Chapter Twenty #2
I'm about to ask more when I notice Banu's expression. Despite her flippant words, something in her eyes seems off—a tightness around the edges, a wariness I've rarely seen in her.
"What is wrong?" I ask, my anger fading to concern. "You are not your usual annoying self."
"Me? I'm perfectly fine," she replies, but her wings flutter nervously. "Just concerned about my favorite human messing up her assassination mission by developing inconvenient feelings for the target."
"I do not have feelings for him," I insist automatically.
"Uh-huh," she says, clearly unconvinced. "The wall-shattering sex is purely professional research, then? Know thy enemy in biblical terms and all that?"
"It is complicated," I mutter, knowing how pathetic it sounds.
"It always is with immortals," she sighs. "Look, Nesi, I need to tell you something important. Something I've discovered about the bond while trying to alter the potion and that you need to—"
She opens her mouth to continue, but her gaze shifts to something behind me, and her entire form shimmers with alarm.
"Someone is coming," she whispers urgently. "Light Court magic. I have to go—this is not safe. Find me later in your chambers." She vanishes just as footsteps echo down the corridor.
"Nesi?"
I freeze at the familiar voice. Slowly, I turn to face my brother, Zoran, rounding the corner with an expression that suggests he's been searching for me. His Light Court ceremonial armor gleams even in the dim corridor lighting.
"Zoran," I breathe, momentarily forgetting everything else. "What are you doing here? I thought you had returned to the Light Court."
"I was assigned to accompany Lady Ayla's diplomatic mission, which meant returning here sooner than planned," he says, his voice cool in a way I have never heard directed at me before.
"I have been looking for you since I heard you had left the observatory tour early.
" His jaw tightens. "Since I have been here, I have heard the rumors. "
"Rumors?" I repeat, though the sinking feeling in my stomach tells me exactly what he means.
"About my sister," he says, stepping closer, "and how enthusiastically she's embraced her role as the Shadow Lord's bride. "
Heat floods my face. "Whatever you have heard—"
"Is it true the walls in the east wing cracked because of your... marital activities?" he asks, his voice sharp with accusation. "Is it true you nearly attacked a neutral territory diplomat out of jealousy over your monster husband?"
"It is not that simple," I protest, fighting the shame that threatens to overwhelm me. "The blood bond—"
"Do not," he interrupts, his voice rising. "Do not blame magic for this. You are supposed to be killing him, Nesi, not fucking him."
The crude word from my usually gentle brother's lips shocks me. "You do not understand what it is like," I say, my voice hardening. "The bond changes things. It makes me feel—"
"Feel what? Lust for our mother's killer? Devotion to the monster who murdered your lover in front of you?" His eyes, so like my own, blaze with righteous anger. "Have you forgotten what he is? What he's done?"
The accusation cuts deeper than any knife. "I live with the memory every day," I reply, fighting to keep my voice steady. "Every time I close my eyes, I see Aslan being torn apart. I see Mother's body. I haven't forgotten anything."
"Then why?" he demands, his voice cracking with emotion.
"Why are you giving yourself to him? Why are court servants whispering about how the Shadow Lady melts at her lord's touch?
Why did I have to hear from a kitchen maid that my sister—my sister who swore vengeance—is now warming the bed of the very monster she was meant to destroy? "
Something inside me snaps. "I am the only reason you're alive right now," I snarl, stepping into his space. "You would be bleeding out on the floor if not for me, so be careful, little brother."
He flinches as if I've struck him, his face draining of color. For a moment, he looks exactly as he did when we were children and I'd gone too far in our games—hurt and bewildered by my sudden cruelty.
Remorse floods me immediately. This is Zoran—my sweet, scholarly brother who's never raised his voice to me before today. The brother I sacrificed everything to protect.
"I didn't mean—" I begin, reaching for him.
He steps back, beyond my reach. "Yes, you did," he says quietly.
"And that is what terrifies me. He is changing you, Nesi.
You are becoming something I do not recognize.
" Tears glimmer in his eyes. "Where is my sister?
The one who held me when I had nightmares?
The one who taught me to face my fears?"
"I am still me," I insist, though doubt creeps in at the edges of my certainty. Am I still me? After what I have done, what I have felt, who I have become in Kaan's arms?
"Are you?" Zoran shakes his head sadly. "The sister I know would not threaten me. She would not defend a monster like Kaan. She would not betray everything she stands for because of—what? A few nights of passion?"
I tried to fight this, I think desperately, the words I can't speak aloud burning in my throat.
I tried to resist the pull between us. I even attempted to make a sleeping potion—something to give me an advantage, a way to complete my mission.
But it failed. Everything I tried failed, and somewhere along the way, the lines blurred until I could no longer tell where the blood bond ended and my own feelings began.
"It is not like that," I argue, but my voice lacks conviction even to my own ears.
"Then what is it like?" he challenges, anger flaring again. "Explain it to me, because from where I am standing, it looks like you have forgotten everything he has done. Mother. Aslan. Countless others."
"I haven't forgotten anything," I snap, anger flaring again. "But this situation is more complicated than you can possibly understand. The blood bond can't be broken. If I kill him, I'll suffer too."
"So you have just given up?" His disbelief is palpable. "Decided to embrace your new role as his willing consort instead?"
"I'm doing what I have to do to survive!"
"No," he says, his voice dropping to a cold whisper that hurts more than his shouting. "You are doing what you want to do. And that is what breaks my heart."
He turns to leave, and panic surges through me. "Zoran, wait—"
"I cannot watch you become this," he says over his shoulder. "I will not be complicit in whatever you are becoming." He hesitates, then adds the final blow: "Mother would be ashamed to see what you have allowed yourself to become."
The words strike hard. I stagger back, a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob escaping my lips. Of all the weapons he could have chosen, invoking our mother is the most devastating.
"You do not mean that," I whisper, but he is already walking away, his back straight with righteous indignation.
Something inside me shatters. The brother who has been my constant support, my only real family, walking away because I have become something he cannot recognize. Something he cannot accept.
I want to run after him, to explain, to make him understand.
But what would I say? That sometimes, when Kaan touches me, I forget to hate him?
That in the darkness of night, wrapped in his shadows, I find a perverse freedom I have never known before?
That the bond between us feels less like a prison and more like a revelation with each passing day?
The truth is too complicated, too shameful to articulate even to myself.
Rage and grief tangle inside me, a toxic blend that makes me want to scream, to break something, to hurt someone as badly as I'm hurting now. I find myself moving blindly through the corridors, vision blurred with unshed tears, my body vibrating with emotions I can barely contain.
I pass a delicate vase—some priceless Shadow Court artifact—and before I can think, my hand lashes out, sending it crashing to the floor.
The sound of shattering porcelain brings a moment of savage satisfaction that evaporates almost instantly.
I don't stop. My feet carry me faster through the winding hallways of the palace, away from the observatory, away from Kaan and Ayla, away from where Zoran's words still linger in the air like poison.
Everyone is against me—Kaan with his deliberate provocations and sudden withdrawal, Ayla with her blatant seduction attempts, my brother with his self-righteous judgment. Even Banu vanished when I needed her most.
My fist connects with the wall as I pass, the pain barely registering through the emotional storm. Blood smears across the polished stone, but I keep moving, my breath coming in ragged gasps that border on sobs.
I have lost everything—my freedom, my mission, my brother, myself. For what? For nights of shameful pleasure in Kaan's arms? For the twisted satisfaction of being wanted by the monster who destroyed everything I loved?
A tapestry depicting some Shadow Court victory tears beneath my fingernails as I grab it, pulling it from its moorings with a strength born of desperation.
The heavy fabric collapses around me like a shroud, and for a moment, I stand in the middle of the corridor, panting, surrounded by destruction of my own making.
What am I becoming?
Two palace guards round the corner, their expressions shifting from surprise to wariness when they see me amidst the chaos.
I stare back, daring them to challenge me, almost hoping they will.
The chance to unleash physical violence, to channel this maelstrom of emotion into combat, is suddenly desperately appealing.
"Lady Nesilhan," one begins uncertainly, hand hovering near his weapon.
"Stay away from me," I warn, my voice barely recognizable to my own ears.
They exchange glances, clearly weighing their duty against the risk of confronting the Shadow Lord's volatile bride.
One whispers urgently to the other, "Should we inform the Shadow Lord?
" but his companion shakes his head, gesturing for them to back away.
Wisdom prevails, and they retreat, leaving me alone with my storm of emotions once more.
I continue my blind flight through the palace, each turn taking me deeper into rarely used corridors where the shadows grow thicker and servants are scarce. I am not paying attention to where I am going. I just need to move, to run, to escape the crushing weight of everything I have lost.
The sound of my ragged breathing echoes off stone walls, punctuated by the occasional sob I can no longer suppress. I am unraveling, coming apart at the seams, and there is no one left to help me put myself back together.
I round a corner at full speed, too distracted to maintain my usual vigilance.
Strong arms grab me from behind before I can react, one hand clamping over my mouth to stifle my startled cry.
Through the haze of my emotional turmoil, I realize they must have been tracking my destructive path through the palace—following the sounds of breaking pottery and torn tapestries like breadcrumbs.
Training kicks in instantly. I drive my elbow back, aiming for my attacker's solar plexus, but they anticipate the move, twisting to avoid the worst of the impact. I prepare to stomp on their instep next, but before I can, a cloth presses against my face, its sickly sweet scent filling my lungs.
Drugged. The realization hits me as my limbs grow heavy, my reactions slowing despite my desperate struggle to break free. I try to summon my light magic, to burn whoever is holding me, but the drug works faster than my concentration.
My last conscious thought is of Kaan—that he will feel my distress through our bond, that he will come for me.
Then, darkness.