In the days that followed the celebration, a stillness settled over the kingdom. The air was soft, the winds warm, as if the realm itself knew we needed a moment to breathe before the storm returned.
Pain and I wandered through gardens that bloomed with starlight. We spoke less now - not from silence, but from understanding. He would hold my hand, and I would lean into him, and everything I once feared became distant.
His world was mine now.
But not all hearts had found peace.
Junie hadn't stopped thinking about me. He wandered Manila like a ghost, revisiting our old school, the bench where we first talked, the bookstore where I once told him I loved stories about monsters who turned out to be heroes. He held onto every memory like a lifeline.
"She's not gone," he would whisper to himself. "Not really."
At home, my mother mourned me. She lit incense and offered flowers to the balete tree. She prayed to gods she never believed in before. Her grief was a fog no sun could burn away.
"Come back to me," she cried. "Please."
I heard her in my dreams. And my heart ached.
Pain would hold me then, brushing away tears I hadn't meant to cry.
"I know what you lost," he'd say. "But what we've found… it's rare."
He was right.
Between us bloomed a love without name - wild and sacred, fierce and soft. When I looked at him, I saw every chapter of my life rewritten in stars.
We danced on the edge of prophecy.
But for now… we danced.
This was our calm.
And we would hold it until the storm returned.