But the grin slipped from my face.

  “Wait.” The word escaped before I could choke it back. “Something’s off.”

  The blue screen blinked to life, hovering steady in the dim corridor.

  [Daeryon Kang → Raion Kang: 75%]

  I stared at the number, throat tight. No flicker. No fracture. Not even the faintest shadow of rot.

  That wasn’t how I had written it. Raion had been warm, yes, but never this warm.

  Back then, pauses broke his words, smiles strained at the edges.

  A boy forever reaching for his father and missing, again and again.

  So why, now, did it look whole?

  The pieces scraped together in my head, sharp and wrong.

  No... it hadn’t always been broken. The fracture came later.

  In the story I had written, the break came after she died.

  Daeryon’s grief crushed him into silence, armor sealing where no one could pierce.

  Raion drifted, no mother’s comfort, no father’s embrace. Only absence, orders, and cold halls.

  That was when the boy’s laughter thinned. That was when joy went hollow.

  But here, in this moment, she was alive. She was still here.

  And this warmth between them, it wasn’t a lie. It was the memory of what they’d almost lost, preserved in the fragile present.

  My chest tightened. If I could anchor Daeryon here, keep him standing in this timeline, maybe the collapse I had written would never come to pass.

  The sun dipped low, painting the wing in bruised streaks of gold and crimson.

  Raion hadn’t let go of his father once, not out of fear, but out of sheer, overflowing joy.

  His voice spilled like water after a storm, rushing, tumbling, unstoppable.

  Talked about dreams he shared with Soryn. Said Giron “looked scary.” Laughed about how Jarin got angry at him for smudging ink, then explained the scrolls anyway.

  He spoke of guards, cooks, even courtyard flowers, words stretching far beyond the smallness of his years.

  And Daeryon...

  stood and listened.

  At first stiff as a commander tolerating reports, then slowly, quietly, like a man rediscovering a sound he thought the world had stolen from him...

  his son’s laughter.

  Minutes blurred into hours. The braziers burned low, shadows stretching long across the courtyard stone.

  Still Raion chattered, voice bright even as it grew breathless, even as the stars crept awake above us.

  Daeryon asked questions, awkward at first, then lighter. Not orders. Not tests.

  Just small things: What dream made you smile most? Did you really beat that guard at dice? Each question fell like a gift into Raion’s eager hands.

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  When the boy finally sagged, head lolling against the pillar, Daeryon bent down, slowly, as though afraid the air itself might shatter.

  He lifted his son into his arms, holding him with a gentleness I had never thought possible.

  I drifted closer, throat tight though I had no lungs to choke.

  Daeryon carried Raion inside, laying him carefully on the bedding.

  For a long moment he only stood, watching his child breathe, his hand hovering over Raion’s hair but never daring to touch.

  Then he turned and left, steps steady, aura trembling like a storm buried too deep to name.

  I slipped after him, my voice cutting through the quiet.

  “Hours. You stood there for hours, Daeryon. And still, you barely spoke half as much as he did.”

  He froze, the faint flicker in his eyes betraying the storm beneath.

  “He needed to speak,” he said softly.

  “Yeah.” I folded my arms. “But so did you. And if you stay silent, one day he’ll stop talking too.”

  Daeryon gave no answer. His silence pressed heavier than his aura, and for once, I didn’t try to fill it.

  We walked the corridors in shadow, the weight of Raion’s laughter still echoing faintly behind us.

  At last, Daeryon pushed open a door. The wood groaned, dust stirred, incense clung faint to the air.

  The first room. The place where we had met for the first time.

  I drifted inside, watching his eyes linger on the walls. Memory clung here like ash.

  “Fitting, huh?” I muttered, crossing my arms. “We started here. And we’ll set the course here too.”

  Daeryon stood, his shadow stretched long across the floor. Silent. Waiting.

  I exhaled, sharpening my words until they cut deliberate.

  “Alright. Now we talk about what comes next.”

  His gaze shifted, the weight of a mountain settling into it. “What now?”

  “How we improve your relationships.” I said firmly. “Right now, I know how to deal with each of your children.”

  I floated closer, my voice dropping low, every word deliberate.

  “We’re going to face each of them. One by one. Not as a lord. Not as a commander. As a father. No speeches. No orders. Just… presence.”

  Daeryon’s jaw tightened. “And if they reject me?”

  “Then we try again,” I snapped. “And again. Until the bond hardens. Until it holds. I’ll make sure of it.”

  His aura stirred, heavy as storm clouds, but not striking. Listening.

  I leaned forward, eyes narrowing.

  “The plan starts here. Giron. Jarin. Soryn. Raion. One step at a time. We mend what’s broken, anchor what’s still alive. And only then, only when your family stands behind you, do we strike at the elders.”

  Silence stretched, thick as stone.

  At last, Daeryon spoke.

  “…Very well.” His voice was low, but it carried the weight of an oath. “One step at a time, with you.”

  He paused. “But not tonight. It’s already too late. Tomorrow we move forward. Tonight… I need to see her.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Go to your wife. You’re lucky to have her.”

  He left without another word, footsteps heavy but sure. I drifted after, keeping my distance.

  The private garden was where she waited. After cultivating the Azure Lotus.

  Lantern light painted Saeryun’s face in gold and shadow, her calm grace striking as ever.

  When Daeryon approached, she turned. Her eyes softened into something so warm, so absolute, it tightened my chest.

  “Daeryon,” she said, her voice gentle, as if she’d waited all night just to speak his name.

  He reached for her hand immediately. Their fingers intertwined, not duty, not habit, but love. Raw and unshaken.

  Watching them together was like watching two halves of the same soul find balance.

  “How are you now?” Daeryon asked quietly, his thumb brushing her hand.

  She tilted her head, a faint smile tugging at her lips.

  “I’m well. Better than I’ve been in years. My body feels stronger.”

  Relief flickered across Daeryon’s face, fleeting, undeniable.

  His grip tightened, as though letting go might dissolve the moment.

  I drifted closer, listening as their words folded into each other, not forced, not cautious, just simple truth.

  For all his power, for all his rage and command, here was the only place Daeryon looked the most human.

  Then her expression shifted, warmth clouded by steel. “But the children…” Her voice roughened.

  “The elders don’t see them as children anymore. They see tools. Weapons. Fates to be shaped.”

  Daeryon’s jaw locked, but he stayed silent.

  Saeryun’s gaze burned, fierce and unflinching.

  “I won’t let them be broken. Not while I draw breath.”

  Daeryon bowed his head, pressing his forehead to hers.

  “You’ve seen more than I wished for you to see. That’s why I asked you to guard them.”

  She laughed softly, though her eyes glistened.

  “I am your wife, Daeryon. Did you think I couldn’t see the weight you bear? Couldn’t notice the shadows already falling on our children?”

  From the side, it hit me harder than any blow. Their love wasn’t fragile or tentative.

  It was iron wrapped in fire, steel reforged again and again through suffering, and it was real.

  And maybe that’s why it hurt to watch.

  I hadn’t expected to see them like this, breathing, burning, alive. For all the trials I’d written, for all the shadows I’d planned…

  I wasn’t supposed to be standing here.

  And yet, here I was.

  And they weren’t just characters in my story anymore.