A/N: As with the last chapter, there are gruesome happenings in this one. Be forewarned :)

Jaebum studied his reflection in one of the many mirrors in Blue Rose’s boudoir. He felt older than he ever had, like he’d aged ten years in the span of a few days. Maybe that was how the Empress herself felt when she studied her reflection, always wanting to be younger and lovelier and more loved. For Jaebum’s part, he just hoped he lived long enough to wear his dark circles and budding wrinkles with pride of a fierce battle survived.

"You all right in there?" he called out towards the closet where Youngjae was hard at work. A more thorough exploration of Blue Rose's chambers had turned up her computer station in a hidden back room of her walk-in closet. She generally seemed to use her mirrors more reliably for surveillance and information given that the computers had apparently gone untouched since she'd discovered Jinyoung and Yi En's whereabouts. The screens were still opened to the royal watcher forum where she'd found the laundromat video, as well as other sites that hashed out rumors about where Jinyoung might have disappeared to, including alleged sitings and conspiricies. But the fact that she had computers at all at least gave them a way to send the information they had out, so the world would know in case they were unable to escape and convey the information to the people themselves.

"I'm good!" Youngjae called back. "There's functional signal in here, so I'm in the process of uploading footage. The upload speed is really freakin' slow though, so if she comes back, make sure to buy me plenty of time and keep her the hell away from making a costume change!"

"Will do," Jaebum said. He turned back to the mirrors, taking a breath. “Mirror, mirror,” he began, digging through his head for a rhyme. He wasn’t sure it would even work for him—he didn’t have a drop of magic in his blood. But perhaps all the magic existed inside the mirror rather than needing to pull it from the user. He could only hope. “Mirror, mirror, flawless art, show the face of my sweetheart.”

Within seconds, the mirror started crackling with static, the sign of a presence being masked. Jaebum nearly screamed in exaltation. Yugyeom must have found him after all. He was safe. He was alive.

“Can I check for Mark?” Jinyoung asked from across the room. He had been standing in front of the portrait of Prince Jumong, studying it while idly playing with the tissue of Mark's tears in his hands, but was now facing Jaebum with a longing look in his eyes.

“He’s with his Guardian, isn’t he? He’d be masked, too.”

“Or maybe not. Blue Rose already knows where he is.”

“Then by all means, give it a try.”

Jinyoung stepped up to the mirror, eyes shining. “Mirror, mirror, fulfill your role, show me the sleeping half of my soul.”

The surface of the mirror shifted, and an image of Mark laying in a coffin lined with red velvet appeared. At first, Jinyoung gasped in horror, thinking he was dead. But after a moment, you could see Mark’s chest fall as he breathed, and Jinyoung made a low noise of joy. “He looks almost at peace, doesn’t he?” he whispered.

“Maybe he’s dreaming of you,” Jaebum suggested.

“I hope so. But I hope they’re happy dreams, not memories of every way I disappointed him.”

“I think those were fewer than the reasons he had to love you.”

“I hope so,” Jinyoung said again, softer. “One more search—we should see where Blue Rose is, so we know how much more time we have until-”

They were saved from searching by the sound of a car coming down the drive from below. Jinyoung and Jaebum ran to the window in time to see Blue Rose exit from the limo, once again shrouded in a black veil.

“Her power must be exhausted,” Jinyoung whispered. “Think we could finish her off while she’s weak?”

“Remember what happened last time,” Jaebum whispered. “The second she was back in the palace, she threw off her veil and was young again. We need to stick to the plan.”

“Right.” He extended his hand to Jaebum, passing him the tissue. "You hold onto it. It's magic, so she might notice and take it from me. I don't know what purporse it will serve or if it can even do anything, but I'd feel better if we had it."

Jaebum nodded, taking it from him. Jinyoung then went back to the bed, sitting down in front of Jumong’s portrait. Jaebum went to the corner of the room by the entry to the closet where Youngjae was, staying invisible as a good servant should.

They heard the palace doors clattering open below. “Jinyoung?” Blue Rose bellowed within moments of entering. Her voice didn’t sound as mockingly pleasant as it usually did, which further solidified to Jaebum that Jackson was still alive. She was probably furious over her continued failure to kill him off. “Jinyoung, where are you?”

“Up in your bedchamber!” Jinyoung hollered down. They heard her storming up, and then there she was, a beautiful picture of a brewing temper.

“Give me my keys,” she snapped. “The huntsman got away with his life, and I’m in the mood to-” She cut herself off when she noticed the portrait Jinyoung was sitting beside. “Ah,” she said, her tone shifting. “You’ve found your dishonorable ancestor, then.”

“Not just my ancestor, though,” Jinyoung said solemnly. “I am him. I know it. I didn't realize it when you first came to Solitude, but now you look more like the woman I knew back then. I remember you.”

“Yes, it seems you are Jumong. Your soul would have had to slip past the clutches of the Devil himself to be reborn, but if there’s one man in the world who would have the audacity to rejoin the world ruled by the woman he scorned, it would be Prince Park Jumong.”

“I don’t have all my memories,” Jinyoung said. “I know the story from the perspective I was taught in Solitude in this existence as Jinyoung. That Prince Jumong was the reason for the Law. But I don't quite recall the details of my betrayal of you."

Blue Rose’s eyes glinted at his choice of phrasing. “That's because you are lying to me right now, Jinyoung. It's often hard for me to tell when you're playacting with me, but I can tell it now. You don't remember anything, do you? Jumong would have never referred to it as a 'betrayal.' He was never sorry for loving another in place of me. But I will humor you and tell you the story you do not remember. It begins with a girl, the young girl I was centuries ago. My name was different back then, though.”

“Princess Aneksi,” Jinyoung said. Blue Rose nodded.

“I was the only child of the King of Void, destined to become the queen. I was beautiful and glorious, and half the world wished to be my consort. I received pictures of suitors from every kingdom or queendom there was, handsome men and powerful men and ugly men and spineless men alike. I saw them all. And I wanted you.” She pressed her hand against Jinyoung’s cheek. “You, a mere third son who I saw a few times in passing on a diplomatic visit to your kingdom. You, who I witnessed lavishing a love so great that it verged on worship upon an inferior man who was not worthy of it. I had never seen a love so devoted before. I instantly knew that I wanted it, and that such a love should be directed towards me, one who was as a deity among mortals. I fantasized every day and every night about having you be mine, as a husband and a worshipper. I got down on my hands and knees and begged my father to choose you over all the others for me. And dear papa…how good he was! He wrote to your kingdom to summon you to ours with terms that could not be refused unless you wished for war on your country rather than protection and prosperity, and you were to be my husband! I was the happiest woman in all the world!”

Her expression darkened. “But you came to the kingdom and you didn’t want me. You only came because your kingdom needed the protection mine could offer. You refused to believe you could ever love someone as much as you loved that pathetic lover of yours back home. At first, I was sorrier for you than I was for myself. You poor, poor thing, deluded into thinking you would have been happier with someone else when you had been promised the most beautiful woman in the world for your wife. I told you so. I told you how sorry I felt for you, but how one day you would be redeemed and recognize that I was far more worthy of your adoration and worship. And you looked me in the eyes with utter hatred and told me that your lover was far more beautiful than I and that you found me ugly and repulsive and arrogant for thinking that you should be happy when you’d lost your happiness because of me.”

Her voice dropped even lower. “I got very angry because of that, my prince. That word kept ringing in my head from the moment you said it. ‘Ugly.’ You thought I was repulsive, and that some nobody from the other side of the world was lovelier than me. I hated you for that. But I hated your lover even more. I wanted to kill the person who blinded you to me and took from me what was mine. But I didn’t know how. I couldn’t find that person, and you refused to tell me where he was. Even when I threatened your life, you protected him.” She released a low hiss of fury. “I didn’t want to kill you. I wanted to break whatever it was inside you that was too proud to realize that I was worth one thousand of your lover. I wanted to make you worship me. But when I called upon the Higher Power, he told me you would have to die if I wanted to receive everything I wanted—the power, beauty, and adoration that would make you and the rest of the world a slave to me. I would have to kill you and offer your lifeblood as the seal for our pact. So I killed you, my prince. I killed you, and I lied to my people and told them you had betrayed me with other lovers. I told your people that you would one day be reborn, just as the Higher Power promised you would be one day, and that when you were, calamity would strike them if you were born as foolish as you had been in your last life. I told them to reform their country so you would be shaped properly the next time—no lovers but for the one you’re promised to. Nothing in dress and behavior that would lead to improper ual thoughts. A strict ban on men laying with other men as you had once lain with the male lover you found far more beautiful than me.”

Jaebum stared at her wide-eyed at these revelations, but nothing could surpass the look on Jinyoung’s face. It was not shock—it was recognition. Maybe he was acting, but Jaebum didn’t think so. He knew. He knew, because the story was his just as well as hers. The name he murmured was not one Jaebum recognized, but one Jinyoung spoke in the same way he always said Mark's name, as if it were something precious and tenuous and sacred to his soul: "Yizong."

“I was able to live many lifespans with the power your death and the Higher Power brought me,” the Empress continued. “I took many names, and waited for you to be reborn to this earth. I used a magic mirror to search for you. Mirror, mirror servant sworn, show me Prince Jumong reborn. But years passed, and you never came. The Higher Power had your soul, I know, but I gave him many souls to feed both him and myself. In every lifespan, I’d ask for a man from Solitude, one who looked the most like you. I’d take him, and test how much the new Law of Solitude stuck. Was he faithful? Would he be true in heart and soul to me? Each failed. There was always some manner of weakness in them. They would not obey this rule or that. They would turn their eyes on someone else. They would be too afraid to love me. I killed them all, and stole their youth and beauty, though it was only a pale copy of yours. All that time, I searched also for your lover, the Yizong whose name you even now invoke as if it were divine. But when you died, your love for him created its own form of power: a Guardian which masked and protected him. It stayed with your lover until his own death, and I was never able to find him. And when he died, I was at long last the fairest in the land. And so I remained for many years. But the Higher Power warned me that your lover would be reborn with you. The cycle would repeat, and I would be faced with the terms of our bargain. If I was able to make you love me with all the accumulated beauty and power I had gathered since last we met, I would reign forever as the most beautiful and powerful woman in the world with you at my side. Should you choose your lover again, the Higher Power would take my soul and my body and all the power I’d gathered inside it and use it to reign over this world in my stead.”

What?, Jaebum thought in horror. So either we have her as our overlord, or the Devil? No other solution? We’re doomed either way? That’s how this ends?

Jinyoung seemed beyond caring about any of that. He opened his mouth, looking ready to spew every curse he knew at her on behalf of his lover—Yi En, or the one from before, or both given that they were most likely the exact same soul—but Blue Rose cut him off. “I worried that Solitude might be a failure, and that you’d turn out just as bad as the Solitdanese men I killed if you were reborn,” she continued. “In any case, I was tiring of Void. Such a dinky nation for one who would be Queen of the world. I set my sights on the Union and the Empire, the two largest nations in the world. The Union was far too unruly, but the Empire was just as I liked. I intended to become its Empress and build my power, while also using it as a base from which to invade Solitude and mold it into a more promising place for you to be reborn. I was so swept up into disposing of the existing Empress and seducing the Emperor that I forgot to check for you and your lover. It wasn’t until I had successfully built up my popularity among the Imperials and gotten rid of the unnecessary Emperor that I remembered to consult my mirror again. I found you first. I was dismayed you had been born before I’d had the chance to go in and correct Solitude, and it seemed as if your country was corrupting with every second thanks to your brother’s rebellion. Still, you seemed to have grown up gentle and good, just as I’d hoped. I traveled to Solitude and asked your parents to arrange our engagement, and they agreed. I noticed you didn’t seem happy, but thought nothing of it until I returned back to the Empire and remembered that since you were alive, that also meant your lover was as well. I searched for him, and who should turn up but the spitting image of the Emperor I’d just disposed of. My very own stepson!” She laughed wildly. “I arranged to have him killed, but my hired gun betrayed me. Your lover then vanished using the reborn Guardian still attached to him through the ages, and as soon as he vanished, you did as well—also masked, presumably by some manner of Guardian born of his love for you.”

She clenched her fists. “I had my doubts immediately. If I could not find you, you two might find each other, and I knew what would happen then. I’d lose my bargain and my soul and everything I’d gained in my life would be forfeit. And sure enough, the next time I see the both of you, you’re kissing each other with all the longing of those centuries you’ve been apart. I knew what I had to do. You had chosen him, but you had chosen a lie of who he was, which didn’t properly meet the terms. I had to stop you both from meeting ever again once you both knew the truth. I froze Yi En and locked him in a dreamscape no one would be able to pull him out of. And as for you…my sweet, stupid Jumong…I brought you here to kill you. Well, I did hope to test you to see if you could be saved, but-” She reached into Jinyoung’s pocket and pulled out the bloody key. “You failed. As soon as I left, you sought the path of my undoing so you could go back to your lover, just as I thought you would. So rather than keep you alive and risk you fleeing and finding Yi En, I’ll kill you. I’ll send your soul back to the Devil just as I did once before and restart the cycle all over again. And next time, when you’re born again, I won’t fail to make you choose me, and when you do, I will be the Queen of everything in this universe, and even God and the Devil will bow to me.” She grabbed Jinyoung’s face forcefully. “All you can do if you don’t want to die is choose me. Turn your back on Yi En. You can rule beside me as an Emperor stronger than the highest power there is. All you have to do is love me as you were meant to from the very beginning!”

A voice spoke in response to her, but it was not Jinyoung. “Fairest mortal of them all, enemies plot your swift downfall.” The deep, echoing voice seemed to be coming from her mirrors. “Be they near or be they far, I will show you who they are.”

They all turned to look at the mirrors. The surfaces shifted, and each mirror filled with a different image. One showed a news broadcast of Jackson sitting in a cottage with a middle aged woman who was announcing that she was the midwife to the late Empress who had taken away baby Yi En so he wouldn’t be killed. This then cut to images of Imperials rioting in the streets, demanding the return of their proper ruler. Another showed a news broadcast that had just been hijacked by Youngjae's footage of the gruesome scene in Blue Rose's dungeon. A third showed a news broadcast of Prince Junho rallying the people of the Empire, asking them to join his Solitudanese army to liberate Prince Jinyoung.

Jinyoung turned to Blue Rose, a steady smile on his face, a perfect match to Jumong’s in the portrait beside him. “I,” he said to the Empress, “would rather die than choose you, in my last life, in this one, or the next. You repulse me even more than you ever did back then, and I would prefer to wait a thousand lifetimes to be with Yi En then spend a single one of them with you.”

Empress Blue Rose’s face was as pale as a ghost, and her eyes were pure venom. “A thousand deaths isn’t good enough for you,” she said in a hushed voice. “Every time you return, I will crush you over and over again until you finally break to pieces in my hands.”

With that, she grabbed him and yanked him with all her strength down the stairs. Jaebum followed after, firing off his shotgun at any part of her he could get a shot at, but she deflected his bullets with a swat of her hand as if they were no more than just flies to her. She must not even have thought Jaebum worth killing since she spared no attention to him as she continued to strongarm Jinyoung down the stairs. She barreled forward to the dungeon entrance, twisted the bloody key in the lock, lit the torch, and pulled Jinyoung downstairs with her.

“Don’t follow,” Jinyoung ordered Jaebum, turning his head around to meet his eyes. “Get out of here and save yourself. Like I said, I’d rather die again than give her what she wants.”

“No,” Jaebum said sharply. “The Yi En asleep right now isn’t dreaming of another version of you. It’s you he fell in love with. He’s waiting for Park Jinyoung. And I-”

“No one cares, servant!” Blue Rose shrieked over him. “You’re a bit player in a game that is far beyond you, a game your master has lost. I’ll finish you when I’m done with him.”

“I have no other choice,” Jinyoung said softly as Jaebum persisted in following him. “I couldn’t do it this time, like I couldn’t do it last time. If it takes trying again, that’s what I have to do. The world knows the truth now…they’ll take care of her. And I’ll come back for Yi En as quickly as I can, I promise.”

You may have no other choice, Jaebum thought. But I have another choice, and I am going to do the only good thing the Enforcers ever decided in the lie that was Solitude: I’m going to protect you.

Blue Rose dragged Jinyoung down the bottom steps and threw him down into the blood on the ground. “Now, my dear,” she said, leaning down to pull a knife from her boot strap. “I never liked to kill messily, but you were always an exception. Fifty times wasn’t it, that first time? A good number, I think. I won’t aim the first dozen for any vitals. I’ll make you feel the agony from me, if you won’t feel anything else. I want to listen to you scream for me.” Without warning, she drove the knife into Jinyoung’s shoulder.

“NO!” Jaebum screamed. He fired his gun, but it was pointless. All it took was a simple flick of magic to deflect it. Jinyoung bit his lip bloody trying not to cry out.

One day you’ll wish…no, Jaebum, now, now, now, your one chance is now. Guns can’t save him, you can. But how?

Blue Rose stabbed Jinyoung again, this time in the leg. This time, Jinyoung couldn’t hold back his cry. Blue Rose laughed maniacally, twisting her knife. “There it is,” she sighed. “You always were a work of art, Jumong. I never wanted to kill you, but you looked just as beautiful dying as living.”

Jaebum looked up at Jumong’s body, feeling sick. The mark on his chest seemed to blaze a deeper red than before. History had remembered him all wrong—all he’d done was love someone and not love someone else. Was that a sin worth this kind of ending? Was it something he really had to pay for through every lifetime while the real sinner kept going on and on?

Jaebum grit his teeth. The ladder from when he’d first tried to wipe off the seal on Jumong's chest was still there. Jaebum no longer cared if he had to cut it to pieces to get it off. Jumong had already had his life, and his soul was elsewhere. His body was no more than a tool twisted to evil purposes now. If Jaebum had to defile it, then so be it. He’d do it for the Jinyoung that existed now. He’d do it for Jiaer and Youngjae and Yugyeom and BamBam, and Yi En, too.

As he climbed up the ladder, he heard Jinyoung screaming below him. 3 stabs…4 stabs…tears pooled down Jaebum’s face as he struggled with the urge to let go of the ladder and go back to him. Keep going…keep going…just a little more…

5 stabs…6 stabs… He reached Jumong’s body as Jinyoung released a painful howl that ran his blood cold. He pressed his hand against Jumong’s seal of blood. He could feel the power emanating from it. Yes, a serpentine voice hissed in his head, break the seal. She’s already lost, even though she won’t admit it. Let me take what is mine.

Jaebum shivered. The world truly had gone to hell if he was this certain that a world with the Devil in power was preferable to one with Blue Rose. How do I break it?, he thought. He scraped it with his fingernail, but the blood didn’t flake.

Do you think either she or I would make it that easy to dissolve?, the voice whispered to him. It can only be broken by something neither she nor I have.

The obvious answer came to him quickly. “Love,” Jaebum murmured. Blue Rose—or Aneksi or whichever name she used—may have thought herself in love with Jumong, but there was no love in what she’d done to him and his lover. But how could he wash away the seal with love? Was he supposed to stab his heart and smear the seal with his own heartsblood? Was he supposed to wipe it away while thinking of Jackson? He didn’t know how to make love tangible, other than…

He felt the spot of dampness from the tissue in his pocket. Mark's tears were love, he thought, pulling it out. He remembered how he'd wiped away Jinyoung's tears with this tissue, too, and realized that the once dry corner was now damp from Jinyoung's everlasting emotions for Mark. These tears, too. And my tears when I rested my head in Jackson’s lap. All the tears we shed for love of each other, whether as partners or as sweethearts. We can only feel like this because we feel the pain that comes along with loving someone truly, something Blue Rose will never be able to feel no matter how long she lives. This has to be it.

He wiped the tissue down Jumong’s chest. The blood smeared, breaking the circle of the seal.

Below, Jinyoung’s screams were replaced by a terrible sound from Blue Rose. Jaebum looked down. An ancient woman appeared bent over Jinyoung’s bleeding body where Blue Rose had been. Her hair was brittle and gray, her face carved with wrinkles, her hands gnarled and bony, too weak to hold the knife, which clattered to the ground.

Now I have you, foolish mortal who thought to eclipse me, the serpentine voice echoed through the chamber. I thank you for the feast of souls, but yours is the one I want—one filled with the purest essence of evil. Say farewell, fairest of them all, for it is mine now, mine…

“No,” a faint and groaning voice interrupted. For a moment, Jaebum thought it was Blue Rose’s, but soon it was echoed by another and another. “No, no, no.”

He almost fell off the ladder when the first of the bodies started stirring. Some darted their eyes around, some stretched out their hands, some twitched their feet. The lower ones heaved themselves off their hooks and dropped to the floor. “No,” one of the petitioners that had been murdered just days ago said. “Ours.”

“Ours,” the bodies echoed in agreement around the dungeons. More were dropping down now. The Solitudanese men she’d taken to test their adherence to the Law. The lovely girls who’d beauty she’d sapped. “Ours,” they said. The ones of the ground wrapped their fingers around Blue Rose’s arms, dragging her down into the pool of blood.

“Mine,” a voice said, close to Jaebum’s ear. Jaebum turned his head, mouth falling open when he saw the flicker of movement in Jumong’s eyes. The oldest among them, one who had been lost centuries ago, one whose soul had moved on and was with them in that very room…even he had left behind a part of his soul to satisfy his vengeance at long last.

He dropped down to the ground as gracefully as a bird descending. The others parted before him, conceding his right to be the one to finish it. Blue Rose’s eyes widened in terror, the first time Jaebum had ever seen it from her.

“My dear,” she said in a voice like a dying croak.

“No,” Jumong said. “Not yours. Never yours. You took me from my dear. You took everything. Now it’s my turn.”

He wrapped his hands around and squeezed.

Jaebum didn’t need to see it. Instead, he climbed down the ladder. He’d lost count of the stabs, but however many it was, Jinyoung was still suffering. He didn’t care how much Blue Rose suffered. She was nothing but a husk of something that should have died long, long ago.

When he reached the ground, Jaebum ran to Jinyoung. He was covered in blood, but still breathing faintly. Jaebum tore off his shirt, dividing it into strips to use as tourniquets or bandages—whatever Jinyoung needed of him. Tears were still falling from his eyes, but he didn’t bother to wipe them off. They were proof of something, something that the world had proven that it needed.

He heard the sound of something falling to the ground and looked up. Jumong had tossed Blue Rose’s limp body aside and had risen to his feet. The eyes of all the stolen souls turned to Jaebum and Jinyoung. Jaebum strangely wasn’t afraid. There was nothing all that terrifying about them, like this. In fact, there was something almost beautiful about this final return of these tragic souls to see through the end of their stories before they moved on.

“The rest of them have new lives to live,” Jumong said. His voice sounded like a faint echo, like it originated from another place. “They’ll go before the Devil can reap them again. But I…” He lowered himself beside Jinyoung. “This is where I belong. He is dying. He needs me. I will bring him back.”

“Thank you,” Jaebum said quietly. “But…are you sure? You wouldn’t rather…rest?”

Jumong smiled faintly. “This one will rest soon. Not in the sleep of death, but in the embrace of a lover. It has been so long since I have felt that. Far too long…” He touched Jinyoung’s forehead. “Waking him up will wake up the soul of my dearest. I wish to be with him…that’s all I ever wished…all I ever wanted. It’s been such a long, lonely time waiting. But now at last...now at last…”

He leaned over Jinyoung’s body, a tear trickling down his cheek and landing on Jinyoung’s lip. Jaebum blinked, and in that single moment when his eyes were closed, Jumong vanished. All the other souls were also gone as well. He and Jinyoung were alone.

Jaebum heard a rough gasp for air below him. Jinyoung had opened his eyes.

“Jinyoung,” Jaebum said in a shaky voice. He pressed his hand against his damp forehead. The return of the last piece of Jumong’s soul seemed to have strengthened him, but it hadn’t closed his wounds.

“Yi En,” was the first thing out of Jinyoung’s mouth.

“I know,” Jaebum said. Somewhere in the Union, Yi En was still sleeping. “But you’re hurt. We need to take care of you first.”

Jinyoung opened his mouth for a moment, then shut it. He nodded, resting his head on Jaebum’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he said with effort. “You’ve always done so much for me…far more than should be asked of anyone. After this…you should be free…be with Jackson…no more guarding…no more guns.”

“I happen to like guns,” Jaebum said. “If you think I’m going to stop collecting them just because you no longer have a homicidal fiancée in your life, you’re crazy. As for looking after you…well, let’s just see if you can manage to stay out of trouble from now on and decide from there.”

Jinyoung smiled weakly. “Yeah. We’ll see.”

Jaebum was just about to ask for Jinyoung’s permission to carry him out—he desperately needed medical attention beyond what Jaebum could provide—but before he could, he heard a sound from above. Seconds later, there was a cacophony of footsteps on the stairs leading down to them.

Youngjae appeared first. He cried out in relief when he saw they were alive and ran to them. “You stopped her? How? Jinyoung’s hurt? The bodies are gone? What did you do? I’m so glad you’re OK! I did what you asked! Everyone in the Empire is rallying for Yi En! They all want their Emperor back!” His words came out as rapidfire as bullets from a machine gun, and Jaebum really didn’t have the energy to answer. All the same, he was so grateful to Youngjae for everything he’d done that he was intending to make a formal request to the Solitudanese government—which would be in Prince Junho’s hands now, he presumed—to make him a lord or at the very least buy him a very nice mansion.

Next down the stairs was Yugyeom. With the seal broken and Blue Rose dead, the magic blocking him from the palace must have dissipated. He paled when he saw all the blood on Jinyoung and raced forward to him.

“I’m all right, I’m all right,” Jinyoung said quickly.

“Like hell you are!” Yugyeom yelled. “How many times did she stab you? This is insane! How are you even alive right now?”

“I think it was about nine or so. She promised to avoid my vitals until she reached closer to twenty stabs, and she kept her word.”

“I’m going to kill that nutso!” He turned his head, belatedly seeing Blue Rose’s body. “Or…well…er…looks like someone beat me to it. Wait…that energy surrounding her…or the lack of it…her freaking soul was obliterated! How did you manage that?”

Jinyoung met Jaebum’s eyes and shook his head. The message was clear: don’t tell them about Jumong.

Jaebum nodded. That was Jinyoung’s decision to make. How and what he chose to reveal about his former life was up to him.

Luckily, they were saved from answering Yugyeom’s question by another figure emerging at the bottom of the stairs—Prince Junho. Jaebum immediately jumped to his feet and bowed. It had been so long since they’d seen him, and though his rebellion had defined so much of what had happened and what was to come, they’d been like ships passing in the night as far as actually encountering each other went. Junho’s eyes filled with tears when he saw his younger brother, and he knelt gently in front of him.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I couldn’t come for you fast enough. I wanted this to be a battle we fought together, but since I couldn’t free Solitude fast enough, you were left to deal with this on your own.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m dead,” Jinyoung said gruffly. “I survived. And since I’m still alive, I’d thank you if you made it so when I go back home I can wear pants and not those stupid robes.”

“That’s the law you want me to change in particular?” Junho couldn’t help but laugh. “What about the engagement laws or the laws or the marriage laws?”

“Those, too. I just don’t want to think about those yet until I know for sure whether or not my boyfriend still loves me.”

“I think I can answer that one, partner,” a voice came from the stairwell. “But I know a feller back in the Union who would rather answer it more.”

Jaebum’s body surged. Every inch of it felt alive with competing energies, a jolt of alarm, a flood of relief, a burst of joy, a torrent of love, an explosion of exhausted patience. Everything in him was disjointed and his head was a whir, but yet his whole self had never felt so united in a feeling in all his life.

Without a further thought, he dashed forward and tackled Jackson—Jiaer, whatever, it didn’t matter, this was his sweetheart by any name— backwards into the stairs. It was another mess of a kiss, but it felt just right to feel his lips beneath him, his breath tickling against him. Maybe there had been lies between them as there had been between Jinyoung and Yi En, but none of it mattered. This was the truth, and he was ready to live it and find out who his wily cowboy really was all the way back to the beginning.

“Youch,” Jackson said when Jaebum finally pulled away from him. “You almost cracked open my head on these here stairs, sweetheart.”

“It’s not as if it isn’t already damaged beyond repair,” Jaebum shot back. “Why else would you be so stupid as to try and fight Blue Rose on your own?”

“You call it stupid, I call it heroic,” he said with a grin. “Besides, looks like you basically did the same thing. I only see Prince Jinyoung down here with you.”

Jaebum again kept silent, not telling him there had been many more down here with them. “I won’t do it again if you don’t do it again,” he said instead.

“Well, I don’t rightly think I’ll come across many other evil sorceresses like that in my day, but I’ll try to avoid it so I don’t make my sweetheart cry anymore.”

“I wasn’t crying over you!”

“Liar.”

“Liaer,” Jaebum snarked right back.

“As charming as this banter is, can you two shut up?” Yugyeom butted in. “I’ve got Fairy Godson duties to resume, and if I don’t get Jinyoung to a hospital, stat, he’s probably going to run off to the Union bleeding everywhere and looking for Yi En, so clear your butts off the stairs and go make out somewhere else!”

The two of them immediately got off the stairs, and Junho and Yugyeom shared the weight of Jinyoung’s body between them. They’d bandaged up his wounds as best as they could, but his skin was still pale and his breath ragged.

“Jackson,” Jinyoung rasped out as they all began their ascent. “Where is he…?”

“Imperialtown.” Jackson answered. “He’s having a little rest among his mother’s old things, and according to BamBam, he’s dreaming of you. And the good news is, all he needs is a little wake up kiss from you, and he’ll be right back with us.”

“His mother…his father…I’m so sorry. It was all part of a plot Blue Rose had involving me and my family. They should never have…”

“I don’t need you to apologize for her, Jinyoung,” Jackson said, a little sharply. “Same goes for all of you. The evil things in this were done by her. We all just tried to do right by each other as best as we could, and that’s all we should ever need to say about that.”

Jinyoung nodded weakly and fell silent. Jaebum hoped he took Jackson’s words to heart. As deeply rooted as their story was in the past, they needed to move forward in the way Blue Rose had failed to. As Jumong had said, he’d already lived his life, as short and tragic as it was. And when it came down to it, their lives and stories were still only at the beginning. Hopefully they had a long way to go before they reached their own conclusions.

“I’m not going to tell him,” Jinyoung said.

They were alone in the hospital room with Yugyeom. The others had all left for the time being. Prince Junho and Youngjae were returning to Solitude to make sure the situation there was stabilizing. It would be a long haul, restructuring a society that had been twisted into the wrong shape for so many years, and Jaebum didn’t envy them that. There were still plenty of people who would try to cling to the old ways just for the sake of the tradition attached to them, and aside from them, there was still the matter of what to do about Jinyoung’s parents, who had continued that dark history of holding those oppressive rules up, even despite the resistance of their own children.

As for Jackson, he’d been put in charge of managing the void of power in the Empire until Yi En could be returned to his rightful place. The whole nation was in shock after learning their former Empress’s role in killing their prior rulers and causing the disappearances and deaths of innumerable citizens, and it would take some time before life returned to normal for them as well. And even when Yi En returned, it still remained that he was unfamiliar to them and a stranger to the nation outside of the protected bubble he’d lived in with his foster mother. It would be a big change, but one undoubtedly for the better. They’d learn to navigate it, whatever time it took.

“You’re not going to tell who what?” Yugyeom asked.

“Yi En,” Jinyoung said. “I’m not going to tell him about us from before. I’ll tell him about Blue Rose’s vengeance against Jumong so he understands why all this happened, but I won’t tell him that it was my soul. Our souls.”

“Are you sure it’s all right to keep that secret from him?” Yugyeom asked. “I thought after all that happened with you two, you wouldn’t want to hide anything.”

“It’s not hiding so much as it is burying. Jumong and his lover Yizong are dead. Yi En and I are a different story. I don’t want who we are to be determined by who we were. I don’t want him to feel like he has to forgive me for what I did in this life just because I may have made a few sacrifices for him in my last.”

“A few sacrifices?” Jaebum said, raising an eyebrow.  More like you sacrificed your whole entire life and immortal soul, but who’s keeping score? “And what’s there to forgive? You both lied to each other. You’re even.”

“Maybe he won’t see it in such simple terms.”

“I don’t know. He’s Jackson’s friend. The idiotic simplicity may have rubbed off on him.”

Jinyoung smiled a little at that. “I guess…more than anything, I want us to have at least a little bit of a normal life. He’s an Emperor and I’m a Prince, so it’s already hard enough as it is without me throwing a huge and twisted destiny tangle into it. I just wish…I know it’s selfish, but I just wish we could go back to university together. Not as Junior and Mark, but Jinyoung and Yi En. I want to get milkshakes and do the laundry and get dragged to parties I’ll wind up hating and ditch early and just, you know…”

“Go back to the dorm and bang like bunnies?” Jaebum supplied.

“Yes. That.”

“Well, then,” Yugyeom said. “Your secret is safe with me. I won’t tell Dad.”

“Excuse me? Who are you calling ‘Dad’?”

“Yi En, of course. From what you said to me, I was born from his love of you to protect you for him. That makes him my father. And since that love wouldn’t have existed without you…I guess that makes you, what…father number 2? Mom? And wow, if you guys are Dad and Mom, I totally have a brother now! BamBam, the other Guardian! You gave birth to him from loving Yi En! So amazing!”

Jinyoung groaned and closed his eyes. “Just hours ago, it felt like the world was ending. I got stabbed nine times. Why are we sitting around talking about these inane things?”

“Because that’s half of life,” Jaebum said. “The normal, peaceful, uneventful part. We should be enjoying it just like this, shouldn’t we? I’ve had enough of the other part to last me a few lifetimes.”