Dana looked down at her hand and recalled the thoughts she had when she first wore this ring. Back then, she had simply asked like seeking agreement, but this time she could ask with certainty.

“It seems to fit. Doesn’t it?”

Kaiden answered the same way then and now.

“Yes.”

The meaning of his answer was the same too.

This time Dana slipped the ring onto Kaiden’s finger. Dana spread her ring-wearing hand next to Kaiden’s ring-wearing hand to compare them.

Looking at the two hands placed side by side, completely different in size, color, and shape, she felt strangely moved. Last summer, a year ago, on their wedding day. These rings had been exchanged like this that day, but the wedding ceremony then had been an incomplete ritual.

And now. Perhaps they were finally completing the ritual of truly knowing themselves and making vows to each other today. The exchanged rings seemed to have finally become proper tokens of marriage.

Now the man kissed Dana to take the final step to complete this marriage. Dana, who closed her eyes and accepted the approaching lips, felt Kaiden’s ring-wearing hand stroke her cheek and move down to the back of her neck.

The touching lips, the tongue penetrating inside were hot, and so was the touching hand. Though the window was open, the summer air was hot and not a breath of wind stirred.

The man’s body naturally laying her down and positioning himself above, the approaching touches and the already swollen symbol of excitement – everything was hot. Like that night when she first had relations with him.

Perhaps it was because now was the same season as then, or because this space was the same space as that day. But most accurately, it would be because the man she was with was Kaiden. Because he had always approached her with such burning heat.

Lips flowing along her skin, touches leaving marks of heat – feeling all of this, Dana reached out her arms and embraced Kaiden. She closed her eyes, feeling the man entering with a volume that seemed like facing him for the first time every repeated night. 

The man who continued passionate movements while pressing their heated bodies together burst the heat that filled him at the end.

In the sensations of heat and hot skin, flowing sweat, and breathless feelings, Dana thought. This wasn’t sowing seeds futilely on bad land that couldn’t bear fruit – no, perhaps whether land was good or bad wasn’t determined by just one aspect.

Perhaps the results varied in different ways depending on how much attention the person sowing seeds paid to that land, with what heart they sowed and tended the seeds. 

Ultimately, even land that didn’t look good could be reborn as good land depending on the affection of its owner and caretaker.

The act she and Kaiden were sharing now was the act of God’s breath touching a star that would give birth to another breath. This relationship could conceive a Divine Beast that could melt, burn, and simultaneously protect other lands according to Dana’s will. It was a union that could create a new future for both Kaiden and Dana.

Dana reached out and swept back Kaiden’s fallen hair. She stroked his sweat-dampened forehead and eyes furrowed with pleasure, then his cheek below, smiling.

Kaiden, breathing roughly while feeling that touch, also raised his hand to stroke Dana’s dimpled cheek. With careful touches, he touched the indentation between her sunken cheeks and finally couldn’t hold back, whispering.

“I love you…”

In front of the woman who made this big man endlessly small, who made an undefeated knight into a coward. Words he couldn’t bring himself to say.

He filled her body, his finger pressed the center of her cheek, his voice penetrated into her ear. Dana gazed quietly at Kaiden, who had finally spoken the word that best suited the heat they were sharing and would continue to share.

Dana, who was supposed to marry a predetermined man as royalty, had been told she shouldn’t throw her precious life away on temporary emotions like love. 

When she returned by turning back time, she thought it was fine to simply marry a strong knight to protect Rowen even if there was no love between them.

When she learned all the truth after going round and round, the fact that she and Kaiden were respectively the Star of Elugard and its Guardian – not a relationship that could be defined by temporary emotions – reassured her. 

Since she was a wife who couldn’t fulfill her duties, she felt the mere fact of being married wasn’t enough, so she was relieved by that fact. However…

It’s paradoxical for someone who knows they should believe in and pursue ideals to deny love. If ideals made her present possible, then his love made Kaiden’s present possible.

The past life she had wished back into existence. Throughout that lifetime, Kaiden didn’t know he was a Divine Beast, and naturally didn’t know she was the Star of Elugard either. Nevertheless, he sacrificed his life and risked his life to come to her.

Denying that love and disparaging it as temporary would be belittling his time and effort. It would be trampling on his heart and passion.

The man’s body touching her was hot, and she too was heated up, surrounded by that warmth. From every place touching him, she could vividly feel that he was alive. She thought he could probably feel the same from touching her.

She had been told that hot things cool down, so she should naturally accept cold things. But humans who cooled completely without any warmth remaining were just humans freezing to death. So this body cooling down meant dying in darkness, like freezing in the cold of a solitary prison in her past life.

Just like needing to light a fire with firewood to survive the cold without freezing to death, hot love that fills with warmth might also be necessary for people to live. If pursuing ideals is the way to approach ideals, then believing in love would be the way to live a life full of love.

Even when passing through traces of darkness, one must continue looking at light and pushing through to reach brighter places. Despite anxiety about what might happen in the future, accepting and sharing love together might be the way to keep hot emotions from cooling even if they might cool someday. It might be the way to sustain love.

She and Kaiden were a star and its guardian, and that fact alone made them already an inseparable relationship. But even if they had been ordinary people, this love was valuable in itself. It wasn’t futile or meaningless because it might cool someday. 

It was a precious emotion that warmed each other’s bodies and hearts now, proving that they were both alive.

The days when Kaiden was coming to her. All the moments they had shared together and all the future time they would spend together were precious, dear, and cherished times in themselves.

“Why… do you love me so much?”

Dana asked because she truly couldn’t understand. A man who sacrificed his life to approach a woman he had never even spoken to, and who continued burning himself only for her even after that.

To Dana’s question, Kaiden answered.

“Because you embedded yourself in me…”

In his eyes and heart.

Kaiden couldn’t answer beyond that. It would be strange to ask how one discovers a star in the night sky and finds a way to reach that light.

Because the star is there. Because the star shines. The reason lay only with the star.

Hearing Kaiden’s answer, Dana conversely recalled when his existence had entered her.

The moment he walked toward her of his own accord. In fact, from even before that, she thought of all his moments when he had been trying to embed his existence in her. Looking at the man who had gone through all that process to create the present…

When she became one with his heat. While fearing his emotions might cool, why had she worried that she wouldn’t be able to forget and would long for that heat? Why had she naturally thought her own emotions and heat wouldn’t cool and would continue waiting for him?

While not trusting his fire that had burned for her longer than her own, thinking hot things naturally cool. Yet thinking her own fire ignited by him would never cool. So she thought she would remain alone holding that fire, saddened by her cooled husband’s appearance.

‘While being held in the arms of a man who would never cool, and even if he seemed likely to cool, would burn his whole body again to rekindle the fire…’

The word that bound all those moments, emotions, and memories together. Dana smiled at Kaiden, who had spoken the word that could ignite passion and tenderness and keep them burning.

Toward the man who had discovered a woman submerged in darkness doing nothing and lifted her up with light. She also answered with sincerity.

“Me too.”

Ah.

Kaiden squeezed his eyes shut then opened them. It was fortunate. Despite the short answer, he was relieved.

If Dana had opened that pretty mouth and directly spoken the word love, he would have already lost his reason and become a real beast, crushing Dana. But because Dana had spared him that dangerous word, fortunately he could embrace Dana again in the form of humans mating.

The man filled with joy began movements to kindle heat again. The fire he had lit hadn’t cooled, but it still wasn’t enough for him, so he had to build it higher. Even after touching and receiving in return, it was still insufficient, so he had to touch more.

Though still a distant future day, the day when only each other would exist for Dana and him. Until that day came, they had to enjoy and endure this time.

Dawn, when the sun began to rise and the sky started to brighten.

Kaiden sat with his upper body upright, holding a pen in his hand with his gaze cast downward. With his n*ked torso exposed, he raised one knee and placed parchment on it, writing something with his pen.

His remaining arm rested against Dana’s hair, who lay beside him. Dana lay facing Kaiden, curled up under the covers, fast asleep.

Kaiden moved his pen across the parchment on his leg, frowning slightly in concentration. He was rewriting the poem he had torn up when he became a Divine Beast and lost his memories.

While revising the poem, Kaiden pondered what was more important – preserving the time he had struggled for Dana or erasing the difficult times Dana had endured. The decision was easy. He boldly crossed out lines on the parchment and wrote new content.

Meanwhile, a tapping sound at the window stirred Dana slightly from sleep. Opening her eyes, Dana rolled her gaze toward the window. Beyond the window that Kaiden had closed at some point, two Divine Beasts were flying. It was Yeni and Jes.

Dana couldn’t bring herself to sit up, so she lay still and simply watched the two Divine Beasts flapping their wings outside. Looking at the brightening sky and the two creatures flying above it, she thought of Elugard’s Divine Beasts.

The firebird that had been born from her wishes during her relations with Kaiden had flown to Elugard. The Divine Beast there that was said to be the castle’s guardian tree had the appearance of a boy and had even conversed with Dana. And the man sitting beside her was also a Divine Beast.

Dana turned her head to look at Kaiden. She watched the concentrating man with a smiling face and asked.

“Someday… could a Divine Beast that looks human and speaks be born from me?”

At Dana’s question, Kaiden looked at her. He set down the parchment and pen he was holding onto the bedside table with a thud and said.

“Understood.”

What…

Dana watched Kaiden lift the covers and press his body against hers again.

Kaiden wanted to fulfill anything Dana desired, even if it meant throwing his body into it. He was glad there was something he could do for Dana.

Everything he did beside her, for her, could become what she wanted, something for her future. The fact that he could be such an existence, that Dana accepted his devotion, moved him deeply.

Since Dana had turned back time, his life had been a history of overflowing joy, sometimes painful but ecstatic. It was love, happiness, and a fullness he never wanted to escape. It was satisfaction, pride, and endless cl*max.

The tireless Divine Beast called her name over and over while holding his star in his arms.

‘Dana. My Dana.’

His princess, his wife, his woman, his love.

His season, his struggle, his responsibility, his mission.

His star, his light, his dream, his life.

His existence…

His everything.