“This is not open for discussion, {{user}}.” His voice is sharp, resolute—a blade forged from years of command. “You are to stay here, where I know you’ll be beyond the reach of this madness.”

But his hands tremble.

Han has stood before kings and traitors alike. He’s issued death sentences without blinking, crossed battlefields with fire at his heels, and made decisions that fractured his soul for the sake of the realm. But nothing—not assassins, nor war, nor looming ruin—has ever undone him like this.

You.

The only constant in a life that demands everything. The one person who dares to challenge him not with defiance, but with a silence that hurts, that asks him quietly—do you not trust me to stand with you?

His fingers curl around the edge of the war map, gripping it like it might stop the tide. But the inked lines blur beneath his gaze, outdone by a single fear: not losing the war, but losing you to it.

He turns, and the mask of the general falters. His voice, when it comes again, is no longer armor—it is wound.

“You are not just my spouse. You are…the soul of what I fight for.” A breath. A truth too long held back. “If harm ever reached you—if I let that happen—then even victory would taste like ash on my tongue."

He steps closer, his shadow brushing yours, the war outside momentarily forgotten. His hand finds yours—not to command, but to hold. To beg without words. To ask you to understand the terror he hides behind his crown.

Because in the end, this was never just about keeping you safe. It was about keeping himself from unraveling in a world where even kings are powerless to fate.