Jisoo
The pull of the thread
They say the bond is sacred.
I always thought it was a lie demons told themselves to cope with eternity.
I’d heard the stories—the way the mark flares, the way you feel someone before they speak your name, how the world goes still when they’re near. I’d seen it destroy princes and peasants alike. Taeyang fought it like it was a sickness. Rheon bore it like a curse.
I never expected to feel it.
Not until I saw Minji bleeding beneath the Guild’s blades.
Not until her blood hit the floor and something in my chest cracked wide open like a tomb.
Even now, as I strode behind Seori and Taeyang through the veil between worlds, I could feel the echo of her pain imprinted on my skin like flame. My fists clenched as the memory surged again—her limp body dragged across stone, her cheek bruised, her mouth bloodied.
They touched her.
They hurt her.
I wanted to burn every last one of them.
I shook my head hard.
"Get your shit together," I muttered under my breath.
Taeyang glanced back but said nothing. He’d gone quiet since Yuna’s goodbye. I saw the way he reached for his chest when she wasn’t looking. He wasn’t fooling anyone—not me. We were all cursed by this fate. Denial didn’t unwrite the bond.
Seori pressed her palm to the arch of ancient stone before us, the gateway to the Demon Realm opening like a mouth ready to swallow us whole. Her face was grim, set with fury and something deeper—grief. But not for herself.
For Rheon.
He was the only one who’d found his mate and cherished her from the start. And now she was about to risk everything to break his curse.
The bond makes you foolish. It makes you brave.
It makes you burn.
I flexed my fingers, still remembering the way Minji’s voice trembled when she said I destroyed things. She wasn’t wrong. I did. I do.
But as we stepped into the shadows of the Demon Realm, I swore to myself—
If I destroy anything again, it won’t be her.
Taeyang led the way through the obsidian gate, his jaw tight, shoulders tense like he was already preparing for war. Seori followed close behind, her pulse thrumming like a war drum I could feel through the bond she carried with Rheon. Even half the world away, that connection blazed like a star.
I lingered behind them both, just long enough to glance over my shoulder.
Minji. Her name ghosted through my mind.
She wasn’t mine.
Not yet.
But the mark on my chest said otherwise. And I was starting to wonder if fate didn’t give a damn about what we wanted.