Kael didn't sleep.
Not that night.
Not with her blood still fresh on his skin, her breath still faint against his collarbone.
He left Elara in the care of his most trusted ward—a mute healer with wolf eyes and hands that trembled when they touched her—and descended into the lower forge alone.
The sacred one.
The forgotten one.
Where the dead once shaped their oaths in flame.
He worked in silence.
First: a lock of her hair, stolen gently while she slept.
Then: the last fragment of his sister's jawbone, saved from the fire.
And finally: a vial of his own blood, drawn with a silver blade and still warm.
These things did not belong together.
That was what made them powerful.
He placed them in the crucible, added a pinch of ash from the failed ritual circle, and whispered in the old tongue:
"Make me a crown of thorns, so that she bleeds in royalty and I burn in guilt."
The forge flared.
The metals twisted.
And when he pulled it from the fire—
The crown was born.
Elara woke at dusk to the sound of rain.
She blinked.
Her back still ached.
Her skin was still etched with the phantom sting of ritual flame.
But her limbs obeyed her.
And her mind—
Her mind was clear.
Until she saw what waited at her bedside.
A crown.
Delicate.
Terrible.
Fashioned of blood-dark metal, shaped in looping arcs of thorned vines.
Each tip bore a rune.
Each curve shimmered with veined crimson.
She reached for it.
Kael's voice stopped her.
"Don't," he said softly, stepping from the shadows. "Not unless you mean it."
She looked at him.
He was pale.
Eyes rimmed red.
Fingertips still burned.
"You made this," she said.
"Yes."
"With what?"
He didn't lie.
"Your hair. My blood. Bone. Fire. Guilt."
Elara's breath hitched.
"And you expect me to wear it?"
"No."
"Then why make it?"
"So that if you choose to wear it, it's because you understand what it costs."
She stared at the crown.
Then at him.
And said, "Put it on me."
Kael flinched.
"Elara—"
"You wanted to give me royalty and ruin in the same breath. So finish what you started."
Kael stepped forward.
Hands trembling.
He lifted the crown.
And placed it gently—carefully—on her head.
The thorns bit in.
She gasped.
Blood welled at her scalp.
Ran down her temples.
Her vision blurred—
And then fractured.
She was not in her body.
She was not in the room.
She was—
In him.
Memories hit her like a storm.
Kael at ten, locked in a stone cellar, screaming as his father forced him to shift by breaking his ribs.
Kael at twelve, watching his sister burned alive, hearing her say: "Don't scream. They'll think it's weakness."
Kael at fifteen, biting his own wrist in court so he wouldn't kill the noble who mocked his dead mother.
Kael—
Alone.
Always.
Even when crowned.
Especially when crowned.
Then—
She saw herself.
But younger.
Barefoot in a burning forest.
Holding her little sister in her arms.
Running.
Falling.
Covering the child's body with her own as debris fell.
Kael's eyes—his real eyes—watched from a distance.
Frozen.
Before he reached her.
Before he knew her.
He had seen her die before he ever learned her name.
The link snapped.
Elara gasped.
Fell to her knees.
The crown still on her head.
Blood on her face.
Kael rushed forward.
Ripped the crown away.
"Why didn't you stop me?" she gasped.
"I needed you to know," he said. "What I carry."
"It's not yours alone."
He cupped her face.
His thumb brushed blood from her cheek.
Then he leaned in.
And pressed a kiss to her forehead.
A long one.
A shaking one.
"Pain belongs to you now," he whispered. "But the scar belongs to me."
Later, she placed the crown in a black box.
Wrapped it.
Locked it.
And placed the key in Kael's hand.
"This isn't a wedding gift," she said.
"No."
"This is a war helm."
Kael smiled faintly.
"I only make armor for the things I'm afraid to lose."