Chapter 8
THE TRAP
NESILHAN
The palace feels wrong without Kaan's oppressive presence.
It's been two days since he rode out with Zoran and half the Shadow Court's forces toward the eastern border fortifications, leaving me here with skeleton guards and the persistent ache of that damnable bond.
I should feel relief at his absence. Freedom from his constant watching, his possessive shadows, the way he looks at me like I'm something precious he destroyed.
Instead, I feel exposed. Vulnerable in ways that have nothing to do with physical danger.
And then there's Yasar.
He left with Kaan, but returned to the palace the very next day—keeping respectful distance during meals, offering thoughtful commentary during war councils, never pushing the strange magnetism that pulls me toward him like tide to moon.
His excuse was vague: he needed to "finalize troop logistics" with the eastern battalions.
He claims he'll rejoin Kaan at the front lines tomorrow morning.
But his shadows tell a different story. They move wrongly—not the fluid darkness I've grown accustomed to in this realm, but something else.
Something with an ethereal quality, edges that shimmer and shift like dreams given form.
Embers flicker in their depths when he thinks no one is watching, tiny sparks of fire that shouldn't exist in pure shadow magic.
I'm studying maps in the war room, trying to understand the scope of my father's invasion, when my eyelids grow impossibly heavy.
The lines of territories blur beneath my fingertips.
I fight it—this weakness, this human need—but the days of sleepless nights and constant vigilance exact their toll.
One moment I'm tracing the border between realms, the next my cheek is pressed against the cold table, consciousness slipping away like water through cupped hands.
I dream of darkness, but not emptiness.
There, in the void, a small figure materializes—Banu, my dearest friend, her fairy form curled into herself. She's hurting, her face contorted in pain I can feel as my own. When she looks up, her luminescent eyes are filled with terror.
"Nesilhan," she whispers, her voice echoing strangely. "Help me. Please help me."
I try to reach for her, but my arms won't move. I try to speak, but my voice is trapped. She's right there, just beyond my grasp, suffering.
"They're hurting me," she sobs. "Find me before it's too late."
The darkness swallows her again, and I'm screaming, fighting against invisible bonds.
When I open my eyes again, I jolt upright, my heart hammering against my ribs. The war room is bathed in shadow-light, the orbs dimmed to their nighttime glow. Sweat drenches my back, and my hands shake uncontrollably.
"Banu," I whisper, the name a prayer and a wound.
Was it just a nightmare? Or something more? After everything I've seen in this realm, I can't dismiss the possibility that it was real—that somehow, my missing friend is alive and calling for help.
I need to tell someone. Elcin will know what to do.
I glance at the chronometer on the far wall—well past midnight. I've been asleep for hours, but there's no time to waste. If there's even the slightest chance that wasn't just a dream...
I sit up, rubbing the back of my neck. Elcin should have woken me. She never lets me sleep this long, especially not hunched over a table like some exhausted scribe. Her absence strikes me as wrong—another disruption to the patterns we've established over these painful months.
"Elcin?" My voice echoes in the empty chamber, sounding smaller than I'd like.
No response.
I rise, steadying myself against the table as my legs protest the sudden movement.
The palace feels different at this hour—vacant, a skeleton of itself with most of its guards and courtiers gone to war.
My footsteps echo down the corridors as I make my way toward Elcin's chambers, the sound bouncing off stone walls that seem to lean inward, watching.
The main hall stands empty, the enormous black chandeliers holding only a few lit shadow-orbs. In full court, this space would buzz with whispers and politics, the air thick with schemes and secrets. Now it's just vast emptiness, the absence of life more noticeable than any presence.
I pass the eastern gallery, where portrait eyes seem to follow my progress.
The usual pair of guards that stand at the entrance to the residential wing are missing—reassigned to the borders, no doubt, or to whatever security plan Yasar has implemented in Kaan's absence.
The thought of Yasar makes my skin prickle, that strange magnetism tugging at me even when he's nowhere near.
The silence is oppressive. No footsteps of servants, no distant conversations, no rustling of fabric as courtiers bow in deference.
Just the whisper of my own breathing and the soft pad of my feet against stone.
I've never seen the palace this deserted, not even in the dead of winter when half the court retreats to warmer estates.
Elcin's chambers are at the end of the east wing, close enough to mine to be summoned quickly, far enough to maintain the illusion of privacy. The door is slightly ajar—another anomaly. Elcin is fanatical about security, especially since the assassination attempts began.
"Elcin?" I push the door open wider, peering into the darkened room. "Are you—"
The words die in my throat. Elcin lies sprawled across her bed, still fully dressed in her Guard Captain uniform, her short silver hair fanned out against the dark pillows.
She's breathing—I can see the slow rise and fall of her chest—but there's something unnatural about her stillness.
Elcin is a light sleeper, trained to wake at the slightest disturbance.
My entrance should have her on her feet with a blade in hand.
Instead, she doesn't stir.
I approach cautiously, noting the way her limbs are arranged—not the casual sprawl of someone who collapsed from exhaustion, but the careful positioning of a body deliberately placed.
Her face, usually sharp with alertness even in repose, is slack, almost peaceful, but with an uncanny emptiness that makes my stomach clench.
I reach for the blanket folded at the foot of her bed, the simple kindness feeling inadequate against whatever has happened here.
As I drape it over her still form, I notice her eyelids fluttering rapidly, as if caught in a dream she can't escape.
Sweat beads along her hairline despite the cool air.
This isn't natural sleep. This is something else entirely.
"She will only sleep for a short time."
The voice slides through the air like silk over steel, and I whirl to face it, my hand reaching instinctively for a weapon I'm not carrying.
Before I can react, before I can even process his words, his shadows explode outward.
Not to attack—to contain. They form a perfect circle around us, a barrier that hums with power I've never encountered before.
Shadow mixed with something else, something that makes my weakened light magic recoil in recognition.
"What are you doing?" I try to summon my light, but it gutters like a candle in a hurricane.
"What I came to do," Yasar says, stepping fully into Elcin's chambers and closing the door behind him with a soft click.
"What Uncle Erlik sent me to accomplish.
" He approaches slowly, and that pull—gods, that pull—yanks me toward him so hard I have to grip the bedpost to keep from stumbling forward.
"Did you really think my arrival was a coincidence?
That I just happened to appear days after war was declared? "
"You're working with Erlik." It's not a question.
"Working with him?" Yasar laughs, and it's not cruel, just tired. "I'm his solution to the problem of you and my cousin. Though I prefer to think of it as... an opportunity."
I back away, needing distance, but my legs feel weak—days of exhaustion and grief taking their toll. My hand finds the knife I keep hidden in my boot, though we both know it's a useless gesture. "Kaan will kill you for this."
"Kaan is miles away at the eastern fortifications, about to engage three battalions of Light Court warriors.
By the time he realizes what's happening, it will be far too late.
" Yasar moves closer, and my traitorous body sways toward him.
"But I'm not going to hurt you, Nesilhan. Quite the opposite."
"Then what—" My back hits the wall of Elcin's chambers, nowhere left to retreat.
"The binding," he says simply. "The one dear Uncle wove into your soul during that cleansing ritual.
The one that's been pulling you toward me since the moment we met.
" His eyes glow brighter in the dim chamber, and suddenly his shadows are shot through with veins of fire—impossible, beautiful, terrifying.
"It's time you understood what it really is. "
The pull intensifies until I can barely breathe. Every cell in my body screams to close the distance between us, to press myself against him, to let his darkness consume my fading light. I dig my nails into my palms hard enough to draw blood, using pain to anchor myself.
And then I notice it—the bond to Kaan, that constant awareness of him that's been with me for months, goes suddenly, terrifyingly silent. Whatever Yasar is doing doesn't just affect this room. It blinds Kaan to my presence entirely.
I'm truly alone, in an empty palace with only Elcin's unconscious form as witness.