wind. “Four of them. Do as I say, and we may stand a chance.”

Hoseok shot him a side-eyed glance. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t,” Taehyung replied with a small shrug. “But what other hope do you have?”

The question hung between them. Their breathing slowed, settling into an uneasy rhythm. Then Taehyung turned fully toward him, his expression sharpening into something calm, focused, lethal.

“Now listen.”

He leaned closer, lowering his voice until it nearly vanished into the wind. With the tip of his dagger, he traced a rough outline in the dirt between them, shapes and lines forming a crude map. His movements were precise, economical. Nothing wasted. Hoseok noticed it instinctively, the way a fighter always did.

“The shortest one stays near the stove,” Taehyung whispered. “She favors brute force and fear. Loud. Predictable. The green-looking one circles. She likes distractions, smoke, sound, illusions.” His blade paused. “The one with the white hair is the problem.”

Hoseok’s jaw tightened. “The leader.”

“The eldest,” Taehyung corrected softly. “She’s probably the one in charge of this whole operation. If they’re trusting her to get the heart out, then she must be the most important.”

Hoseok glanced back toward the cracked window. The lamplight still pulsed faintly, and for just a moment he caught the pale line of Y/N’s face, turned slightly toward the ceiling, unmoving. His chest tightened painfully.

“She’s alive,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.

Taehyung followed his gaze, something dark and unreadable passing over his face. “For now.”

Hoseok shot him a glare sharp enough to draw blood. Taehyung lifted one hand in concession. “We move quickly.”

A branch snapped somewhere deeper in the woods.

Both men froze instantly, muscles coiling, breaths held. After a tense moment, the forest settled again, wind whispering through dead leaves like a breath finally released.

Hoseok rolled his shoulders once, forcing the tension out. “What’s the plan.”

Taehyung studied him again, assessing. “You can fight,” he said. Not a question.

“I can,” Hoseok replied evenly.

Taehyung nodded once. “Good. Then when I draw them, you get to her.”

Hoseok’s eyes flicked back to the window. “And you?”

Taehyung’s mouth curved into something sharp and joyless. “I’ll make myself very hard to ignore.”

Hoseok huffed a quiet, humorless laugh. “That sounds like suicide.”

Taehyung met his gaze without blinking. “It’s called atonement.”

The wind gusted, tugging at their cloaks. Overhead, clouds slid across the moon, plunging the clearing into deeper shadow. The lair loomed above them, black stone hunched and watchful.

Hoseok exhaled slowly. “Once we’re inside, there’s no turning back.”

Taehyung sheathed his dagger and adjusted his grip on his sword. “There never is.”

They waited for the wind to rise again, for branches to creak and the forest to mask their movement. When it did, Taehyung moved first, silent, decisive, slipping from cover and toward the cave mouth like a shadow given purpose.

Hoseok followed, heart pounding, every sense stretched razor-thin.

Inside the lair, sparks leapt again from Morwen’s blade as she dragged the whetstone down its edge, the sound sharp and grating, like bone scraped against stone. The rhythm was slow, deliberate, meant to savor. She paused mid-stroke, head lifting just slightly, as though something unseen had brushed the edge of her awareness.

“Do you feel that?” Elspeth asked, her voice lilting, almost playful, but threaded through with a note of wariness she didn’t bother hiding.

Morwen’s mouth curved into a smile that had nothing warm in it. She lifted the blade, inspecting the edge in the flickering lamplight. “Yes,” she said softly. “Someone is very close.”

The oil lamp trembled, its flame guttering, stretching long shadows that crawled along the stone walls like listening things.

Outside, Taehyung spoke as though the world itself would fall into place if he described it clearly enough.

He crouched behind the boulder, one knee sunk into the damp earth, the chill seeping through his trousers. As he talked, his hands began to move, subtle at first, fingers sketching faint lines in the air, then growing more confident, more precise, carving invisible paths as though the plan already existed somewhere just ahead of them, waiting patiently to be entered. His voice lowered, smoothed, taking on that dangerous calm born of absolute certainty.

“This is how it goes,” he said, eyes fixed not on Hoseok but on the empty space before them, the imagined doorway of the lair. “We don’t hesitate. We don’t listen. We don’t give them time to start chanting.”

Hoseok stayed silent, shoulders squared, his back pressed to the cold stone. He watched Taehyung closely, eyes following every flick of his fingers, every shift in posture, every unconscious tell. He didn’t interrupt. He could hear the confidence, too much of it, but beneath that, he heard the bones of something solid. Strategy. Experience.

“In my head,” Taehyung continued, “we hit the door together. Hard. Like something they should’ve seen coming centuries ago.”

His mouth curved faintly, pride slipping in around the edges before he bothered to check it.

“The moment it opens, I break left.”

His hand sliced through the air, sharp and decisive. “The kitchen’s there. Brighid always positions herself near the fire. She likes to feel powerful. Likes the heat. She won’t move fast.” His tone flattened, almost bored. “I take her first.”

Hoseok’s jaw tightened, a muscle jumping once near his cheek, but he nodded, small and controlled, urging him on.

“The slave girl doesn’t matter,” Taehyung added flatly. “She freezes. Fear locks her up. One clean strike. Quiet.” He mimed the motion with two fingers, precise, economical. “They’re down before anyone screams.”

He shifted closer then, lowering his voice further, as though the forest itself might be listening.

“And you,” he said, finally turning his gaze to Hoseok, “you go right.”

Hoseok’s eyes followed the rough line Taehyung traced in the dirt between them. He saw it without trying, the hearth, the smoke clinging low, the narrow space that forced bodies too close together.

“You slide past the stove,” Taehyung went on. “Use the smoke to cover you. Elspeth’s loud. Dramatic. She’ll be mid-sentence, thinking she has time.”

A humorless smile flickered across his face.

“You don’t let her finish it.”

Hoseok’s fingers flexed unconsciously, the phantom weight of his sword settling into his grip. He didn’t look away.

“You drive the blade through her,” Taehyung said, voice steady, assured. “Clean. No theatrics. Then you turn.”

He paused, letting the image settle between them.

“Morwen won’t like being last,” he said. “She never does. She lunges. Curved blade, fast, but sloppy when she’s angry. I catch her strike. Spin her.” His wrist twisted sharply to demonstrate. “And that’s the end of it.”

The confidence in his voice edged toward arrogance now, the fantasy tightening until it almost felt real.

“After that,” Taehyung said, straightening slightly, “the room is quiet.”

Hoseok swallowed, eyes never leaving him.

“Then you get your little star,” Taehyung continued, smugness creeping in. He gestured toward an imagined table. “You go to her. You cut the bindings. She falls into your arms like something out of a song.”

He scoffed softly, amused by his own imagery. “Relieved. Grateful. Alive.”

Hoseok’s throat worked. He could see it, too clearly. Her weight against him. The heat of her breath. His hands curled into fists, grounding himself.

“And I,” Taehyung said, tapping his chest once, “get my stone.”

In his telling, Y/N smiled. She reached for the pouch at her belt and unclipped it easily, willingly. No fear. No hesitation. She offered it to him like tribute. As he described it, the woven belt crumbled to dust, its spell unraveling at last, the remnants slipping through his fingers.

“The moment I touch it,” he said, eyes gleaming, “it knows me.”

He lifted his hand as if holding it now, palm up, reverent, victorious.

“The stone ignites,” he whispered. “Cerulean. Bright enough to hurt your eyes. Alive. Whole again.”

In the vision, Hoseok and Y/N stepped back, heads lowered, awed.

“And I look up,” Taehyung finished, lifting his chin slightly, “and Norvoss remembers who it belongs to.”

He snapped his fingers.

“Got it?” he asked lightly, snapping back to the present with a grin far too sharp to be comforting. “Good.”

Taehyung exhaled through his nose, a faint scoff slipping free as he sank lower behind the boulder, boots sinking into the soft earth. He turned his head then, finally, to look at Hoseok.

Hoseok was staring at him. Not impressed. Not convinced. Just staring, brows drawn together, mouth set in a thin line that spoke of patience stretched dangerously thin.

“…That’s your plan?” Hoseok asked at last.

Taehyung blinked, momentarily thrown. “The idealized version,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Obviously.”

Hoseok huffed a quiet, incredulous laugh and scrubbed a hand over his face. “You just described a song,” he muttered. “With choreography.”

Taehyung bristled. “It’s efficient.”

“It’s suicidal,” Hoseok shot back, keeping his voice low despite the edge in it. He leaned closer, eyes flicking instinctively toward the lair before returning to Taehyung. “You’re assuming they stand still. You’re assuming they don’t have wards, traps, contingencies. You’re assuming,” he jabbed a finger lightly into Taehyung’s chest, “that everything goes right.”

Taehyung’s jaw tightened. “Things go right when I make them go right.”

Hoseok stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head slowly. “You really are Namjoon’s brother.”

That earned him a sharp look. “What’s that supposed to mean.”

“Same blind spot,” Hoseok said flatly. “Different flavor.”

Taehyung opened his mouth, then closed it. His gaze drifted, unbidden, back toward the cracked window. Toward the faint outline of Y/N strapped to the table. Toward the way her chest rose and fell, slow, shallow, but undeniably alive.

The smugness drained out of him like water through cracked stone.

“…Fine,” he said quietly.

He leaned forward again, this time tracing the plan in the dirt with care instead of flourish. His voice dropped further, bravado stripped away, leaving something sharper. Truer.

“Reality,” he said, “is messier.”

Hoseok nodded once, encouraging him to continue.

“I draw out the short one and the green one,” Taehyung went on. “Kill them both.” His mouth twitched, humorless. “The white-haired one won’t engage unless she has to. She’ll stay with the girl.”

“And me,” Hoseok said.

“You don’t fight unless you have no choice,” Taehyung replied immediately. “You go straight for her. You cut her loose. You get her out.”

Hoseok’s fingers flexed again, unconsciously brushing the hilt of his sword. “And the stone.”

Taehyung hesitated.

Just for a breath.

“That’s mine,” he said quietly. “If it’s there.”

Hoseok studied him, eyes sharp, searching. “You don’t go after it if it puts her at risk.”

Taehyung met his gaze, something dark and resolute settling into place. “Well,” he said evenly, “last I knew, the girl was wearing it. If you have her, then it will still be on her person.”

That, finally, earned him a look that was something close to approval.

The wind shifted again, colder this time, slipping through the trees like a warning whispered too late. It carried with it the faint, unmistakable scrape of stone on stone from within the lair, a sound that made the hairs at the back of Taehyung’s neck rise. He stiffened instantly, spine straightening, his hand drifting to the hilt of his sword as if drawn there by instinct rather than thought.

“Time,” he murmured.

The word barely left his lips, but it landed heavy between them.

Hoseok nodded once, slow and deliberate. He rolled his shoulders, working out the last of the tension, his breath evening as the moment finally crystallized. Fear was there, how could it not be? It pulsed under his skin, tight and sharp. But beneath it burned something hotter, steadier. Purpose. Love honed down until it felt like a blade pressed against his ribs, urging him forward.

Taehyung glanced at him one last time. For just a heartbeat, a crooked grin tugged at his mouth, brittle, reckless, brave in a way that felt almost defiant.

“Got it?” he asked under his breath.

Hoseok’s eyes flicked toward the cracked window again, toward the girl bound inside, toward the fragile rise and fall of her chest. Then he looked back at the prince crouched beside him, at the sharp line of his jaw, the resolve carved into his features.

“Yeah,” Hoseok said quietly. “I’ve got it.”

They rose together, shadows peeling away from the forest floor as if reluctant to let them go. Side by side, they moved toward the lair, each step careful, measured. They took their positions on either side of the crooked doorframe, blades drawn, bodies coiled and ready. The air around the entrance crackled with tension. The stench of rot and old magic hung thick as fog, clinging to the back of the throat.

Hoseok tightened his grip on his sword. It was an old thing, dull-edged, modest, scarred from use. Not pretty. Not impressive. The kind of weapon meant for surviving, not being remembered. Across from him, Taehyung’s blade gleamed faintly even in the low light, long and broad and beautifully forged. It looked like it had a reputation all its own. The kind of sword that had made legends out of men who didn’t deserve them.

Taehyung gave Hoseok’s weapon a quick, cursory glance, one brow lifting faintly. “I hope you can use that thing,” he muttered dryly.

Hoseok swallowed, forcing his voice to stay steady. “So do I.”

A nod passed between them, silent and electric. Then Taehyung sucked in a sharp breath, let it out like a battle cry, and charged.

His feet pounded across the dirt-packed floor as he surged left, toward the kitchen, toward Brighid, toward the girl bent over sweeping ash from the corners.

Hoseok remained in the threshold.

His boots felt nailed to the ground. His lungs burned. His chest tightened until breathing hurt. Fear clamped down on him harder than any blade ever could. Inside the lair, everything moved at once, shadows twisting, incantations murmured under breath, the clang of steel, but he didn’t move. He just stood there, frozen between what was and what had to be.

Above and behind him, unseen by the living, the ghostly brothers watched.

They hovered near the rafters like smoke with memories, their spectral forms pale and frayed at the edges. Their faces glowed with anticipation, eyes wide and unblinking. They looked like decomposing spectators at some deadly sporting event, breaths held as though they still had lungs, waiting for the moment when fate tipped one way or the other.

Inside, Taehyung’s blade arced toward the girl with her back turned, just a simple sweep, a motion he’d practiced a hundred times in training. Efficient. Final. Meant to end a life before it even realized it was under threat.

But at the last moment, she turned.

Her face caught the light. Her arms lifted instinctively, wide-eyed, defenseless.

Taehyung’s momentum faltered. His blade froze mid-swing. His eyes widened as the past slammed into the present like a breaking wave.

“Farrow?” he whispered, the name cracking with disbelief.

The girl blinked, ash-streaked and trembling. “Taehyung?”

There was no time to think.

A shriek tore through the air, raw and furious, and with it came fire. Not from any torch or brazier, but from Brighid herself. Her gnarled fingers stretched outward, veins glowing as she poured flame like oil from her hands. The blaze roared across the room, flooding it with hellish light, heat slamming into flesh and stone alike.

Taehyung reacted on instinct alone. He twisted and drove his sword into Brighid’s side. The blade bit deep, but she barely flinched. Her skin was like bark and stone and centuries of wickedness layered thick. She hissed through clenched teeth, lips pulling back to bare them like a beast’s.

Farrow ran. Her bare feet slapped against cold stone, heart hammering so hard it felt like it might tear free of her ribs. Her lungs burned, each breath a sharp, ragged thing, but she didn’t slow. Fear drove her forward, not only for herself, but for everything collapsing behind her in fire and screams and steel. The heat from Brighid’s flames still clung to her skin, a living thing that crawled along her arms and neck, as though the lair itself had awakened and decided to consume them all.

She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.

Across the room, bound tight to the ancient sacrificial table, Y/N strained weakly against her restraints. Leather cut into her wrists and ankles as she tried to lift her head, blinking sweat and tears from her lashes. The world swam before her, shadows bleeding into one another, bodies moving too fast to follow, firelight flashing orange and gold across stone. She could hear it all, shouted words she couldn’t make out, the roar of flame, the unmistakable ring of steel meeting steel.

But Elspeth and Morwen did not share her panic.

They stood apart from the chaos, unnervingly calm, as though what was unfolding was no more than an inconvenience. Elspeth’s mouth curved in faint amusement as she watched the room burn and bleed. Morwen, meanwhile, turned away entirely. Her hunched silhouette drifted toward a darker corner of the lair, where the light failed to reach. She crouched there, fingers moving with deliberate care as she began to fiddle with something unseen, metal clinking softly, her focus absolute.

At the entrance, Hoseok stood rooted to the spot.

The sword in his hand hung uselessly at his side, its weight suddenly unbearable. His chest barely rose. His breath caught somewhere deep and refused to move. He wasn’t frozen by magic. There was no spell on him, no unseen force holding him still.

It was terror. Pure and absolute.

A maelstrom of violence unfolded before his eyes, but his body refused to follow his mind’s desperate commands. He watched as Taehyung screamed.

Brighid’s talon-like hand struck the prince across the face with savage force, her skin boiling with witchfire. The sound, flesh searing, skin burning, hit Hoseok’s ears like a thunderclap. Taehyung staggered back, his sword slipping from his grasp as he crumpled to the floor. He clutched his cheek, a raw, broken sound tearing from his throat, steam rising between his fingers.

Hoseok couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.

Then suddenly, Farrow burst through the smoke and chaos and grabbed him.

Her hands locked around his forearm with startling strength, fingers digging in as if she were afraid he might dissolve if she let go. They stood just inside the threshold of the witches’ lair, a breath’s distance from destruction. Smoke coiled thickly along the beams overhead, sluggish and black, carrying the choking stench of burned fabric and scorched flesh. Firelight flickered wildly across the stone, turning shadows into living things. The clash of steel and magic raged just beyond them, shouts, screams, the roar of flame, but in that narrow sliver of space, Farrow held on to him like he was the last solid thing left in a world coming apart.

Hoseok’s chest heaved. His breath came too fast, too shallow. The edges of his vision blurred, the world narrowing until all he could feel was the pounding of his heart and the crushing weight of his own fear.

“I can’t,” he said, the words breaking as they left him. His voice sounded wrong, small, thin, unrecognizable in his own ears. “I thought I could, but I can’t.”

Farrow shook him hard, sharp and sudden, her grip trembling but unyielding. Her eyes were wild, bright with fear and fury and something fiercer beneath it, something forged in loss.

“You can,” she said, her voice cutting through the noise like a blade. “And you must.”

He stared at her, helpless, as if she were asking him to step into fire with bare feet.

“My brother is no match for those women,” she went on, her words tumbling out fast and desperate. She tightened her grip, forcing him to look at her, really look. “If you truly love her, if you really do, then go.”

The sound of grating metal rang out, sharp and unmistakable. Taehyung had recovered his sword. The blade caught the firelight as he dragged himself upright from the soot-blackened stone. His sleeves still smoldered, fabric curling and blackening, but he moved with relentless purpose, teeth bared in pain and fury.

By the sacrificial table, Y/N remained bound, struggling weakly to sit up, her movements sluggish and confused. Her head swam as she tried to make sense of the chaos unfolding just out of reach, fire, shadows, bodies colliding. Elspeth stepped forward, a flicker of something like concern breaking through her aged features, but Morwen, still hunched in the corner, lifted one hand without even turning her head. The gesture was sharp, silencing. Elspeth froze where she stood.

Brighid snarled, her face contorting into something feral, and from her outstretched fingers a torrent of flame erupted. It engulfed Taehyung in a roaring wave of heat and light. He screamed, stumbling back, beating at the fire with his already ruined sleeves. His body smoked, skin blistered, his eyes frantic with pain, but he did not fall.

Hoseok and Farrow flinched as the roar of the flames surged outward. Firelight reflected in their eyes, dancing wildly.

“I love her more than anything,” Hoseok whispered, the words barely more than breath. His throat ached with the truth of it. “More than anything in this world.”

“Then you have to get in there!” Farrow cried. “Now!”

Taehyung, his body flickering like a lantern on the verge of guttering out, lifted his sword one final time. With a raw cry that echoed off the stone walls, he charged Brighid. Before her next flame could ignite, he drove the blade clean through her chest.

Brighid’s mouth fell open in a soundless gasp. She stared down at the sword in disbelief, her expression caught between rage and shock. Then she toppled backward with a heavy thud, her robes crackling like burned paper as they hit the stone. Smoke drifted lazily from the gaping hole in her torso.

At the entrance, Hoseok and Farrow both leaned forward, breath caught. Hope flickered dangerously across their faces, but Farrow did not let go of him.

“It’s not over,” she said, her voice low and fierce. She swallowed hard. “I know my brother. He won’t save that girl. He’s after the stone, always has been. And if he ever suspected what she really is…” Her voice faltered, just for a moment. “He’d cut out her heart and swallow it whole, and he’d think himself righteous for doing it.”

Hoseok turned his gaze back to the smoke-choked maw of the lair. The entrance yawned wide and black, breathing heat and rot like some living thing. Every instinct in him screamed to run, to turn away, to flee from the madness clawing and shrieking inside those walls. His muscles locked, useless, as if the earth itself had claimed him. His heart thundered in his chest like a war drum, each beat heavy with dread, rattling his ribs, demanding a choice.

A flicker crossed his mind, unbidden and vivid.

He saw Y/N in his arms, her body warm against his chest, her fingers clutching his shirt as though she might fall apart if she let go. Saved. Alive. He saw Taehyung nearby, standing tall, lifting the recovered stone into a shaft of holy light like a relic meant for worship. A hero’s ending. A story worth telling.

It soured.

The pride on Taehyung’s face twisted, curdling into something sharp and hungry. His eyes gleamed with cold ambition. Without warning, he turned. Hoseok saw the dagger flash in the firelight, saw Y/N shoved brutally to the stone. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream as the blade came down, straight toward her heart.

“No,” Hoseok breathed, the word tearing from his throat as he stumbled back into the present.

The foul stench of magic, sweat, and ash slammed into him like a wall. The forest behind him seemed to hold its breath, leaves frozen, wind stilled. Beside him, Farrow tightened her grip on his arm, her fingers digging in as she searched his face, eyes wide and pleading.

“Be the man I know you are,” she said softly, but with iron beneath it.

Hoseok looked at her for a long moment. The noise of the world dulled, everything narrowing down to her face, her voice, the truth in her eyes. Then he nodded once.

He pulled her into a fierce, wordless hug, held her tight as if imprinting the moment into his bones, and let go. He stepped forward, toward the fire, toward the lair, toward her.

He drew his sword in a single fluid motion. The familiar weight settled into his hand, grounding him. He raised it high. The fear was still there, coiled and biting, but its edge had dulled. The purpose was clear now.

No one saw him enter. Not the witches, too consumed by their wicked rites. Not the ghostly brothers, hovering half-present near the rafters like forgotten memories. Not even Taehyung, still limping across the stone floor, smoke rising from his charred clothes.

Hoseok came to a halt just inside the lair, lungs burning, eyes sweeping the space with sharp urgency. Everything looked worse from within, the grimy stone walls slick with old stains, the bubbling cauldron belching noxious fumes, the flickering shadows dancing like mad things in the corners. Y/N was still bound to the table, her glow nearly extinguished, her face pale and drawn. Elspeth loomed nearby, arms folded, watching with narrowed eyes. Morwen whispered to herself at a blackened altar, fingers tracing slow, deliberate circles in the dust.

No one had noticed him. Not yet. And for a breathless moment, Hoseok was the only one who knew he was there.

Taehyung’s ragged breath echoed through the smoke-laced air. He lifted his sword again, the blade catching the firelight as it trembled in his grip. His shirt still smoldered, fabric curling into charred flakes at the shoulder, skin beneath red and blistered. And yet he pressed forward, stubborn and burning, his lips set into a grim line of defiance.

Morwen did not flinch. She stood beyond the wreckage of the fight as though it had nothing to do with her, untouched, unhurried, her posture relaxed in a way that felt profoundly wrong. Ash and broken stone littered the floor at her feet, but she did not look down. Her expression remained smooth and unreadable. No rage. No strain. Just patience, ancient and absolute. In her hand rested something small, earthen-colored, roughly shaped, delicate and crude all at once.

A clay doll.

The ghosts noticed first. Their decaying forms turned in eerie unison, hollow eyes drifting from Brighid’s fallen body to the elder sister standing in quiet command. They did not speak, but the sudden stillness in them, those restless, half-living remnants, spoke volumes. Something old stirred there. Something remembered. Something feared. A dread older than even their half-lived deaths.

Taehyung hadn’t seen the doll. Not yet. He raised his sword with a shaking arm, the blade catching the firelight as it trembled with the last of his strength. His chest heaved, his jaw tightening as he took a single step forward, stubborn and defiant even as his body betrayed him. “Come and try me,” he said, his voice low, cold, daring her to finish it.

Morwen’s lips curved, just barely, into something that might have passed for amusement. Without ceremony, without even looking at him, she snapped the clay doll’s right arm clean off.

The sound that followed did not come from the doll. It came from Taehyung. A sharp, choked cry tore from his throat as his sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground with a deafening clang. He stared down at his right arm in disbelief. It hung useless at his side, limp and wrong, like a broken marionette string. He tried to move it, tried to flex his fingers, but nothing responded. Panic flashed raw and unguarded across his face as sweat broke out along his brow and his breath hitched.

Morwen tilted her head slightly, studying him the way one might inspect a cracked piece of pottery. She lifted the doll and held it above a narrow channel of water that snaked through the lair, its surface rippling faintly in the torchlight. Her voice drifted across the room, soft and smooth, silk dipped in acid. “Let’s put those flames out,” she murmured. “Shall we?”

“No!” Taehyung shouted, all composure shattering. “Not water, please. I beg you. Not water!” But Morwen had already let go.

The doll dropped with a soft splash and vanished beneath the flowing surface, and the lair went unnaturally still.

Then Taehyung’s body lifted from the ground, slowly, wrongly. He rose inches above the stone floor, arms trailing, mouth opening and closing as though he were screaming underwater. His movements were sluggish, distorted, as if invisible currents pulled at him from every direction. His shirt darkened and clung to his skin like seaweed, his hair drifting weightlessly around his face. His eyes widened in pure terror, and for one fleeting moment, his gaze found Hoseok’s. A plea passed between them, wordless, desperate, before his eyes glazed over completely.

The room watched in breathless silence. Y/N, still bound to the table, could not turn away. Hoseok and Farrow stood frozen, horror rooting them in place. Even the ghosts, those ever-dry, ever-mocking relics of death, stared now, hollow-eyed and grim. Only Morwen and Elspeth seemed entertained, watching with indulgent interest, like hosts enjoying a parlour trick they had perfected long ago.

Then, just as abruptly as it had begun, Taehyung was gone. And just as suddenly, he reappeared beside the ghosts.

He collapsed to his knees, soaked through, skin pale and lips tinged blue. He coughed violently, water pouring from his mouth and ears, dripping from his hair and clothes as if he’d been dredged from a river’s depths. He gagged, gasped, clawed at the stone as he fought to breathe.

His brothers erupted into laughter, slapping his back and howling like ghoulish schoolboys. One doubled over, clutching his sides. Another mimed a fish swimming lazy circles in the air, pulling exaggerated faces. Taehyung groaned, wiping water from his eyes with a shaking hand. He sucked in a ragged breath, eyes wide and stunned, humiliation and terror warring across his face as the laughter echoed around him.

The witches were already turning their attention back to the girl on the table.

Elspeth took a step toward Y/N, fingers flexing as though eager to resume their work, while Morwen angled her body slightly, her gaze drifting back to the altar with proprietary calm. The interruption, it seemed, had been nothing more than an inconvenience, noise and fire and screaming, now finished. Their ritual waited. The air itself leaned toward completion.

“Stop!”

The word tore out of Hoseok’s throat before he had time to weigh it. It echoed through the lair, sharp and startling, ringing against stone and bone alike. To his own ears it sounded steadier than he felt, far more confident than the boy whose hands were shaking around the hilt of a sword slick with sweat.

The fight, he realized dimly, had only just begun.

Morwen and Elspeth turned slowly.

For a single heartbeat, they simply stared.

Their ancient eyes traced him from boots to blade, lingering on the way his stance wavered just a fraction, on the tension locked into his shoulders, the white-knuckled grip that betrayed how badly he was holding himself together. Sword raised. Jaw clenched. Breath shallow. He looked impossibly small against the cavernous space, against the weight of centuries pressing in from every wall.

For a moment, they seemed uncertain, as though the man standing before them might not truly exist. As if he were some half-formed illusion conjured by smoke and adrenaline, a trick of battle-weary minds desperate for meaning in the chaos.

They laughed. The sound was cold and sharp, devoid of humor, echoing through the lair like metal scraping stone. It crawled under the skin, setting teeth on edge. Elspeth tilted her head back slightly as she laughed, one clawed hand resting against her chest, while Morwen’s mouth curved into something thin and amused, her eyes bright with interest.

A boy. A fool. Another would-be hero, trembling and brave and utterly outmatched, stumbling into the jaws of something far older than he could possibly understand.

Morwen looked at him for a long, appraising moment, as though deciding whether he was worth remembering at all. Then she lifted her chin and gave a single, casual nod toward her sister.

“Deal with him,” she said lightly, already turning away, her attention drifting back toward the girl on the table as though Hoseok were nothing more than a fly to be swatted aside.

The words landed softly.

The intent behind them did not.

Across the room, Y/N’s head stirred weakly at the sound of his voice. It was barely a movement, more reflex than decision, but it was enough to pull her back toward the world. Her lashes fluttered, heavy with sweat and pain, and when her eyes finally managed to focus, they found Hoseok standing there, solid and impossible against the firelit ruin of the lair. For a breathless moment, she simply stared. Something flickered in her chest. Not hope, not yet. Hope required strength she no longer had. What stirred instead was memory. Recognition. The fragile, aching notion that perhaps the world had not fully collapsed after all.

The air around her responded before she could think to question it. It shimmered faintly, like heat rising from sun-warmed stone, and tiny sparks fizzled and crackled in the gloom, weak, erratic, but undeniably real. A breath of magic, old and familiar, answering a presence it remembered even when she could not.

Hoseok didn’t see it. He didn’t see her glow, didn’t feel the subtle shift in the room. He hadn’t flinched when Morwen dismissed him, and he didn’t flinch now. His focus was locked on Elspeth as she stalked toward him, her grin stretching wide and predatory, her fingers flexing as dark energy snapped and crackled eagerly along her hands. She moved with lazy confidence, every step heavy with certainty, like someone already savoring the end.

Hoseok didn’t retreat. Didn’t blink.

Instead, he bent and reached for the nearest weapon, Taehyung’s sword. It lay discarded near the animal cages, half-buried in ash and straw, its blade still humming faintly with residual magic. He wrapped both hands around the hilt and lifted it, adjusting his grip, testing the weight. It was heavier than his own blade, broader, forged for dominance rather than endurance.

It felt good. It felt right.

Elspeth was nearly upon him now, her boots scraping against the stone, her breath sharp with anticipation. Hoseok held his ground, chest rising and falling in steady, measured breaths. The sword trembled slightly in his hands, not with fear, but with the bone-deep awareness that whatever came next would not be survived by luck alone. The real battle had only just begun.

The chamber trembled with the clash of steel and sorcery. Hoseok, battered and panting, circled Elspeth with the wary footwork of a man who knew he was outmatched but refused to fold. His knuckles had gone white around the hilt of Taehyung’s sword. Sparks flew as he slashed through empty air, each strike meeting nothing but smoke and flickering flame. Elspeth danced backward and sideways with inhuman grace, laughing softly under her breath. Violet ribbons of fire burst from her fingertips, snapping close enough to scorch his sleeves without ever quite touching him.

She could have ended it in a blink. Anyone watching could see that. But she didn’t. Not yet. There was indulgence in the way she toyed with him, a cruel patience. She wanted him exhausted. Broken. She wanted him to earn his death.

Hoseok’s tunic clung to his sweat-slicked skin. His arms burned. His legs began to feel heavy, sluggish, each movement slower than the last. Still, he pressed on.

Across the lair, Y/N cried out his name once, then again, her voice growing more frantic, more raw. She writhed against her bonds, eyes wide and bright now, shimmering not only with fear, but with light. A silver glow pulsed faintly around her skin, soft but insistent, like starlight remembering how to burn.

Elspeth’s lips curled as she raised her hand, finally ready to end the game.

Without breaking eye contact, Hoseok shifted his stance. His body angled subtly toward the cages lining the wall. The animals inside watched him with dull, haunted eyes. Stoats pressed tight together, ribs sharp beneath patchy fur. A massive monitor lizard coiled tensely, tongue flicking in agitation. Boars with yellowed tusks pawed at the stone, snorting softly. They were starving. Broken. Forgotten. But not dead. Something feral still lived in them, something waiting.

Hoseok moved.

With a sharp, decisive flick of his wrist, he slashed at the rusted locks.

CHING.

Another cut.

CHING.

Another.

CHING. CHING. CHING.

The sound rang through the chamber, sharp and metallic, echoing off the stone like a warning bell tolling too late. The cages burst open.

The lair erupted into motion as dozens of half-starved stoats poured out in a shrieking wave of fur and teeth, eyes blazing with feral fury. The monitor lizard slammed into the floor with a thunderous crack, surging forward, claws scraping sparks from stone. Wild boars barreled straight into Elspeth’s path, tusks lowered, squealing like demons unleashed from hell. More creatures followed, grotesque and forgotten, wronged and furious, flooding the space in a living tide of fang and scale and muscle.

Elspeth barely had time to scream. She tried to lift her hands, tried to draw fire into her palms, but the beasts were already upon her. They struck like an avalanche, fur and fang and muscle colliding all at once, knocking her flat and driving the breath from her body. She vanished beneath snarling, snapping forms as they piled over her, tearing and biting with a violence born of starvation and rage long denied. Her scream cut off abruptly, ending in a wet, sickening crunch, and the chamber filled with the sounds of hunger unleashed. Growls, shrieks, the brutal music of bodies colliding and breaking.

Morwen watched.

At first, she did nothing. She didn’t shout her sister’s name. Didn’t rush forward. She simply stood there, hands folded loosely at her sides, her posture untroubled. One eyebrow lifted, slow and deliberate, as if she were faintly impressed despite herself. Then, with a casual flick of her wrist, she pointed toward the churning pile of bodies.

Heat detonated. The air split with a sound like a thunderclap, a concussive force that rattled bone and stone alike. A blinding flash tore through the chamber, swallowing everything in white-hot brilliance, and then there was nothing.

Silence.

Where the stampede had been, where Elspeth had fought and vanished beneath claw and tooth, there remained only a thin coil of smoke curling lazily upward and a dark, charred smear burned into the stone floor. No bodies. No movement. The creatures, every last one of them, were gone, incinerated in the span of a heartbeat. The air hung thick and bitter with the acrid stench of burned fur and scorched magic, clinging to the lungs and coating the tongue.

Morwen lowered her hand slowly.

Her face tightened, not with grief, not even with rage. Just irritation. The mild, displeased expression of someone forced to wipe spilled ink from the pages of a precious book, annoyed that the mess had ever existed at all.

Y/N screamed.

The sound tore out of her raw and ragged, dragged up from somewhere deep in her chest where fear and fury had fused into something unbearable. Her whole body arched against the restraints, silver cords biting viciously into her skin as the glow around her flared brighter. No longer a flicker now, but a pulse. The table beneath her shuddered, ancient wood groaning as hairline cracks spidered outward from where her back pressed into it, protesting the force building within her.

Hoseok staggered as the aftershock of the blast slammed into him, heat ripping the breath from his lungs. He threw an arm up instinctively, turning his face away as the last of the fire washed past. When he looked back, the space where Elspeth and the animals had been was empty. Too empty. No bodies. No blood. Just ash drifting lazily through the air like black snow.

His stomach dropped.

“Y/N,” he said hoarsely, the name scraping his throat raw.

She was shaking now, light crawling beneath her skin in frantic waves, silver bleeding into blue at the edges, like starlight caught in ice. Her eyes found his immediately, wide, bright, breaking.

“Hoseok.” Her voice cracked. “You have to. She’s—”

“I know,” he said quickly, already moving. His boots slipped slightly on the scorched stone as he crossed the room, every muscle screaming in protest, every joint aching with exhaustion. He ignored it. He reached the table and seized the ropes binding her wrists, fingers fumbling desperately at the knots. They smoked faintly where his skin touched them, magic reacting angrily to magic, hissing like a living thing.

Then Morwen spoke.

Her voice came so softly, so unexpectedly, that it cut through the chaos like a blade through silk.

“Youth,” she said quietly. “Beauty. It all seems meaningless now.”

Hoseok froze despite himself.

Morwen was staring off into the gloom, her expression slack with something that looked dangerously like grief. “My sisters are dead,” she went on, her eyes distant, unfocused. “Everything I cared about, gone.”

Even the ghosts fell still. They drifted just above the stone floor, their translucent faces emptied of mischief and mockery, hollowed out by disbelief.

Then, slowly, Morwen walked to the table.

Without ceremony or flourish, she drew a knife from her belt, plainer than her usual instruments, but no less sharp, and sliced cleanly through the ropes that bound Y/N. The cords fell away at once.

Y/N scrambled upright, wide-eyed and trembling. For a heartbeat, she simply stared at Morwen, unsure whether this was some new cruelty, some deeper trick. Then instinct won. She bolted from the table and ran across the lair, throwing herself into Hoseok’s arms. He caught her just in time, staggering back a step as they collided, and together they clung to one another like survivors clinging to wreckage after a storm.

Y/N’s light surged with renewed strength, her body glowing like a star newly born, radiant, alive, undeniable.

Morwen stood where she was, watching them. Her expression softened into something almost tender. “I owe you thanks, boy,” she murmured, her voice strange and faraway. “What use was her heart to me when it was broken?”

Then her expression changed.

She turned toward the walls and flung out her arms. At once, the black glass shutters around the chamber snapped shut with deafening force. BANG. BANG. BANG. The light vanished. The lair plunged into darkness, leaving only the faint, pulsing glow from Y/N’s skin to push back the black.

Morwen moved again, her footfalls unnervingly calm as she crossed to her cabinet. She opened it and withdrew a different knife this time, longer, jagged, its blade pulsing faintly with an eerie red light. Her fingers curled around the hilt with familiar ease.

She turned, face unreadable, and began walking toward them.

Her voice cut through the dark, mild and precise.

“Careful,” she said. “You’ll only make it worse.”

Hoseok froze.

Morwen stepped forward at last, her staff tapping softly against the stone with each measured step. The sound was almost polite, maddeningly calm. Up close, the damage she carried was impossible to ignore. Her skin was stretched tight over sharp bone, veins dark and webbed beneath the surface like cracks in old marble. Her breathing came shallow and uneven, each inhale rasping faintly. Power still hummed around her, but it was no longer vibrant or whole. It felt brittle, strained thin, like glass held together by habit alone.

“You see?” she said conversationally, as though they were discussing a spilled cup of wine rather than carnage. She gestured vaguely toward the scorched floor, the blackened stone where her sister had vanished. “Wasteful. All that noise. All that chaos.” Her mouth twitched. “And for what?”

Her gaze slid to Y/N and lingered there, unashamed and ravenous. “This,” Morwen said softly, reverently. “This was always the answer.”

Y/N’s glow surged violently at her proximity, reacting like a cornered animal sensing teeth at its throat. The air around her shimmered and buckled. The silver cords binding her wrists hissed and tightened, biting deeper into her skin as if trying to restrain not just her body, but whatever was waking inside her, something vast and furious and afraid.

Hoseok moved without thinking.

He planted himself between them, one hand braced against the edge of the table, the other still clutching Taehyung’s sword. His chest rose and fell hard, breath ragged, eyes burning with something raw and unyielding.

“You’re not touching her,” he said.

Morwen smiled thinly, amusement flickering across her gaunt features. “Oh, my dear,” she replied. “I already have.”

She lifted her staff.

The temperature dropped instantly. The air went sharp and brittle, breath frosting in throats and lungs. Ice bloomed across the stone floor in branching patterns, racing outward like living veins, crawling toward the table with alarming speed. Hoseok reacted on instinct. He swung the sword in a wide, desperate arc. The blade hummed violently, magic flaring along its edge as it carved through the freezing air, shattering the frost before it could reach Y/N.

The impact sent a jolt up his arm, pain flaring through his shoulder as he staggered but held his ground.

Morwen hissed softly, surprise flashing across her face before she masked it. “That sword,” she murmured, eyes narrowing. “So that’s where it went.”

Hoseok didn’t answer. He shifted his stance, feet braced wider, gripping the sword with both hands now. His arms trembled with exhaustion, muscles screaming, but his grip didn’t falter.

Behind him, Y/N gasped sharply.

The glow around her spiked, light spilling from her eyes and mouth as she sucked in a breath that seemed too large for her chest. The ropes began to smoke in earnest, silver cords glowing white-hot where they touched her skin, magic fighting magic with a shrill, angry hiss.

“I can’t,” she choked. “I can’t hold it back.”

Morwen’s eyes lit with open triumph. “Don’t,” she said gently. “Let it come.”

“No,” Hoseok snapped, twisting his head back toward Y/N without lowering his guard. “Don’t listen to her. Stay with me. Look at me.”

Y/N’s gaze locked onto his, tears streaking through the light washing over her cheeks. “Hoseok, it hurts.”

“I know,” he said, his voice breaking despite himself. “I know. Just— just stay. I’m here.”

The table groaned beneath them, ancient wood protesting as hairline cracks widened and split. The lair itself seemed to recoil. Somewhere deeper in the cave, stone cracked with a thunderous echo, the sound rolling through the chamber like a warning.

Morwen stepped closer, intoxicated now, whatever irritation she’d carried burned away and replaced by something fervent and hungry. Her eyes shone as she took it all in, the trembling air, the light straining against flesh, the lair itself groaning under the pressure. “This is beautiful,” she breathed, reverent, almost tender. “Do you feel it?” Her smile widened, sharp and knowing. “Stars don’t die quietly.”

She lifted her staff higher.

“They explode.”

A blur of motion tore through the edge of the chamber.

“Get away from my son.”

Farrow’s voice cracked through the chaos, sharp and furious, carrying the weight of teeth-bared devotion. She burst from the shadows with her sword already in motion, her boots skidding against stone as she slammed into Morwen from the side. Steel met staff with a violent crack that rang through the lair, sparks screaming outward in a shower of light. The impact knocked Morwen back, not far, barely a step, but it was enough.

Enough to break the moment.

Enough for Hoseok to move.

Y/N screamed as the final restraint gave way, not in pain, but in release. The silver cords snapped and dissolved as if they’d never existed, unraveling into nothing as light erupted from her in a blinding surge. The ancient table splintered beneath her with a sound like thundered wood, collapsing inward as she fell forward into Hoseok’s arms. He caught her instinctively, staggering under the force, her body blazing against his chest, brilliant, alive, incandescent, like a falling star finally allowed to burn.

Morwen shrieked, the sound raw and furious, stripped of all pretense.

The lair answered. Stone screamed as the chamber shook violently, dust and debris raining from the ceiling in choking clouds. Cracks tore through the walls as ancient magic buckled and snapped, old bindings screaming as they failed at last. The very air seemed to warp, pulling and pressing as though the world itself had drawn too close to something it could no longer contain.

Hoseok held Y/N tight, his body curved instinctively around hers as though he could shield her from the entire world if he only pressed close enough. Her light spilled between his fingers in shimmering rivulets, warm and blinding, seeping through the cracks in his resolve. He could feel it against his chest, against his throat, a living thing pulsing where his heart hammered too fast. He didn’t loosen his grip. He couldn’t.

In front of them, Farrow planted herself squarely between them and Morwen. Her blade was raised, arm steady despite the tremor running through her shoulders. Her stance was wide, grounded, the posture of a woman who had already lost too much and had carved that loss into muscle and bone. Her jaw was set, lips drawn thin, eyes locked on the witch with a promise that did not need words. She would not lose again.

Morwen stood amid the wreckage, smoke curling around her like a crown. Stone lay cracked at her feet, the lair groaning softly as it settled into its wounds. She snarled, feral and defiant, power still coiling tight around her frame despite the chaos. She looked unbroken. Dangerous. Unfinished. And somewhere beyond the stone and shadow, beyond the trembling earth and collapsing walls, it felt as though the stars themselves had gone still, holding their breath, waiting, preparing to answer at last.

“Oh my,” Y/N suddenly hissed.

Her voice cut through the roar in Hoseok’s ears like a blade through silk.

“Hoseok,” she said again, sharper now, panic bleeding through the glow. “You’re bleeding.”

The words barely registered.

The world tilted.

Hoseok felt lightheaded all at once, as if the floor had shifted beneath him without warning. His vision narrowed, the edges darkening until the world tunneled down to fragments, Y/N’s light smearing into streaks of silver and blue, fire and shadow blurring together. His limbs felt far away, sluggish and uncooperative, like they no longer belonged to him. The heat that had been burning in his chest flickered and went out, replaced by a hollow ache that spread too quickly, too completely.

He had nothing left.

With a broken gasp, his knees buckled. He stumbled forward and went down hard, stone biting through fabric and skin as he hit the floor. The sword slipped from his grip, clattering uselessly across the lair, spinning once before coming to rest far out of reach. He tried to follow it with his eyes and couldn’t. His focus refused to hold, the world tilting and slipping sideways.

He caught himself on his hands, or tried to. His arms shook violently, barely managing to keep him from collapsing entirely. His breath came ragged and uneven, each inhale scraping his lungs raw, each exhale shuddering like it might be his last. His body trembled uncontrollably, sweat and blood slick against the cold stone beneath him. He had given everything, every ounce of strength, every scrap of will he possessed.

And it still hadn’t been enough.

For a suspended, terrible moment, the silence pressed down heavier than the noise ever had.

No crackle of magic. No screaming stone. No ragged breaths tearing through smoke. Just a void, thick, smothering, unreal, like the world had inhaled too sharply and forgotten how to breathe again.

Hoseok barely registered it. His forehead rested against the cold stone floor, cheek slick with sweat and ash, hands splayed uselessly beneath him. Every muscle in his body had seized, locked tight in a dull, consuming ache that radiated outward from his chest. His lungs burned as if he were still running, as if the sprint had never ended. He dragged in air in shallow, uneven pulls, each one scraping like broken glass.

Then it hit him. Y/N’s weight was gone from his arms. The realization cut through the fog like a blade.

“No,” he croaked, trying to lift his head. His neck protested violently, pain flashing white as his vision swam. Panic surged, sudden and vicious, flooding veins already wrung dry. “Y/N.”

Light answered him. Not the blinding, violent eruption from before, but something quieter. Steadier. A soft, celestial glow gathered just beyond his blurred vision, warm as sunlight through closed eyes. The air shifted with it, pressure easing, the oppressive weight of the lair lifting inch by inch, like a curse being carefully peeled away.

“Hoseok.”

Her voice. The sound of it lodged in his chest and cracked something open. He choked on a breath and forced his head up, hands shaking as he pushed himself upright just enough to see her.

Y/N stood a few steps away. The ropes lay at her feet in melted coils, silver reduced to dull slag. Her clothes were torn and blackened with soot, her hair loose and wild around her shoulders, but her posture made his breath hitch. She stood steady. Grounded. Light traced her skin in faint constellations, veins of silver and blue pulsing gently beneath the surface, no longer frantic, no longer out of control. Her eyes shone like a night sky washed clean after a storm.

Hoseok’s knees finally gave out. He sagged back onto his heels, a broken sound tearing loose from his chest, half laugh, half sob, as relief hit him full force, violent and overwhelming.

“You’re.” His voice failed. He swallowed hard and tried again. “You’re standing.”

Y/N’s mouth curved into a small, shaky smile, fragile, unmistakably hers. “You always did have a way with observations.”

He huffed out something that might have been a laugh if it weren’t threaded through with tears. His hands lifted instinctively, hovering in the space between them, afraid to touch her, afraid she might vanish if he did.

“You shouldn’t be,” he whispered. “I, I couldn’t.”

She closed the distance in two unsteady steps and dropped to her knees in front of him. Her hands came up immediately, warm and solid, cupping his face. Her thumbs brushed ash from his cheekbones with reverent care, like she was making sure he was real too.

“Hoseok,” she said softly. “Look at me.”

He did, and whatever was left holding him together shattered.

His shoulders folded inward as he leaned into her touch, forehead pressing against hers. His breath hitched hard enough to hurt, the sound breaking out of him raw and unguarded. “I thought I was too late,” he confessed, the words spilling free before he could stop them. “I thought I’d failed you.”

Her grip tightened, fingers curling into his hair, anchoring him. “You came,” she said firmly. “That’s all that mattered. You came.”

Behind them, something groaned. The sound was low and wet and unmistakably alive, and it dragged both of their attention back into the room like a hook in the spine.

Morwen lay sprawled against the far wall, her body twisted at an unnatural angle. Her staff had snapped clean through, its upper half lying several feet away, the cracked end smoldering faintly as thin tendrils of smoke curled into the air. The glow that had once clung to her skin, so sharp, so cruel, was gone now, extinguished completely. Without it, she looked smaller somehow. Diminished. Her skin hung loose over bone, her limbs thin and trembling. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, rasping breaths, each one sounding like it scraped its way out of her with effort and pain.

A few paces away, Farrow stood rigid, sword still raised though her arm shook with exhaustion. Her shoulders heaved as she drew breath after breath, refusing to lower her guard. There was blood on her sleeve, dark and fresh, but she remained upright, eyes locked on the fallen witch with a focus that bordered on feral. She didn’t move closer. Didn’t look away. She watched Morwen the way one watched a wounded predator, knowing better than to assume it was finished.

Morwen laughed. The sound was thin and broken, more wheeze than mirth, and it ended in a cough that bent her forward, one clawed hand pressing weakly to the stone.

“So,” she rasped, voice shredded. “That’s how it ends.”

In the suffocating dark of the witches’ lair, Hoseok tightened his grip on Y/N’s hand. Every nerve in his body screamed with dread, muscles coiled tight as he shifted instinctively between her and the threat that still lingered. Morwen loomed only feet away now, her jagged blade catching faint traces of light, the pale, misty glow that clung to Y/N’s skin like firelight trapped in fog. The witch’s eyes burned with cold determination. Whatever she was, whatever power she had left, she intended to use it.

She was coming to end this.

Y/N turned toward Hoseok, her fingers tightening around his. Her voice was soft, steady in a way that cut through the terror like a blade through silk. “Close your eyes,” she whispered, “and hold me tight.”

He hesitated, searching her face, his brow drawn tight, the world trembling around them as if it were holding its breath. “What are you going to do?” he asked, his voice rough, threaded with fear he didn’t bother trying to hide.

She met his gaze, really met it, and there it was. That unmistakable spark flickering behind her pupils, ancient and steady and utterly unafraid. Starlight, remembering itself. “What do stars do best?” she asked softly.

He blinked, thrown despite everything collapsing around them. “Complain?” he offered weakly. “Argue?”

Her smile came then, warm and real and impossibly gentle amid the ruin and smoke and shattered stone. It was the smile that had undone him from the start. “Shine,” she said.

Then she closed her eyes.

The world ignited.

It began quietly, almost reverently, a glow blooming along her skin, subtle and golden, like the first breath of dawn creeping over a dark horizon. Hoseok felt it before he truly saw it, heat blooming against his chest where she stood pressed to him, not burning, not violent, but alive. Within seconds the light intensified, her body erupting into radiant brilliance as the air itself seemed to warp and bend around her. Light poured outward in a relentless wave, flooding every crack and crevice of the black-glass lair, banishing shadow by sheer force of will.

The corona around her expanded, searing and white-hot, until it felt as though the sun itself had descended and taken root in her chest.

Morwen screamed.

The sound was high and animalistic, stripped of all artifice, no measured cruelty now, no smug composure, only pure, primal terror. She raised her knife in reflex, but her arm froze mid-air, skin blistering instantly, smoking and cracking as if scorched from within. Flesh darkened, then crumbled, turning to ash that scattered before it could ever touch the floor. Her body convulsed once, then again.

And then she was gone. Only a faint scorch mark marred the stones where she had stood, the final echo of something ancient that had existed far too long.

Slowly, gently, the light receded.

Y/N’s glow dimmed, softening back into the pale, steady radiance of a living star. Hoseok, still holding her as though letting go might undo reality itself, opened his eyes carefully. Darkness rushed back in, reclaiming the space, but it felt different now, hollow, quiet, cleansed. The lair no longer breathed malice. It felt empty in a way that was finally safe.

They stood there for a heartbeat in silence, surrounded by cracked stone and settling dust, the air free of evil for the first time in centuries.

Y/N turned toward him, her glow faint now but still warm, clinging to her skin like the last light of dusk. Her voice barely rose above a whisper, fragile in the hush that had fallen over the ruins. “I couldn’t have done that without you,” she said, fingers tightening around his as though afraid the truth might slip away if she let go. “No star can shine with a broken heart. I thought I’d lost you.” Her throat worked, eyes shimmering as she searched his face. “But you came back.”

Hoseok swallowed hard. The emotion rose too fast, too thick, lodging painfully in his chest. His breath caught as he answered, the words simple because anything else would have broken him. “Of course I did,” he said. “I love you.”

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.

Then their lips met, soft at first, uncertain, as though they were both still checking that this was real. The kiss deepened into something quiet and sure, unhurried, not born of fear or desperation but of promise. Of choosing each other after everything had tried to tear them apart. It was the kind of kiss that felt inevitable. Long overdue. A sealing of something already decided.

When they finally parted, the silence returned gently, heavy with awe and aftermath. Y/N rested her forehead against Hoseok’s, her breath still shallow, her body humming faintly with the remnants of power that had surged through her. His hands stayed firm at her waist, grounding her, anchoring himself, but his gaze drifted downward.

Something shimmered on the floor.

At their feet lay the scorched remains of her belt, once finely stitched leather, now warped and blackened, buckles twisted, loops melted into useless shapes. Heat had erased every trace of its former purpose. And beside it, untouched amid the ruin, rested a single, radiant gem.

The moonstone.

Hoseok crouched and picked it up, brushing a smear of soot from its smooth surface with his thumb. The stone pulsed immediately in his hand, warmth spreading through his palm. Its color deepened before their eyes, no longer pale and pearlescent, but swiftly blooming into a vivid, luminous blue. Light gathered within it, thickened, intensified, until it glowed like a living sapphire, as though it had been waiting for him all along.

“Don’t forget this,” he murmured, holding it out toward Y/N.

Before she could answer, a soft voice cut through the moment.

Farrow stepped closer, barefoot on the stone floor, the dim light of the lair painting her face in flickers of gold and ash. She looked calm. Serene, even. Not surprised in the slightest.

“The last surviving male heir of the Norvoss bloodline,” she said, her voice filled with quiet certainty. “It’s you, Hoseok. I haven’t been able to properly introduce myself just yet.”

Behind them, the ghosts of the fallen princes exchanged glances, their eyes wide with something like dawning comprehension. Their translucent forms flickered and wavered, thin as old parchment caught in a restless wind, as if the world itself had begun to loosen its hold on them.

Kai opened his mouth, wonder threading through his voice, the question forming even as realization chased it. “But if he’s the new king of Norvoss, then surely.”

He never finished the thought.

A low, resonant hum swelled through the lair, deep enough to be felt in bone and breath alike. The sound seemed to come from everywhere at once, vibrating through stone and air, through memory and blood. Without warning, a shaft of white light tore open the darkness above them, pouring down into the ruined lair like moonlight braided with stardust. The seven ghostly brothers were caught in it mid-breath, their startled expressions frozen between awe and reverence.

They were lifted gently at first, then with growing speed, as though the heavens themselves had reached down and gathered them up. Their forms shimmered within the beam, edges blurring, then streaked skyward in a rush of sound and light, whoomph, vanishing completely and leaving only the echo of their passing behind.

The princes had finally moved on.

In the stillness that followed, Hoseok stared down at the stone resting in his palm. The sapphire sparkled softly, deep and clear, its surface reflecting a world that had just shifted irrevocably beneath his feet. It felt heavier now, not in weight, but in meaning.

“Who are you?” he asked quietly, lifting his gaze to the woman beside him.

“My name’s Farrow,” she replied. “I’m your mother.”

The words did not land all at once.

They hovered between them, too large, too sharp, too impossible to be absorbed in a single breath. Hoseok stared at Farrow as though she had spoken in a language he had never learned, his fingers tightening unconsciously around the stone until its edges bit faintly into his skin.

“My…” His voice caught, stalled somewhere behind his ribs. He swallowed and tried again. “You’re… what?”

Farrow didn’t flinch. She didn’t rush to fill the silence or soften the truth. She stood with her hands loose at her sides, shoulders relaxed, eyes steady and unbearably gentle. It was the look of someone who had waited a very long time to be seen.

“Your mother,” she said again, quieter now, as if repetition might make the truth less seismic. “I didn’t plan to tell you like this.”

Hoseok laughed.

It burst out of him sharp and disbelieving, the kind of laugh that came when the world tipped too far off its axis and the only alternative was screaming. He dragged a hand down his face, fingers catching briefly in his hair.

“This is…” He gestured vaguely around them, the ruined lair, the scorched stone, the lingering glow still clinging to the air, the absence where ghosts had stood moments ago. “This is a bad time for jokes.”

Y/N shifted beside him, her hand sliding instinctively into his free one. Her grip was warm and steady, an anchor. She didn’t look at Farrow, not yet. Her eyes stayed on Hoseok’s face, reading every flicker of disbelief and unraveling as it crossed him.

“She’s not joking,” Y/N said softly.

Hoseok’s jaw tightened. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Farrow replied, not unkindly. “Because if I were joking, the stone would still be dormant.”

Hoseok’s gaze dropped back to the moonstone.

It pulsed once in his palm, slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat answering its own name.

His breath stuttered.

“I wasn’t able to keep you,” Farrow continued. “For years. I couldn’t come to you. Not safely. Not while I was that witch Zelle’s slave.” Her mouth curved, sad but proud. “You were hidden well. Better than I ever hoped. Your father raised you very well.”

Something in Hoseok’s chest loosened.

Not all at once. There was still shock there, still the quiet disorientation of a truth arriving far too late. But beneath it was no anger. No sense of betrayal. Just a strange, spreading warmth, like a door opening onto a room he hadn’t known existed, yet recognized the moment he stepped inside.

He lifted his eyes from the stone and really looked at Farrow. At the familiar curve of her mouth when she held it still. At the way her eyes softened when she spoke of his father. At the exhaustion she wore not as a wound, but as proof of endurance.

For a long moment, they simply looked at one another. The space between them hummed with things unsaid, no longer sharp or painful. The moonstone glowed softly in Hoseok’s palm, no longer surging, just present, steady and patient.

“I don’t feel angry,” he said at last, as if testing the words for truth. “I thought maybe I should. That this would be the part where I get angry.” He let out a quiet breath. “But I’m not.”

Farrow’s eyes shone.

“I feel… glad,” he admitted. “Glad you’re alive. Glad you found me. Glad that…” His voice caught for just a second, then steadied. “Glad that somewhere out there, I came from someone who fought this hard to keep me safe.”

Y/N’s throat tightened. She squeezed his hand, her thumb brushing gently over his knuckles.

Farrow stepped closer, tentative now, as though afraid that sudden movement might break something fragile. “You don’t owe me anything,” she said. “Not forgiveness. Not understanding. I just needed you to know the truth.”

Hoseok considered her words, then shook his head gently. “I don’t feel like you’re asking me to give something back,” he said. “I feel like you’re giving me something I didn’t know I was missing.”

He glanced down at the stone once more, then cradled it loosely between both hands, its glow reflecting softly across his skin.

“I don’t know what being an heir means,” he said honestly. “Or a king. Or any of this.” He looked up again, meeting her gaze. “But I do know who I am. And I like that person. My father and mother made sure of that.”

Farrow smiled then, truly smiled, and it was like watching a long-held breath finally released.

“They did,” she said softly. “They did very well.”

Behind them, the lair stood quiet at last, stripped bare of menace and ancient hunger. The air no longer pressed in on itself. The shadows no longer felt alive. The ghosts were gone. The witches were gone. All that remained were three living souls standing amid cracked stone and settling dust, and a future that had split open without warning, raw and uncharted.

Hoseok stood there for a moment, the weight of everything settling unevenly in his chest. Then, almost without realizing he’d decided, he stepped forward. He hesitated just long enough to betray his nerves before wrapping his arms around Farrow.

The embrace was awkward, careful. Farrow stiffened for only a breath before her arms rose and closed around him, holding him with a reverence so quiet and profound it made Y/N’s chest ache to witness it.

“It’s good to meet you,” Hoseok murmured, his voice low against Farrow’s shoulder, still half afraid that speaking too loudly might shatter something delicate.

Farrow closed her eyes as if savoring the truth of it. “It’s good to finally know you,” she replied, her voice steady, though her grip tightened just a little.

In Hoseok’s hand, the moonstone dimmed further, its light easing into something soft and content. No longer calling. No longer waiting. Just warm. Just settled.
Simply home.

Y/N leaned in at Hoseok’s side, her lips curving with quiet mischief as she glanced between him and Farrow. 

“King Hoseok,” she murmured playfully. “Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
Hoseok huffed a breath that might have been a laugh, the sound shaky but real, and for the first time since everything had begun to fall apart, the future didn’t feel quite so frightening.

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The night sky above Norvoss shimmered with an impossible clarity, every star laid bare, as if the heavens themselves had drawn closer to witness what unfolded below. A thousand constellations burned like jeweled eyes, their light reflected in the polished stone of the palace’s high terrace, where the ceremony was held beneath open air. There were no walls to hold the moment, no ceiling to contain it, only sky, stone, and the quiet hum of something ancient finally settling into place.

Within a wide circle of golden torches and ceremonial firelight, Hoseok sat upright on the high-backed throne of Norvoss. He looked changed, not merely by the tailored cut of his royal jacket or the new weight resting visibly on his shoulders, but by something deeper and harder won. A quiet resolve lived in the set of his jaw. A steadiness in his eyes. Peace, earned the long way. Beside him sat Y/N, her fingers threaded through his, her presence grounding and radiant all at once. She wore no crown, no regalia of power, yet she outshone every jewel in the realm without effort, her light softer now, human and warm, but unmistakable.

Before them stood the royal scepter, its crest crowned with the sapphire once lost to time and legend. The stone glowed with a steady, living blue, no longer volatile or hungry, but calm, as though it, too, had found where it belonged. It pulsed faintly, rhythmically, like a heart finally at rest.

The new bishop stepped forward, silver robes whispering like rain as he moved. He cradled the crown in both hands, a circlet of gold and woven starlight, set with stones as old as the kingdom itself. When he spoke, his voice rang out deep and solemn across the terrace, but Hoseok barely heard the words. His gaze drifted instead to the people who mattered.

Near the front stood Farrow, chin lifted high, posture composed and deliberate, though her eyes shone with tears she stubbornly refused to let fall. She would not weep here, not where anyone could mistake it for weakness. At her side, Homin fidgeted nervously with the cuffs of his sleeves, fingers worrying the fabric as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, clearly uncertain what to do with his hands or his heart. Myra stood just beyond him, both palms pressed to her chest as if to keep it from breaking free, lips moving constantly in whispered prayers of gratitude she didn’t seem able to stop. Hoseok’s younger siblings crowded close beside her, cheeks flushed, eyes wide and shining with disbelief and awe, as though the moment might still vanish if they blinked too long, as though the world might snap back into something smaller and crueler if they weren’t careful.

Beyond them, pressed shoulder to shoulder in a strange, jubilant chaos, Sabine and Jungkook strained to see over the sea of bodies. Around them gathered an eclectic mix of Norvoss citizens and wanderers alike, drawn together by rumor, miracle, and celebration. Sabine, however, was not celebrating.

Sabine was furious.

Had she known, had she even suspected, that Hoseok was of royal descent, she would have indulged his advances far sooner. She would have smiled differently. Lingered longer. The woman he was marrying tonight should have been her. She cast Jungkook a sharp, resentful glare, her jaw tightening as bitterness curled hot and ugly in her chest.

She felt foolish now. Ridiculous for marrying Jungkook at all. Even more ridiculous for not trying harder to secure Hoseok when she’d had the chance. He’d been falling over himself in love with her back then, hadn’t he?

What a waste.

Around her, the crowd glittered with life. Elven traders with inked hands stood laughing beside cloaked mystics whose eyes gleamed with quiet knowing. Flower-selling spirits darted through the throng, their laughter bright and chiming, while tattooed pirates, reeking pleasantly of salt and lightning, clapped one another on the back and shouted congratulations at anyone who would listen. One pirate captain in particular lifted a flask high in unabashed salute, medals clinking against his coat as he grinned like he’d personally had a hand in shaping this ending.

Captain Yoongi Min cut a striking figure among them, wearing the most dazzling skirt anyone had ever seen in Norvoss, layers of rich fabric swirling around his legs, and his ears were adorned with beautiful earrings that caught the firelight when he moved. He’d even painted his face for the occasion, makeup sharp and deliberate, worn with the confidence of someone who had never once apologized for being exactly who he was.

Across the terrace, his gaze caught Jungkook’s.

They shared a look heavy with history, long nights, shared laughter, familiar warmth. Yoongi winked first, slow and knowing, and Jungkook couldn’t help but grin before winking back. Yoongi would see him again soon enough. After all, the boy loved to travel.

Nearby, Jimin rolled forward in his marvelous contraption of brass and wood, one wheel sticking stubbornly thanks to a misaligned cog he had absolutely meant to fix. As he twisted for a better view, the contraption lurched and clipped Jungkook’s foot. Jungkook yelped, hopping back with a curse, while Jimin burst into frantic apologies, hands fluttering as he bent to inspect the damage, muttering under his breath and attempting, unsuccessfully, to fix the problem on the spot.

Jungkook glared for half a second, then sighed and brushed himself off. It wasn’t worth it. Not tonight.

No one truly minded the disarray. Tonight, disorder felt like joy. Tonight, everything was forgiven.

Above them all, the stars burned brighter still, riotous and alive. Even the oldest among them, the seers and sailors who claimed kinship with the heavens, whispered in awe that they had never seen the sky blaze quite like this. Some swore new stars had appeared, sharp and brilliant, with unfamiliar names and brighter hearts. Others insisted the constellations themselves had shifted, rearranging into a new story, a new legend, one not written in books or etched into stone, but lived.

A legend of a boy who crossed kingdoms, defied death, outwitted witches, and returned not only with a crown waiting for him, but with love already claimed.

Y/N leaned closer to Hoseok, her voice soft and dry with amusement. “That’ll give the astronomers something to worry about.”

He turned toward her, eyes shining, lips already parting to reply, when the bishop stepped closer, reverent and composed, the crown catching starlight in his hands. The old man had witnessed many coronations in his long life, but none like this. None where the land itself seemed to lean forward in quiet acknowledgment.

“I crown thee,” the bishop intoned, his voice rolling across the terrace like distant thunder, “King Hoseok of Norvoss.”

The instant the crown touched Hoseok’s brow, the hush shattered into thunderous applause. The crowd erupted, cheers, claps, whistles, shouts of his name. Boots stomped. Drums thundered. Petals filled the air like falling stars. Pirates hooted. Townsfolk roared. Somewhere beyond the terrace, horses neighed and animals brayed in wild excitement. A unicorn sneezed spectacularly on Sabine’s hair.

Hoseok laughed, wide and stunned, overwhelmed by the sound and the truth of it. Then he turned to Y/N and kissed her, firm, sure, and brimming with every promise he didn’t yet have words for.

From the edge of the dais, Farrow stepped forward, holding a lacquered box in both hands. It was deep mahogany, edged in silver vines that shimmered faintly like starlight.

“A gift,” she said quietly, her voice steady despite everything it carried. “For both of you.”

Y/N accepted the box with both hands and opened it slowly. Whatever lay inside made her breath catch, her smile widening in a way that was utterly unguarded. She lifted her gaze to Farrow, eyes shining, not with stardust this time, but with simple, human happiness. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Farrow nodded, something unreadable glinting in her eyes, pride, sorrow, hope, all braided together. Then she stepped back, letting the moment belong to the two it had always been meant for, while above them the stars watched on, bright and unashamed.

The crowd surged and eddied around them in a tide of jubilation, laughter spilling over laughter, voices raised in toasts and song, hands clapping shoulders, strangers embracing as if they had always known one another. The terrace pulsed with life, with relief and triumph and the fragile disbelief that comes when a story ends the right way. Firelight leapt and danced across gold and stone, catching on polished armor and swirling cloaks, turning every movement into something almost dreamlike.

And yet, amid all that motion and noise, the box remained still.

It rested between Hoseok and Y/N, cradled carefully as though the world itself had conspired to leave that small pocket of quiet untouched. Delicate and mysterious, its lacquered surface drank in the firelight and gave it back softened, the silver vines along its edges glimmering faintly, as if breathing. It felt heavy with meaning, with secrets not yet spoken aloud, an anchor in the midst of celebration.

Hoseok’s fingers brushed lightly against Y/N’s as they both glanced down at it, sharing a brief look that needed no words. Around them, the kingdom rejoiced. But there, in that narrow space between their joined hands, something waited, patient, luminous, and undeniably theirs.

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The room was warm with candlelight, the windows thrown wide to welcome the sea-salted night air. It drifted in softly, carrying the distant hush of waves and the faint cries of seabirds settling into sleep. The walls of the king’s chamber, once stark and imposing, had long since been softened by time and love. Tapestries depicting old victories hung beside faded maps of kingdoms that no longer existed. Children’s drawings were pinned proudly between them, corners curled with age. Trinkets gathered from far-off lands crowded the shelves, bits of shell and glass, carved figurines, worn tokens of journeys taken and returned from. It no longer felt like a room meant for politics or power. It felt lived in. Loved in. A place shaped by laughter, arguments, quiet nights, and the long accumulation of years.

Hoseok lay propped against a mountain of velvet and wool, his once-dark hair now white as drifted snow, thinning and soft against the pillows. His skin was papery and fragile, but it glowed faintly beneath the moonlight streaming through the tall arched windows, as though something luminous still lived just beneath it. His breath came shallow but steady. His eyes, half-lidded, were tired, but clear, sharp with recognition and warmth.

He was surrounded.

Five sons stood near the foot of the bed, broad-shouldered and sharp-eyed, their expressions a careful mix of composure and grief. Two daughters lingered closer, graceful and steel-spined, their hands folded tightly together. All of them leaned in, listening, though they had heard this story a hundred times before. And still, they never tired of it.

“So you see,” Hoseok murmured, the old lilt of mischief still flickering stubbornly through his voice, “you may be of the royal Norvoss bloodline, my children, but your heritage, your story, is anything but ordinary.”

Y/N sat at his side, exactly as she always had, unchanged by time. She brushed a lock of silver hair from his brow with gentle fingers and laced her hand through his. Her smile was soft and luminous, full of love and something eternal. Around the room, the children listened in reverent silence. A few blinked rapidly, eyes shining, though no tears had fallen yet.

“The blood of humans,” Hoseok continued, his voice growing husky, “and of the moon herself, runs in your veins. And you’ve done every one of your ancestors proud, by discontinuing the, uh…” He paused, brow furrowing as he searched for the word.

Y/N leaned in, dry amusement threading her tone. “What your dad is trying to say,” she said lightly, “is well done for not killing each other.”

A ripple of laughter broke the stillness, soft but genuine. Hoseok chuckled too, though the effort cost him, his chest fluttering as he caught his breath.

“I’m very proud,” he said, firmer now, eyes sweeping across their faces. “And this time, we’re doing it my way. Whichever of you is next to hold the Norvoss sapphire shall be the next King.”

“Or queen,” Y/N cut in smoothly, without missing a beat.

“Or queen,” Hoseok echoed with a faint nod. “Of Norvoss. Good luck.”

With that, he reached toward the royal scepter resting in a carved cradle beside the bed. The sapphire, ancient and vibrant, glinted in the candlelight. As his fingers brushed it, the gem lifted gently into the air, hovering above his palm for a breathless moment. Then, before their eyes, the blue shimmered, softened, and shifted, transforming into a perfect pearl. Smooth. White. Luminous.

“Low,” Y/N murmured, leaning closer with a wink. “Low. Aim low.”

Hoseok gave the faintest nod. And then, whoosh, the pearl shot out through the open window, a silver streak slicing through the night.

Outside, it skimmed low over the Norvoss landscape, gliding just above forests and meadows, over rivers gleaming like veins of silver. It passed fields where their people danced and sang beneath lantern light, then arced gently and plunged into the waiting ocean with barely a splash, disappearing beneath moonlit waves.

Back in the chamber, Hoseok’s breath shuddered once. Then again. The sparkle in his eyes dimmed gently, though the corners of his mouth still curled upward in a final, knowing smile.

“I love you all so much,” he whispered.

And then he was still.

The room held its breath.

Some of the children bowed their heads. Others reached instinctively for one another, hands clasping, arms wrapping tight around shoulders as tears finally fell. No one spoke. The silence stretched long and aching, heavy with grief and gratitude all at once.

Y/N remained at his side, watching the face she had loved across lifetimes. At last, she spoke, her voice calm and tender. “You mustn’t be sad. Never be sad. We’ll watch over you. Always.”

She leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, then climbed carefully onto the bed beside him. With quiet grace, she reached for the lacquered box resting near the pillows, Farrow’s gift from so long ago. She opened it slowly.

Nestled within lay the Bellin candle.

“Does anyone have a light?” she asked softly.

For a moment, no one moved. Then one of the sons, perhaps the youngest, his eyes red-rimmed but steady, reached into the pocket of his coat and produced a small matchbox. His hands trembled as he slid it open, but when he struck the match, he did so carefully, deliberately, shielding the flame with his palm as though it were something sacred. He crossed the room and placed it in Y/N’s waiting hand.

She nodded her thanks, fingers closing around the warmth. With her other arm, she drew Hoseok closer, wrapping herself around him with a tenderness that felt like muscle memory, like instinct older than words. She held the match to the candle’s wick.

The flame caught.

WHOOSH.

Light surged, not violent, not blinding, but sudden and complete. It swallowed them whole in an instant, warmth folding in on itself like a closing embrace. And they were gone.

The room fell quiet.

The candlelight faded, leaving behind the soft hush of night. Wind drifted through the open window, stirring curtains and hair, brushing past the remaining children as if offering a final blessing, gentle, unseen, but unmistakably there. No one spoke. No one needed to. The grief lingered, but it was tempered now, wrapped in something gentler than loss.

Above Norvoss, the sky turned.

The stars wheeled slowly across the heavens, rearranging themselves into a dance no one had ever witnessed before. Where once there had been one radiant star that shimmered just a fraction brighter than the rest, now there were two, side by side, steady and luminous, burning with quiet joy.