Chapter 4 #2
My healer's mind processes this information with cold calm even as my heart rebels against it.
"That's not possible," I say, though my training tells me it is.
Difficult, dangerous, requiring perfect synchronization and trust between casters, but possible if you knew what you were doing.
"The courts haven't worked together since—"
"Since before the Great Divide," Kaan finishes. His shadows coil tighter around his boots, writhing like living things responding to his anger. "Which means whoever took Banu has knowledge of ancient magic. Pre-division magic."
"Or access to someone who does," Kadir adds grimly.
He runs a hand through his dark hair, the gesture betraying exhaustion he's trying to hide.
"I tried to break the containment spells.
Every technique I know, every shadow manipulation in my arsenal.
They held firm. Whatever bound Banu there was designed by someone with power that matches or exceeds mine. "
The implications settle like ice in my stomach.
"Even working together, my lord," Kadir continues, his dark eyes meeting Kaan's across the table, "I'm not certain our combined power could break what's been woven there.
This is an ancient craft—older than either of us, requiring knowledge that's been lost for centuries.
The spell work included fairy-warding runes, iron-laced shadows that would burn any fae creature who tried to escape.
Whoever did this knew exactly what they were binding. "
I can still remember her laugh—the real one, not the vacant sound the imposter made.
Banu used to braid flowers into my hair before court functions, her tiny fingers moving with impossible speed while she whispered gossip about the lords.
"They're all terrified of you," she'd say, her pale lavender eyes sparkling with mischief. "Good. Let them be."
Gods, I miss her. I miss my friend.
The grief rises sharp and sudden, threatening to drown me. My hand moves unconsciously to my abdomen, to the scars hidden beneath silk and grief. I couldn't save my child. I can't let Banu die too.
"She could still be there," I say, pushing away from the table with enough force that my chair scrapes loudly against the stone.
The sound echoes in the war room like a scream.
"Trapped. Waiting for someone to free her.
We have to go back. I'll go with you this time—my light magic might be able to counter the shadow bindings, or at least—"
"No." Kaan's voice cuts through my planning like a blade, sharp and absolute. "Absolutely not."
I turn on him, my rage finding a convenient target. My light magic surges, golden sparks crackling in the air between us like fireflies made of fury. "You don't get to tell me no. She's my friend. My responsibility."
"You're barely recovered from being stabbed.
" His shadows rise in response to my light, coiling up his arms like serpents made of darkness.
The temperature in the room plummets as frost spreads across the table in crystalline patterns.
"Your magic is unpredictable at best. You want to walk into a situation that overwhelms Emir and his best scouts? "
"I want to find my friend!"
"And I want my wife alive!" The words explode out of him with enough force that the frost spreads faster, climbing up the walls in delicate lacework. The windows fog over with ice. "Do you have any idea what it would do to me if you died trying to rescue someone who might already be—"
He cuts himself off, but the damage is done. The unfinished sentence hangs between us, sharp and ugly as a blade.
"Go ahead," I say quietly, my voice deadly calm even as my magic flares brighter.
Golden light meets shadow in the space between us, and for a moment we're surrounded by a storm of our own making, neither giving ground.
The jet-black table begins to crack under the pressure of our combined magic, hairline fractures spreading like spiderwebs.
"Finish that sentence. Someone who might already be what?
Dead? Better off dead? Not worth the risk? "
"That's not what I meant."
"Isn't it?" My light magic surges, and somewhere in the palace I hear glass shatter—windows giving way to the pressure of my uncontrolled power.
"You made your priorities clear four months ago.
You chose me over our innocent child. Why would I expect you to value anyone else's life when you've proven you'll sacrifice anything for your own wants? "
The accusation lands like I intended—I see it in the way his shadows recoil as if struck, the way his jaw tightens with guilt and rage. But there's no satisfaction in hurting him. Just more emptiness where satisfaction should be, an empty ache that never stops bleeding.
"My lord, my lady," Kadir interrupts with the careful diplomacy of someone trying to prevent bloodshed. His hand rests on his sword hilt—not threatening, but ready to intervene if we tear the palace down around us. "Perhaps we should focus on the information at hand."
From the corner of my eye, I see Emir shift his weight—the only sign that the tension affects him at all.
His gaze moves between Kaan and me with quiet assessment, but he doesn't intervene.
He never does when we're like this. Maybe he knows there's nothing to say.
Maybe he's simply wise enough not to step between two storms.
I force myself to breathe. To push down the anger that threatens to consume everything, to drag my magic back under some semblance of control.
The golden sparks slowly fade, leaving only the cold light from the frosted windows.
Banu needs me to be functional, not caught in the same spiral of rage and grief that's defined these past few months.
"What else did you find?" I ask, directing my attention back to Kadir. My voice sounds soulless even to my own ears.
He exchanges a glance with Kaan—some silent communication I'm not privy to, centuries of trust and understanding that I'm no longer part of—before continuing.
"The containment circle was empty when we arrived.
No sign of Banu except the blood and a few of her feathers caught in the trees.
They were..." He pauses, choosing words carefully.
"They were torn from her wings. Not molted naturally. "
My stomach churns. Fairies' wings are extensions of their souls. Tearing them is torture.
I feel more than see Emir go rigid behind me. When I glance back, his expression hasn't changed—still that mask of professional calm—but his hands have curled into fists at his sides. The knuckles are white.
"But the spell residue suggests the circle was maintained for months before being deliberately broken from the outside," Kadir continues. "Whoever took her, they kept her there for a long time. And then someone—or something—broke the binding and took her somewhere else."
"Broken by whom?"
"Unknown. The signature was... strange. Familiar but wrong, like someone mimicking a magical style they'd studied but couldn't quite replicate perfectly. Like an artist copying a master's brushwork—technically proficient but lacking the original's essence."
Kaan goes very still beside me, the kind of stillness that screams danger. "Show me."
Kadir produces a piece of parchment covered in sketched runes, his artist's hand capturing the spell work with impressive detail. I don't understand half the symbols—shadow magic has never been my strength—but I watch Kaan's face as he studies the patterns.
His expression darkens. Frost spreads from his fingers across the parchment's edges.
"What?" I demand. "What is it?"
"This technique," Kaan says slowly, his voice carrying a cold fury that makes my skin prickle, "is from the eastern territories. Specifically, from the shadow-weaving traditions of Kara Cehennem. My father's domain."
The revelation hangs heavy in the air. Erlik. Of course it leads back to Erlik.
"But you said the signature was wrong," I press, turning to Kadir. "If this is Erlik's magic, wouldn't you recognize it?"
"I would," Kadir confirms. "Which means either someone learned this technique from him, or..." He trails off, uncomfortable with the implication.
"Or someone is trying to make it look like his work," Kaan finishes. "A false trail. But why?"
"To start a war?" I suggest bitterly. "To divide the courts further?
To make us suspect each other while the real enemy moves freely?
" I shake my head, exhaustion pulling at me like a physical weight.
"It doesn't matter. What matters is finding Banu.
If she's not in the Forgotten Grove anymore, where would they take her? "
"That," Kadir says heavily, "is what I couldn't determine. The trail goes cold at the grove's edge. Whoever took her masked their movements well."
Silence settles over the war room, broken only by the faint crackling of frost still spreading across the windows.
"I'll go back," Emir says finally, and there's steel in his voice now, a promise being made.
He steps forward from his post by the door, and I realize this is the first time he's spoken since entering the room.
But his silence wasn't absence—it was patience.
Waiting for the storm between Kaan and me to pass so something useful could be done.
His dark eyes meet mine with absolute conviction.
"I'll take a larger team this time. Different specialists—more shadow-trackers, blood-readers, even a dream-walker if I can locate one.
Someone who can read the echo of what happened there.
I will find her, my lady. This I swear to you. "
The promise settles something in my chest, loosens the band of panic that's been tightening since Kadir first mentioned the empty containment circle. Emir doesn't make vows lightly. When he gives his word, kingdoms fall or rise on the strength of it. Kadir nods also. "I'll go with him."
"One week," I say, my voice steady now, deadly calm. The kind of calm that comes before the storm.
Kaan's shadows go very still. He knows that tone. Knows what it means when I stop raging and start speaking with ice in my voice.
"Emir and Kadir have one week to go back, to try again with whatever resources they need.
Spare no expense. Conscript every shadow-tracker in the realm if you must. Use my authority to access the restricted archives—the sealed texts from before the Great Divide.
Someone, somewhere knows what this spell work means and where it leads. "
I turn to face Kaan fully now, letting him see the iron in my eyes, the absolute resolve that grief has forged into something unbreakable. "And if they don't find her..."
The unfinished threat hangs between us.
"Then I go myself," I finish quietly. "And you can either help me, or you can try to stop me."
I step closer, close enough that my light magic and his shadows brush against each other in the charged space between us, creating sparks that dance like dying stars. "We both know how that will end."
For a long moment, Kaan says nothing. His black eyes search mine, looking for something—weakness, perhaps, or the woman who used to love him before grief and rage burned everything else away.
He won't find her. She died in a dungeon, bleeding out on cold stone while he made the choice that broke us both.
"One week," he finally agrees, his voice rough with emotions I can't read and don't want to. "But you don't go alone. If it comes to that, I'm going with you."
"Like hell you—"
"This isn't negotiable, Nesilhan." He leans forward, and I can see the exhaustion in the lines around his eyes, the toll of mutual hatred has taken on him too.
"You want to throw yourself into danger to find your friend?
Fine. But I'm not losing you too. You can hate me all you want.
You can wish me dead, curse my name, refuse to let me touch you—I deserve all of it. But I will not let you die."
The raw honesty in his voice catches me off guard. For a moment—just a brief, traitorous moment—I remember what it felt like before everything shattered. When his obsessive protectiveness felt like love instead of a cage.
Then I remember the choice he made. Our child's life weighed against mine, and he chose me.
He chose me, and I will never forgive him for it.
"One week," I repeat, stepping back, putting distance between us before the grief drowns me again. "Emir, take whatever you need. I want daily reports on your progress."
"Of course, my lady." Emir bows, relief evident in his features. "I'll depart at first light."
I turn toward the door, needing to escape this room with its frosted windows and cracking table, needing air.
"Nesilhan," Kaan calls after me, and against my better judgment, I pause at the threshold.
"I would make that choice again," he says quietly, and the confession is brutal in its honesty.
I don't turn around. Can't look at him. Can't let him see the tears that burn behind my eyes—because I don't know if I'm crying for our dead child, my missing friend, or the man I used to love before everything turned to ash.
"I know," I whisper. "That's what makes it unforgivable."
Then I walk away, leaving him standing in the frozen war room, surrounded by the ruins of everything we used to be.