The mere fact that Miftah Hayad had once been considered a potential match for Dahlia’s hand seemed to grate against Hissin’s very soul like sand in an open wound. 

 

Back when ignorance still cloaked him, the man had even dared to stride into the temple himself and spout that arrogant nonsense about bending the imperial princess to his will however he pleased.

 

‘For the leader of the Moon Lions to be this helplessly emotional…’

 

Miftah barely managed to endure the crushing grip on his hand, forcing himself to tear his gaze away and look at Dahlia instead.

 

“And yet… what exactly is the relationship between the two of you?”

 

At his question, Dahlia’s eyes widened in unmistakable fluster as she turned to Hissin. 

 

Only moments ago, she had pressed herself against him so naturally, so shamelessly—and now she looked caught, cheeks faintly flushed, lips parted in silent panic at being found out.

 

The sight almost drew a dark, incredulous laugh from Miftah’s throat.

 

How deeply they must have entwined themselves in each other, how thoroughly familiar, for her to forget—even for an instant—that such closeness wasn’t meant to be seen.

 

“A question far too private to be aired across a negotiation table, wouldn’t you agree?”

 

Hissin’s fingers tightened again—viciously this time. 

 

A low, involuntary groan slipped from Miftah’s lips before he could stop it.

 

Clearly, even the briefest flicker of Miftah’s attention toward Dahlia was intolerable to him.

 

No words could have answered more eloquently than that punishing grip.

 

“I seem to have overstepped. My curiosity has always been… inconveniently strong.”

 

Swallowing his wounded pride, Miftah forced his expression smooth and, with an effort that cost him, finally wrenched his hand free from Hissin’s iron hold.

 

“Then I shall call on you again tonight.”

 

With that, he turned and followed the Mohron attendant, guiding him out of the chamber. 

 

Behind him drifted Dahlia’s soft, reproving murmur and Hissin’s low, deliberately indifferent rumble—pretending ignorance even as the air between them crackled.

 

Miftah risked one last glance over his shoulder.

 

There stood Hissin—towering, lethal Hissin—gazing down at Dahlia with an expression so molten, so openly ravenous, it seemed the very moonlight might drip from his eyes. 

 

Despite his massive frame, he curled around her like something starved and devoted, burying his face against the delicate curve of her shoulder, clinging as though she were the only solid thing in his world.

 

To think the man had managed to mask that look earlier, to sit there wearing gravity and restraint like armor.

 

Miftah’s captured hand still throbbed viciously. 

 

A curse rose automatically to his lips.

 

“That damn pup… Should’ve brought Arianne along after all.”

 

He scowled, brows knitting as though he’d glimpsed something obscene, and lengthened his strides, fleeing the scene faster.

 

Yet the one secret he carried away with him, locked tight behind his teeth, was this.

 

Seeing the bright, unguarded radiance bloom across Dahlia’s face in that moment… had eased something in his chest, just a little.

 

And he hated that most of all.

 

💫

 

Deep night had fallen. 

 

The fierce, blazing sun of midday had vanished, leaving only the cold, crystalline moonlight to spill across every inch of the Palan continent like frozen silver.

 

From the depths of the earth emerged Hissin, Dahlia, and Miftah, stepping out onto the vast, open plain that stretched endlessly beneath the indifferent stars.

 

The Moon Lions who had accompanied them moved with disciplined precision. 

 

Torches raised high, they fanned out across the darkened land until the flickering orange light pushed back the shadows, transforming the barren expanse into something almost ceremonial—sacred, solemn, like the prelude to an ancient rite. 

 

Miftah’s gaze darted around, tension coiling visibly in the set of his shoulders.

 

“You intend to erect a dome over the entire area?”

 

“Yes,” Dahlia answered softly. 

 

“As much as possible, I want to preserve the exact footprint of the underground Mohron kingdom.”

 

“The exact footprint of Mohron…”

 

Miftah repeated the words under his breath, eyes narrowing as he began to study the ground more intently. He paced slowly, pressing the sole of his boot here and there, testing, listening to the earth’s mute reply. 

 

Then, without warning, he crouched low. His fingers raked through the parched, crumbling soil before he seized the slender wooden staff he carried and drove it downward with sudden, startling force

.

The thin wood struck deep and quivered violently, a low, resonant thud echoing into the night.

 

“I’ll have them dig here for a moment.”

 

At his curt command, his subordinates set to work. 

 

Shovels bit into the dry earth. Dahlia and Hissin exchanged a silent glance—uncertain, curious—and could only stand side by side, watching.

 

When the pit had grown deep enough for a grown man to disappear into, Miftah pointed.

 

“There. Look.”

 

Following the line of his finger, they saw it—something flat and unyielding breaking the surface of the upturned soil.

 

Rock. Massive, immovable bedrock.

 

“The soil here is desiccated—scorched by relentless sun and years of unrelenting drought,” 

 

Miftah explained, voice low and grave. 

 

“And less than six feet down, you have enormous slabs of stone lying just beneath the surface. Across the entire expanse.”

 

“Everywhere?” 

 

Hissin’s deep voice cut through the quiet, edged with something darker than mere surprise.

 

“Everywhere,” Miftah confirmed. 

 

He descended into the pit himself, boots crunching against loose dirt. 

 

He tapped the exposed rock sharply with the end of his staff—once, twice—then scraped his fingertips along its rough face, brought them to his tongue, and tasted. His brow furrowed deeply. He shook his head.

 

“And worse—unusually—the salt deposits have formed not deep underground, but right here on the surface layer. Unless every last one of these slabs is excavated and removed, no amount of fertilizer, no amount of toil or care will ever bring this land back to life.”

 

He rose again, dusting his hands, but his gaze lingered on the stone as though it were an old enemy.

 

Dahlia stepped closer to the edge of the pit, moonlight catching in her eyes, turning them luminous. She stared down at the unyielding rock that mocked all her careful dreams of restoration.

 

Hissin moved behind her—silent, inevitable. 

 

One large hand settled at the small of her back, not quite possessive, yet unmistakably claiming. 

 

The touch was warm against the chill night air, steady, grounding. She felt the subtle press of his fingers through the fabric of her cloak, as though he could anchor her against the weight of this new, crushing disappointment.

 

She did not pull away.

 

Instead, she leaned—just the slightest degree—into the solid wall of his presence. Her shoulders relaxed by a fraction, the tension bleeding out of her frame only because he was there to carry it.

 

Miftah watched the small, wordless exchange. 

 

The way Hissin’s thumb traced a slow, unconscious arc against her spine. 

 

The way Dahlia’s lashes lowered for a heartbeat, as though the simple contact were enough to steady the storm inside her.

 

He looked away first.

 

The torchlight danced across their faces—hers pale and resolute, his carved from shadow and quiet fury—and for a moment the vast, dead plain seemed to shrink to nothing more than the charged space between them.

 

Miftah exhaled through his nose, a sound that might have been resignation or something sharper.

 

“Then the choice is clear,” he said, voice rougher now. 

 

“Either you carve the stone out, piece by impossible piece… or you find another place to resurrect your kingdom.”

 

Dahlia lifted her chin. Moonlight gilded the determined line of her jaw.

 

“I will not abandon this land.”

 

Hissin’s hand flexed against her back—once, fiercely—as though the words had struck something raw and protective inside him.

 

And in the silence that followed, beneath the cold gaze of the moon and the flickering ring of torches, the unspoken promise hung heavier than any stone buried beneath their feet:

 

Whatever it cost, whatever had to be torn away or broken open, he would stand with her until the end.

 

Until the earth itself yielded.

 

Hissin’s gaze dropped to the pit as well, grave and shadowed, the weight of this newly uncovered truth pressing against him like the bedrock itself.

 

When the kingdom of Janna fell, and he first came to Mohron seeking refuge, the underground foundations had already been carved out in secret. 

 

The surface had been all but abandoned—scorched by a sun so merciless it could blister skin in minutes, the soil so barren that even the act of studying it felt futile. 

 

Mohron had always been a land of exiles, of people who had lost their homes and were simply trying to survive another day. 

 

No one—not him, not any of them—had ever truly understood how deeply the poison ran beneath their feet.

 

“And at this depth,”

 

Miftah continued, voice steady but merciless, 

 

“No matter how thick or deeply driven the supports, they will never bear the full weight of a dome spanning this entire plain. The stone will not yield. It will crack and collapse under the strain.”

 

Dahlia’s breath caught. 

 

“Then… the dome is impossible?”

 

Miftah met her eyes without flinching. 

 

“Regrettably, yes.”

 

The words landed like a blade. Dahlia stared out across the moonlit expanse—endless, desolate, mocking. 

 

All this land, vast enough to cradle an entire reborn nation, and yet it refused to be saved. 

 

Days and nights of fevered planning, of whispered hopes shared in the dark, of dreams she had nursed like fragile flames… all of it crumbled in an instant, leaving only ash in her chest.

 

She tried to grasp at the last thread of possibility. 

 

“What about somewhere else? It doesn’t have to be directly above Mohron. We could choose another part of the Palan continent, build the dome there, and migrate—”

 

Miftah shook his head before she finished. 

 

“Near the coast, perhaps there might be variation. But inland? Everywhere will be the same. The Palan continent was born from the cataclysm of Mount Barucha’s eruption. The bedrock lies beneath us all—deeper in some places, shallower in others, but inescapable. No patch of this land does not carry the same buried curse.”

 

“…I see.”

 

Her voice was small, almost lost to the wind. Slowly, inevitably, her head bowed. 

 

The fire that had driven her for so long guttered low.

 

Hissin moved before she could fully retreat into herself. He stepped in close—silent, certain—and wrapped one powerful arm around her shoulders, drawing her against the solid heat of his chest. 

 

Not a tentative embrace, but a claiming one: fingers splayed wide across her upper arm, thumb brushing the sensitive skin just beneath the edge of her sleeve, holding her as though the night itself might try to tear her away.

 

“You said we would try until there was nothing left to try.” 

 

He murmured, low and rough against her temple. His breath stirred the fine strands of hair at her hairline. 

 

“You’ve done more than enough, Dahlia. More than anyone could ask.”

 

The words were meant to comfort, yet they only sharpened the ache. She wanted to believe him—wanted to let his warmth seep into the cold hollow opening inside her—but guilt clawed deeper.

 

“I should have looked closer,” she whispered, barely audible. 

 

“I was so focused on the sun, on the surface heat… I never truly understood the land beneath. I thought only of planting, of shallow soil, of what I could see with my eyes. I was careless. I failed them.”

 

Her voice cracked on the last word.

 

Hissin’s hold tightened—almost fiercely. He turned her slightly, just enough that she had to lift her chin to meet his gaze. 

 

Moonlight carved sharp angles across his face, but his eyes were molten, unguarded, burning with something far more dangerous than anger.

 

“You did not fail.” 

 

Each word was deliberate, heavy with conviction. 

 

“You fought for a people who had already given up on themselves. You dreamed when no one else dared. And even now—when the stone refuses you—you’re still standing here, refusing to break.”

 

His free hand rose, slow and reverent, to cup the side of her face. 

 

The rough pad of his thumb traced the delicate line of her cheekbone, catching the single tear that had escaped without her permission.

 

“I won’t let this end you,” he said, voice dropping to a near-growl. 

 

“Not the sun. Not the stone. Not anything.”

 

Dahlia’s breath shuddered out of her. She leaned into his palm—helpless, needy—eyes fluttering closed for a heartbeat as though his touch alone could hold the pieces of her together.

 

Behind them, the torches still burned steadily. 

 

The Moon Lions stood at silent attention, shadows stretching long across the dead earth. 

 

Miftah watched from a careful distance, expression unreadable, but he made no move to interrupt.

 

In that suspended moment, beneath the indifferent moon and the ring of firelight, the world narrowed to the space between them—her trembling frame pressed to his unyielding strength, his heartbeat steady against her ear, the unspoken vow that pulsed hotter than any flame.

 

Whatever came next—whether they carved through impossible stone or turned their backs on this cursed ground and searched for another—they would face it together.

 

And neither would let the other fall.

 

How dare she dream of gifting Mohron a new homeland with such flimsy, half-hearted preparations? 

 

She had no defense against the reproach that would come—had already come in her own mind—for raising false hopes, for letting people dare to hope again, only to watch it shatter.

 

As Dahlia stood there, plans dissolving into nothing overnight, despair carving hollows beneath her eyes—

 

“One possibility… remains,” Miftah said quietly.

 

Her head snapped up. Eyes wide, shimmering with desperate, fragile light, she turned to him.

 

“What is it? Please—tell me. Anything. If there’s even the smallest chance, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

 

Her voice trembled with raw need. 

 

Miftah regarded her for a long moment before speaking again, his tone grave, measured, almost reluctant.

 

“If the Palan continent will not have you… Then we go to another continent entirely.”

 

Hissin’s crimson gaze sharpened, locking onto a distant point in the darkness as though he could already see the shape of what was coming. 

 

Miftah followed the line of that stare and gave a single, slow nod.

 

“Yes. Exactly.”

 

Silence swallowed the space between them.

 

“Baran,” 

 

Miftah said at last. 

 

“The forsaken land. We use Baran.”

 

Dahlia’s pupils quivered, faint and luminous in the torchlight.

 

Baran.

 

The name she had buried so deep she could pretend it no longer existed. 

 

The land she had cursed in silence for years. 

 

The place that still reached into her soul in the dead of night and twisted, gentle and cruel, reminding her of everything she had lost. Her name had once belonged to that soil—and so had her pain.

 

She could not speak. Her lips parted, closed again. 

 

A soundless laugh—or perhaps a sob—flickered across her face, gone before it could fully form. She dropped her gaze to the cracked earth at her feet.

 

“How could I… ever return there?” 

 

Her voice was barely above a whisper, fragile as frost. 

 

“That place is a nightmare. For Mohron. For me. And for him—”

 

Her eyes lifted to Hissin.

 

He had lost everything to Baran. His entire family—tortured, broken, murdered in the name of that cursed empire. She herself had been stripped of parents, siblings, freedom—imprisoned in a life of shadows because of Baran’s reach.

 

And the countless refugees who had fled to Mohron’s underground haven? 

 

Most carried the same scars—homes razed, nations extinguished in the wars Baran had waged.

 

To ask any of them to return there—to live on that blood-soaked ground—was unthinkable.

 

Yet Hissin’s voice, when it came, was low and steady, cutting through the night like a blade drawn slow.

 

“The horror was never the land.”

 

He had been silent until now, listening, absorbing. Now he spoke, and the words carried the weight of long-buried truth.

 

“What crushed us wasn’t the soil beneath our feet. It was Emperor Khankundra.”

 

“Hissin…”

 

Dahlia’s breath hitched on his name. She stared at him—wide-eyed, heart pounding—as though seeing him anew.

 

He turned fully to Miftah, red eyes burning with quiet, lethal focus.

 

“You wouldn’t speak the name Baran lightly. There’s a reason.”

 

It wasn’t a question.

 

The air between the three of them thickened—charged, electric. 

 

Torches hissed and snapped in the background. Moonlight poured cold and silver over their faces. 

 

Dahlia felt the subtle shift in Hissin’s stance: shoulders squaring, the faintest tightening of the arm still curved protectively around her. 

 

Not pulling her closer this time—but anchoring her there, as though whatever came next would test them both to breaking.

 

Miftah met Hissin’s stare without flinching.

 

“Yes,” he said. 

 

“There is.”

 

And in the suspended heartbeat that followed, beneath the indifferent stars and the ring of dying firelight, the past rose like a tide—inescapable, hungry—threatening to drown them all.

 

But Hissin did not look away.

 

And neither did Dahlia let go of the hand that now found hers in the dark, fingers threading tight, fierce, silent.

 

Whatever reason Miftah carried, whatever path he was about to lay bare—

 

They would walk it together.

 

Or burn trying.

 

Miftah let out a low, appreciative sound—half admiration, half resignation—at how unerringly Hissin had struck the heart of the matter once again. 

 

He turned his gaze toward the distant horizon where Baran lay hidden beyond mountains and memory, and began to speak of the land’s fractured present.

 

“As you know, Baran was once held together by eight great central noble houses sworn to the imperial throne. Five of them threw in their lot with Saltar during the civil war… and were all butchered for it. The remaining two spent years tearing at each other’s throats, convinced each could seize the ruined empire for themselves. Just recently, they managed to destroy one another in the process.”

 

“Then only one remains.”

 

Miftah’s eyes met Hissin’s—calm, knowing. 

 

“And you already know which one.”

 

The name slipped from Miftah’s lips like a key turning in a long-locked door.

 

“Mudhat Osahar. The sole central noble who stood with Her Highness the Princess during the civil war against Saltar.”

 

Mudhat Osahar.

 

The name struck Dahlia like cool water on fevered skin. Her eyes widened, breath catching as memories long suppressed surged forward. 

 

In the chaos of recent years, she had quietly pieced together what she could of Baran’s fate—confirmed that Bertha’s family was safe, that those who had once sheltered and aided her still drew breath—but Mohron’s isolation had made any direct contact impossible. 

 

Letters had remained unsent, words trapped behind sealed borders.

 

“You’ve… kept in touch with Duke Mudhat all this time?”

 

“Do not worry,” Miftah said gently. 

 

“I have guarded every secret. No word of Mohron’s survival, no hint of your whereabouts, has passed beyond the necessary few. But this much I needed you to know.”

 

He turned fully to her then, his voice dropping to something softer, almost reverent.

 

“Duke Mudhat Osahar has been waiting. Patiently. Faithfully. For the one and only imperial princess of the empire—Princess Dahlia Baran—to return to Baran.”

 

The words landed like a spark on dry tinder.

 

Dahlia felt the ground shift beneath her feet—not the cracked, salt-poisoned earth, but something deeper, more intimate. Her heart stuttered, then raced. 

 

Return. To Baran. To the throne that had once been her birthright and her prison. 

 

To the land that had devoured her family, her freedom, her childhood—and yet still called to her in dreams, she refused to acknowledge.

 

She could not look away from Miftah, yet every instinct pulled her toward the man standing beside her.

 

Hissin had gone still. Dangerously still.

 

His arm, still curved around her shoulders, tightened by the smallest degree—not enough to hurt, but enough to remind her—he was here. 

 

Solid. Unmoving. 

 

A wall of heat and quiet fury against the cold tide of the past rising to claim her.

 

She felt the subtle flex of his fingers against her sleeve, the way his thumb brushed once—slow, deliberate—along the line of her collarbone beneath the fabric. 

 

A silent question. A fiercer claim.

 

Dahlia turned her face up to his.

 

His crimson eyes were locked on her, not Miftah. 

 

Burning. Searching. 

 

The moonlight turned them molten, stripped every pretense away until there was only raw, unguarded need staring back at her.

 

He did not speak. He did not need to.

 

The question hung between them heavier than any crown—If you go back… will you go alone?

 

Her hand found his—sliding into the space between them, fingers threading tight, desperate, as though she could anchor herself to him against the pull of destiny itself.

 

“I never wanted that throne,” she whispered, voice trembling but clear. 

 

“Not then. Not now.”

 

Hissin’s jaw tightened. His free hand rose—slow, careful—until his palm cradled the nape of her neck, thumb pressing lightly against her racing pulse.

 

“Then don’t take it.” 

 

He said, low and rough, the words vibrating against her skin. 

 

“Not unless it’s what you choose. And if you do choose it…” 

 

His voice dropped darker, edged with something possessive and tender all at once. 

 

“You won’t walk into that ruin alone.”

 

Dahlia’s breath shuddered out of her. She leaned into his touch—helpless, aching—forehead brushing the hard line of his shoulder as the weight of possibility settled over them both.

 

Miftah watched in silence, the flicker of torchlight dancing across his face.

 

He made no move to interrupt, no sound to break the fragile, electric thread stretched taut between them.

 

Somewhere far beyond the horizon, Baran waited—scarred, broken, yet still breathing.

 

And here, beneath the indifferent moon, two souls stood on the edge of an impossible choice.

 

Hand in hand.

 

Heart against heart.

 

Refusing to let go.