Wearing the retrieved crown and covered in blood and dust, Paedyn exited the throne room on King Kitt’s arm as the court watched. Once the doors closed, she collapsed against the wall and Kitt supported her, awkwardly kind but distant. When Kitt removed the crown, he remarked they would soon get used to it and noticed her engagement ring was still on her right hand, implying it needed to be put back on the correct finger. Paedyn panicked, realizing she had left it where Kai placed it before the Trial.

Kai arrived, interrupting the moment and urging Kitt to return to the court to address restlessness. Kitt agreed, announced plans for a celebration ball the next night, ordered a Healer to Paedyn’s rooms, and departed with the crown. With Kitt gone, Kai embraced Paedyn, telling her he had her, and she confessed feeling her soul was stained by the killings. He pressed her bloody hands to his tunic to share the burden and then lifted and carried her toward her rooms despite their agreement to keep their distance.

At Paedyn’s chamber, Kai asked her to open the door to avoid alarming Andy, then brought her in, startling Ellie. Kai set Paedyn on the bed and quietly took charge, asking Ellie for warm water, a cloth, and soap. Once Ellie left, Kai gently cleaned the blood and dirt from Paedyn’s hands and arms, reassuring her while she recounted the terror of the crypt’s darkness, the bats, and her readiness to die beside Mareena. He inferred, with wry understanding, that she had used the crown as a weapon to escape.

They discussed the weight of violence and whether it gets easier; Kai admitted it had not for him and said he wished he could bear her “bad” as her Enforcer. Paedyn worried about staining his soul further, and he replied there was little left to stain. Prompted by him, she acknowledged feeling powerful when she crowned herself in the throne room but feared losing herself to gain power. Kai urged her to focus on the feeling of strength.

The conversation turned intimate and fraught: Kai named duty, loyalty, and Paedyn as what he had lost himself to, dismissing her concerns about her being Ordinary. Paedyn, fearful of dying in the Trials, begged Kai to promise he would find something else worth living for if she died. He refused, confessing she was his inevitable “in life and in death.”

Overwhelmed, Paedyn and Kai kissed tenderly, with Paedyn silently confessing love she had forbidden him to speak aloud. The chapter ended with their deepening embrace, sealing their bond despite public constraints, Kitt’s suspicions, and the looming next events.