Kai sits against the willow where he last held Paedyn, letting the tree’s shadows and the memory of her comfort surround him as the wedding likely proceeds without him. He allows himself to cry, something he has rarely done since childhood. His thoughts drift to the last times he truly wept: after Ava’s death and in the aftermath of his father’s unrelenting, violent training that demanded he suppress all feeling.

He remembers the first life he took—Paedyn’s father—acknowledging that he had not fully known the king’s manipulation then but still grieved both the victim and the part of himself that died with the act. In that period, he channeled pain into fear and brutality, even driving his sword into his bedposts to numb himself, embracing the monster he was being shaped to be.

Meeting Paedyn changed that trajectory. Kai recalls how instantly she captivated him in the alley, reigniting fear not as a weapon but as vulnerability, and how he knew she would be his undoing. He frames their bond as inevitable, tied by duty as much as by intertwined pasts and futures, even as love complicates that duty.

Speaking to Ava in his thoughts, Kai admits exhaustion with loyalty that costs him everything, and with continually losing Paedyn. He repeats his mother’s warning not to let love be his weakness, but concedes that Paedyn is both his weakness and his everything. He grieves the future he wanted with her and the immediacy of last night’s intimacy, now only a memory.

Resolving that passivity is no longer an option, Kai stands, collects himself, and decides to act. With the scent of Paedyn still on his skin and the knowledge that even the Enforcer bows to her, he leaves the willow determined to find his queen.