My Enemy, My Love

ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔈𝔩𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔫

King Luka [Jimmy]

The final council meeting had felt like a slow suffocation. The Temple was packed with lords, ministers, generals, and the kings themselves — and yet, despite the grandeur, all I could hear was fear.

They urged, pleaded, demanded more men. They spoke of villages falling in the West, of their estates at risk, of families that might be slaughtered if Bangkok did not intervene with greater force. Their voices were a storm of panic, and the chamber pulsed with it.

At first, Thyme said nothing. He sat beside me, back straight, eyes hard, but his silence screamed louder than their words. I could see the exhaustion written in the curve of his shoulders, the grief he wore like armor he no longer had the strength to carry.

So I spoke.

"We will not send more men to die without us."

The chamber went still. Dozens of eyes turned to me, as if I had grown another head.

I let the silence hang before I drove the nail deeper. "Both Prince Thyme and I will ride to the front lines. We will lead them. We will confront the Western tyrants ourselves."

Outrage erupted instantly. Voices rose, fists slammed tables, the word reckless hissed like venom. A few had the gall to laugh bitterly, as though I had made a jest.

"You would risk the heirs of Bangkok and Chonburi?" one lord spat. "Do you mean to hand the West our throats?"

"We mean," I said, my voice like steel, "to show our men that their leaders do not hide behind walls while they bleed. We will fight where they fight. We will die where they die, if it comes to that."

Panic swept the room, but I did not falter. For the first time in weeks, Thyme lifted his eyes from the table. He didn't speak, but when his gaze caught mine, I knew. He agreed.

The decision was made that night, whether the lords liked it or not.

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The day we rode out, the city gates thundered open and the earth shook beneath twenty thousand men. More poured in behind them — banners snapping in the wind, horses restless with the scent of war, armor glinting in the morning sun. I rode at the front, Thyme at my side.

I had thought myself ready, but when I looked back, my breath caught. A sea of men stretched beyond the horizon, their faces grim, their eyes bright with the fever of war. I had given them no promises of safety, only of struggle, and yet here they were. Willing to follow us to death if need be.

The cheers of the people faded as we left the city behind. The days bled together after that — long hours on horseback, endless roads, the rhythm of hooves and the clatter of steel. Thyme and I spoke little. Words had dried up between us, leaving only the unyielding silence of two men bearing the weight of kingdoms.

Messengers came and went, dust on their cloaks, eyes wild with urgency. Reports of Western scouts near the border. Villages taken. Families displaced. Always bad news, never relief.

I found myself wondering, more than once, what might have been had history not been poisoned. If the West had not borne centuries of rivalry, betrayals, and jealousies, would we still have come to this? Would the rivers run red? Would this endless trail of death have marked the map of our world?

But there was no answer. Only the march.

By the time we reached the border of Bangkok and crossed into Suphanburi province, the land bore scars. Fields left fallow, villages burned to husks, silence where laughter once lived. We pressed on until we reached the outskirts of a small village named Ban Nong Thum, where we made camp for the night.

The men set to their duties — horses watered, fires lit, rations divided. Thyme and I retreated to our tent, a heavy canvas structure lit by a single lantern. Maps covered the table inside, sprawling and relentless in their detail. Rivers, forests, fortresses, villages — some already marked in black ink as fallen, traitorous, lost.

We leaned over it together, our shoulders almost brushing.

"If they move from the west of Ayutthaya, they'll cut the river supply," Thyme murmured, tracing the line with his finger. His voice was hoarse from silence, from grief. "We can't let them cross the Pa Sak."

"They'll try anyway," I said. "If they ally with the lords of Nakhon Sawan, they'll have the manpower to push south. We need to anticipate them here." I tapped the map, marking a crossroads by the forest.

"And if we're wrong?"

"Then we bleed. Again."

Thyme exhaled sharply, his hand dragging through his hair. "Every move feels like a gamble. And we can't afford to lose."

I stared at him, at the curve of his jaw caught in lamplight. "No," I said. "We can't."

We fell into silence again, both staring at the map but seeing nothing. The hour was late, our eyes burned, our bodies weary, but neither of us moved. At last, I let my gaze shift from the parchment to him.

It struck me then — with a suddenness that hollowed my chest — that I no longer hated him.

I had once thought hatred the marrow of my bones. We had despised each other since the beginning — rival heirs, bound by marriage neither of us wanted, forced into a bond forged by politics and spite. I remembered the wedding, the bitterness in my throat, the venom in his words, the fury in mine. I remembered every sharp remark, every wound we had dealt one another in the shadows of palace halls.

But now? Now there was only this: two men shouldering kingdoms together, bound not by choice, but by survival. And somehow, somewhere in that storm, my hatred had slipped away.

I swallowed, my heart hammering. "Thyme," I said quietly.

He turned to me, his eyes tired, wary.

"I need to tell you something." My mouth felt dry, but the words pressed like fire against my lips. "When we married, I thought I'd spend my life resenting you. I thought I'd bury myself in hatred just to survive it. And for a while, I did. But... then we changed. We fought side by side. We learned to set it aside for our people. For our kingdoms. And I—"

I faltered, then pressed on.

"I hoped that maybe one day, we could set it aside forever. That maybe the hatred didn't have to last. That maybe... there could be something else."

Thyme's brow furrowed, but he didn't speak. The silence pressed, heavy, demanding.

I drew a breath, my chest tight. "I don't hate you anymore. Not even close. The truth is... I love you. And I have for longer than you think. I fell first, Thyme."

The words hung there, naked, vulnerable, almost unbearable. For a long moment, he only stared at me — as if the ground itself had shifted beneath him.

Then, slowly, his expression cracked. The grief, the fury, the exhaustion all tangled into something raw and fragile.

"Luka..." His voice broke on my name.

I leaned closer, the weight of years collapsing between us. "You don't have to say it back. I just needed you to know."

But then he did speak, and his words were not rejection. They were a shattering, a release. And before I could think, before I could breathe, he leaned into me, and our lips met.

Not the kiss of rivals, not the clash of politics, not a marriage forced by kings. But the kiss of lovers, desperate and real, carved out of fire and grief and something that had been waiting, silently, all along.

For the first time, it felt like the war outside had stilled.

And for the first time, I did not feel alone.

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