‘No way… it can’t be.’

 

Miftah snatched the letter straight from Sebak’s hands in one swift motion. Beneath the rough parchment, his name—Miftah of Hayad—was inscribed in impeccably neat, deliberate strokes. 

 

Even though this was an official missive sent to the royal palace of Hayad, the sender had pointedly addressed it to him alone: Miftah Hayad.

 

“Where did this come from?”

 

“From Mohron, Your Highness.”

 

“Mohron…?”

 

Miftah’s gaze darkened, growing heavier, more guarded. Without another word, he drew a small knife and sliced open the seal with precise, almost reverent care.

 

The moment his eyes fell on the contents inside—

 

“Ha… really now…”

 

A low, incredulous laugh escaped him as he read the name etched into the page.

Dahlia.

 

“She was always far too radiant… too precious for a place like Baran to ever deserve.”

 

At the very end of the letter lay her true weapon—stronger than any negotiation, more binding than any treaty.

 

«If you accept this proposal… I will gladly offer you my gift.»

 

Tucked into the final fold was a tiny, perfectly rounded wax pouch no larger than a fingernail. 

 

When he pressed his thumb firmly against it, the seal gave way with a soft, ripe pop—like fruit splitting under summer heat—and a deep, blood-red liquid spilled over the back of his left hand, warm and strangely alive.

 

It glided downward in a slow, silken trail.

 

And then…

 

The long, ugly scar that had marred the center of his hand for years began to fade—flesh knitting itself together before his eyes. 

 

The chronic tremor that had haunted his fingers for so long simply… stopped.

 

One of the startled attendants forgot every rule of decorum and dared to point directly at the prince’s hand.

 

“Y-Your Highness…! The scar on your hand—!”

 

“Prepare everything, Sebak.” 

 

Miftah’s voice came out low, almost dangerously calm. 

 

“We leave in three days. A new negotiation.”

 

“Pardon? A new negotiation… to where, exactly…?”

 

“Mohron.”

 

The corners of Miftah’s lips curved upward in a slow, predatory smile that carried both satisfaction and something far more dangerous—longing.

 

“I’ve received something priceless. It’s only proper that I pay its true value in person… and claim what else is owed to me.”

 

Still smiling—genuinely, almost boyishly delighted—he began stripping away every heavy, ostentatious ornament that had covered and weighed down his hand for years. 

 

Rings, cuffs, chains clattered carelessly to the floor.

 

Then, lighter than he had felt in ages, he turned once more toward the king’s chambers.

 

This time—this one time—he would finally set everything right.

 

And he would not be leaving without her.

 

💫

 

A deep, grinding…

 

The colossal boulder that had sealed the entrance to Mohron slowly, inexorably slid aside. 

 

The cavern trembled with the majestic resonance of shifting stone. 

 

Shafts of fierce, molten sunlight pierced the eternal gloom that had been lit only by flickering torches, slicing through the darkness like blades of fire.

 

When the rock door finally stood fully open, the vast, fathomless depths of Mohron unfolded before him—an ancient kingdom carved from shadow and secrets.

 

Miftah, cloaked in the rough, inverted hide of a Mohron cave-rat, swallowed hard against the dryness in his throat and stared ahead.

 

“Welcome. You must have had a difficult journey.”

 

Waiting to receive him was Hissin—the very man once presented to Baran as a divine gift from the gods, now the undisputed heir apparent of Mohron.

 

Miftah let out a short, dry laugh at the sight of him. The Hissin standing before him now was utterly transformed from the one he had known in Baran. 

 

The moment their eyes met, a phantom ache prickled across the back of Miftah’s left hand. He did not attempt to hide the razor-sharp hostility in his gaze.

 

“I never imagined we would meet again… like this.”

 

The words dripped with unmistakable enmity.

 

Yet Hissin merely tilted his head and offered a calm, almost lazy smile—as though Miftah’s open hatred were nothing more consequential than a passing breeze.

 

“Isn’t that exactly why they say you never know what tomorrow brings?”

 

“Indeed.” Miftah’s lips curled. 

 

“If I had known it would come to this, I would have held out longer that day—fought until the very last breath. Perhaps if I had piled up even more of a debt in her heart, I could have walked into today’s negotiation holding far greater leverage.”

 

With deliberate insolence, he raised his left hand and shook it lightly in the air between them.

 

The hand that, until mere days ago, could barely close into a fist—now moved with perfect, fluid grace. Not a trace remained of the old wound, the tremor, the ruin.

 

Hissin’s gaze dropped to that healed hand. 

 

A faint, bitter chuckle escaped him.

 

How many endless hours had he spent that night cradling Dahlia—trembling, feverish, her skin blooming with those cruel crimson marks—whispering, soothing, stroking her hair until the red finally receded and her breathing steadied?

 

“You should consider yourself fortunate that you didn’t know.”

 

The soft, blurred edges of Hissin’s smile vanished in an instant.

 

“If you had stayed any longer… You might very well have lost the entire arm.”

 

Beyond any hope of recovery.

 

Crimson eyes—cold and luminous as frozen blood—locked onto Miftah. 

 

In answer, the prince’s own expression hardened into glacial disdain. The air between the two men crackled, taut as a drawn bowstring. It felt as though the next heartbeat might bring fists, blades, or worse.

 

And then—

 

“Why are you both still standing there like that?”

A gentle voice floated through the charged silence.

“The sun is coming further inside now.”

 

Soft footsteps approaching. The unbearable tension fractured—just enough.

Both men turned at once toward the sound.

 

With that soft, fragile voice, Dahlia stepped fully into the light before them.

 

She looked somewhat simpler than she had during her days as the imperial princess of Baran—no heavy jewels, no towering headdresses—yet her luminous beauty and that quiet, untouchable grace remained untouched, perhaps even more potent now in their natural setting. 

 

The sunlight caught in her hair like threads of captured dawn.

 

“I told you both to wait inside.”

 

“How could I possibly stay put when I knew exactly what would happen the moment you two were left alone?”

 

Hissin’s arm slid around her shoulders with practiced, possessive ease. 

 

Dahlia leaned into him without hesitation, her body fitting against his as though it had always belonged there. 

 

They looked every inch a pair of lovers who had long since stopped pretending otherwise.

 

Miftah let out a small, mirthless huff of laughter.

 

He had glimpsed it once—on the battlefield, the way Hissin’s gaze had followed her, the way she had instinctively turned toward him even in chaos. 

 

Some part of him had hoped… perhaps foolishly… that it was nothing more than wartime necessity.

 

Clearly, it had become everything.

 

“Please come in, Prince of Hayad,” 

 

Dahlia said, gesturing gracefully toward the deeper chambers. 

 

“I’ll show you the way.”

 

Gone was the timid, constantly suppressed fear that had shadowed the Baran princess he once knew. Here she moved with quiet certainty, rooted, unafraid.

 

She had become one of them—truly Mohron’s.

 

“I’m quite curious,”

 

Miftah replied, the smile on his lips bright and sharp as a drawn blade, 

 

“Just how interesting this proposal of yours is going to be.”

 

He followed them inside.

 

💫

 

At the center of the low stone table lay a modest spread of refreshments and, beside it, several neatly arranged sheets bearing the terms of negotiation—written in Dahlia’s own elegant hand.

 

She took her seat first. Hissin settled immediately at her side, close enough that their arms brushed with every small movement. 

 

Miftah claimed the seat directly opposite them, his posture relaxed yet coiled, eyes never leaving the pair.

 

Dahlia spoke first, her voice calm and measured, yet carrying an undercurrent of warmth that made the cavern feel suddenly smaller.

 

“Thank you again for accepting my invitation. I know it was no small thing to come here.”

 

Miftah tilted his head, letting a slow, deliberate smile spread.

 

“When someone offers a price that cannot be found anywhere else in the world… why would I refuse?”

 

He lifted his left hand and flexed the fingers once—smooth, strong, unscarred.

 

A single drop of her blood, carried in a letter, had undone years of irreversible ruin. Small wonder the greedy emperor of Baran had kept her chained for so long.

 

That same filthy greed had eventually fed him to beasts.

 

“I don’t particularly care for the ‘give sickness, then sell the cure’ method,” 

 

Miftah continued, voice deceptively light, “but you’ve at least shown the will to clean up the mess you made. So for now… I’ll let the past stay buried.”

 

His gaze flicked to Hissin—sharp, accusing, daring him to respond.

 

Hissin answered with the faintest, almost inaudible scoff, the sound barely more than a breath. For a heartbeat, the air between the two men crackled again, ready to ignite.

 

Dahlia’s quiet sigh cut through it like cool water.

 

She looked straight at Miftah.

 

“So tell me, Prince—what is it you truly wish to know? Why do I call you here?”

 

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the table, smile never wavering.

 

“Call me Miftah, if we’re dropping titles. And you…” 

 

His voice softened, almost tenderly mocking. 

 

“You’re no longer Baran’s princess, are you?”

 

A pause. The faintest flush touched her cheeks—not from embarrassment, but from the quiet truth of it.

 

“Then call me Dahlia,” she said simply. 

 

“Just… Dahlia.”

 

Miftah’s gaze lingered on her a fraction too long—on the way the torchlight played across her face, on the subtle way her shoulder still rested against Hissin’s.

 

“Very well…” he murmured, the word curling like smoke.

 

“…Dahlia.”

 

Dahlia placed the meticulously prepared business proposal into Miftah’s hands. 

 

Every detail she had once explained to Queen Tefnu was now fleshed out here—sharper, more vivid, more urgent.

 

“The Baran continent suffers more cruelly under the sun’s wrath than any other land. For countless generations, Mohron has burrowed deep into the earth, carving out existence in the cool darkness. But resources are finite… and our people keep growing. Soon—very soon—this kingdom will choke on its own fullness.”

 

She unfurled the hand-drawn blueprint before him with reverent care, as though unveiling something sacred.

 

“That is why… if Hayad would only lend us your strength, we wish to raise vast dome-bridges—great arched spans that would let us finally claim the surface above.”

 

Dahlia lifted her gaze to the distant ceiling.

 

The stalactites of Mohron had been lovingly sculpted into sweeping, sensual curves; the cavern roof felt less like stone and more like the vaulted inside of some enormous, breathing creature.

 

It was heartbreakingly beautiful—enough to make one forget they stood miles beneath the sun-scorched world. 

 

Yet every so often, a thin, cold current of subterranean air would slide down and wrap around her bare arms, her throat, reminding her how very far they were from warmth, from light, from living soil.

 

No life could take root in rock that refused the sun. 

 

The people of Mohron had been driven here—exiled from the open earth—and Dahlia burned with the need to give them back what had been stolen—ground they could press their bare feet against, soil that could cradle roots instead of merely entombing them.

 

“A vast… dome-bridge…” 

 

Miftah murmured, eyes traveling slowly across her drawings.

 

The design was not flawless—here and there the layman’s hand showed—but it was far too precise, too passionately considered, to belong to someone who had not poured her soul into it. 

 

He could feel how many sleepless nights, how many desperate sketches, how much of her heart lay folded into those lines.

 

“Still… a project on this scale would take at least a year. And no one can labor under that merciless sun wearing only furs and hope to survive the daylight hours.”

 

“No one is going to roast your workers alive,” 

 

Hissin drawled, the corner of his mouth curling into something dangerously close to a sneer. His voice was low, almost intimate, yet edged with frost.

 

“The work will be carried out at night—during Mohron’s active hours, naturally. All necessary materials and manpower can, and will, be supplied from within these very caverns.”

 

You’ve traded with us for decades—how could you not know even this? 

 

The faint mockery in Hissin’s tone made Miftah’s brows pinch together; he swallowed the sharp retort that rose in his throat.

 

“…Then we should inspect the site ourselves. Tonight, when the moon rises.”

 

“Agreed.”

 

Miftah stood and extended his hand toward Dahlia.

 

But before her pale fingers could meet his, Hissin’s hand shot out—swift, possessive—and closed around Miftah’s in a grip that was far too tight to be called polite.

 

Miftah’s jaw clenched instinctively against the sudden, bruising pressure.

 

“Do take good care of her,” Hissin said softly.

 

His lips curved in a graceful, almost tender smile—yet those crimson eyes burned with something raw and juvenile and unmistakably possessive.

 

Jealousy.

 

Not the polished envy of courtiers, but the hot, clumsy, aching jealousy of a man helplessly in love—of someone who still believed the entire world could be divided into what belonged to him and what did not.

 

And right now, every line of his body screamed that Dahlia belonged to the second category only by the thinnest, most fraying thread.

 

The air between the three of them thickened, heavy with unspoken claims, with the electric hum of a bond stretched almost to breaking.

 

Dahlia’s breath caught—barely audible, but Hissin heard it.

 

His thumb moved once, almost tenderly, across the back of Miftah’s hand… then tightened again.

 

A warning.

 

A plea.

 

A vow.

 

Moonlight would soon spill across the surface above them—but down here, in the dark heart of Mohron, something far more dangerous was already rising.