The fortress was theirs, yet the sky stayed the color of old blood.
They had taken Varyn's great hall as temporary quarters: black stone walls now draped in royal banners, the traitor's raven crest hacked from every surface. Outside, the army celebrated: songs, wine, bonfires that lit the cliffs like dawn. Inside the high chamber, only silence and the smell of iron.
Star stood at the tall window, one hand pressed to his bandaged ribs, staring down at the cheering soldiers. His silver-star banner flew beside Elandor's stag for the first time in public, and the sight should have filled him with triumph. Instead his stomach was cold.
Behind him, the ancient scroll lay open on the war table, its final line glowing faintly in the firelight like it was alive.
One shall fall so the realm may stand.
One shall break so the realm may mend.
Elandor had not spoken since they read it again an hour ago. He stood across the room, back turned, gauntleted hands braced on the stone sill as if the weight of the crown had finally become too much.
Star broke the quiet. "We've won the war, Eli. Varyn's dead. The rebels surrendered. The prophecy should be finished."
Elandor's voice came out rough. "It isn't."
Star crossed the room slowly, each step hurting, and laid a careful hand on Elandor's armored shoulder. "Then we make it finished. We go home, we burn that damned scroll, and we live."
Elandor turned. His face was stripped raw: no king, no mask, just the boy from the forest who had once cried because he was not allowed to keep a stray dog.
"I felt it," he whispered. "When my sword went through Varyn… something shifted. Like a lock turning. The words are awake now, Star. They're waiting for the price."
Star's heart stuttered. He had felt it too: a cold ripple across his birthmark the instant Varyn died. He had ignored it then, drunk on victory and relief. Now it burned under the bandages like a brand.
He forced a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Prophecies are suggestions, not orders. We've broken every rule so far. We'll break this one too."
Elandor's hands came up to cup Star's face, thumbs brushing the tears Star hadn't realized were falling.
"I won't lose you," Elandor said, fierce and trembling. "I would tear the stars down first."
Star leaned into the touch. "You won't have to."
But the words tasted like a lie.
That night the army feasted in the great hall. Star sat at Elandor's right, pale but smiling for the soldiers, raising cups he barely drank from. Lila kept close, eyes worried. Duchess Calera toasted the "farmer who felled a lord," and the cheers shook the rafters.
Star slipped away near midnight, claiming exhaustion. Elandor followed moments later.
They met on the highest balcony, wind whipping their cloaks, the whole valley spread below like scattered embers.
Star spoke first. "There's a way."
Elandor went very still.
"The seer Aveline arrives tomorrow with the royal baggage train," Star continued, voice steady only because he had rehearsed it a hundred times. "She told me once that prophecy can be bargained with. A life for a life, but not always the one people expect."
"No." Elandor's refusal was immediate, sharp as drawn steel.
"I'm already wounded," Star pressed on. "I'm the one the realm will mourn least. If I—"
Elandor seized his shoulders hard enough to bruise. "Stop. I forbid it."
"You can't forbid fate."
"I can forbid you!" Elandor shouted, and the raw crack in his voice broke something in the night. "You think I'll let you throw yourself on some altar because a scrap of parchment says so? I have spent my entire life obeying duty. I will not obey this."
Star's eyes filled. "And I have spent my life being nothing. Now I can be something that matters. I can save you. I can save everyone."
Elandor's grip turned gentle, desperate. He pressed his forehead to Star's.
"You already saved everyone," he whispered. "You saved me the day you took that arrow. You saved the kingdom every time you refused to bow. Your life is not a coin to spend, Star. It's the only thing I have left that is truly mine."
Star's tears spilled over. "Then what do we do?"
Elandor pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. In the moonlight his face was fierce and terrifyingly calm.
"We cheat."
He drew a small dagger: the one Star had carried since the beginning of the journey, plain iron, farmer's steel. Without hesitation he sliced his own palm, deep enough that blood welled black in the dark.
Star gasped. "Eli—"
Elandor took Star's left hand, turned it palm-up, and cut the same line across it. Then he pressed their bleeding palms together, fingers lacing tight until their wounds kissed.
"Listen to me," Elandor said, voice shaking with power and love. "I am the king. You are my consort. Our blood is one now. If the prophecy demands a fall, let it take half of each of us instead of all of one. Let it break us together or not at all."
Star felt it the instant their blood mingled: a jolt like lightning under his skin, the birthmark flaring white-hot, the scroll in the chamber below bursting into sudden flame though no hand touched it.
The wind howled. Somewhere far off, thunder rolled though the sky was clear.
Elandor never looked away.
"I love you," he said, simple and devastating. "In this life and whatever comes after. If the stars want a price, they can try to collect from both of us."
Star's knees buckled. Elandor caught him, held him up, their joined hands dripping red between them.
"I love you too," Star breathed. "Always."
They kissed tasting copper and salt and the end of the world. When they pulled apart, the birthmark on Star's shoulder no longer burned. The scroll's ashes would later show only one new line burned into the table beneath:
The price was paid in shared blood.
The realm stands.
The lovers remain.
No one fell that night.
The prophecy, ancient and cruel, bent for the first time in three hundred years, broken not by sacrifice but by two hearts that refused to let go.
Far below, the army slept under a sky finally washed clean.
Above them, on a blood-slick balcony, a farmer and his king held each other until dawn, palms pressed together, hearts beating the same stubborn rhythm.
Together.
Unbroken