Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
I pause at the doorway, glancing back at him with narrowed eyes. "Careful, old friend. I still turn people into garden ornaments when irritated."
"I'll keep that in mind... my lord," he responds, the hint of a smile touching his lips.
I stride through the corridors toward our chambers, my shadows flowing about me in agitated patterns that betray my inner turmoil.
What he said struck closer to the truth than I care to admit.
Love. Perhaps that is what this unfamiliar ache in my chest signifies.
This constant awareness of her, this need to ensure her safety, her happiness.
This terror at the thought of losing her.
As I round the corner, I spot Banu slipping out of our chambers, her expression uncharacteristically serious. She freezes when she sees me, her small form tensing as if preparing for flight.
"Shadow Boy," she greets me with forced lightness. "Fancy meeting you in your own palace. How unexpected. Almost as if you live here or something."
"Fairy," I reply, narrowing my eyes at her obvious discomfort. "Troubling my wife again with your chaotic influence?"
"Me? Chaotic? I'm a paragon of stability and good judgment," she protests, her wings fluttering nervously. "Just providing some... friendly advice. Girl talk. Completely ordinary, boring, nothing-to-see-here girl talk."
Before I have the chance to press her further, Emir appears behind me, having apparently followed from my study. Banu's eyes immediately dart to him, her silvery hair shifting to a telling pink that clashes horribly with her lavender dress.
"General," she acknowledges with unusual formality.
"Lady Banu," he returns with equal stiffness .
I glance between them, momentarily distracted by the palpable tension. "How fascinating," I muse aloud. "The fairy actually rendered speechless. I should commemorate this historic moment. Perhaps commission a painting: 'The Silencing of the Perpetually Chattering Nuisance.'"
Her face flushes. "I have important fairy business elsewhere," she announces, backing away. "Very urgent. Probably involving... moon dust. Or something equally sparkly and important."
She bumps directly into my general, who steadies her with automatic gentleness. Their eyes lock for a heartbeat too long to be casual.
"Excuse me," she murmurs, uncharacteristically subdued, before darting away in a flash of silver light.
"Not a word," he warns me as the door closes behind her.
"I wouldn't dream of it," I reply innocently. "Though I do wonder what color your children's wings would be. Silver like her hair? Or perhaps they'd inherit your perpetual gloom, manifesting as little rain clouds instead of wings? Tiny, scowling, flying rain clouds. The very thought is delightful."
His glare could wither entire forests, but I merely smile innocently before turning toward my chambers.
"Do let me know if you need romantic advice," I call over my shoulder. "I'm told I'm quite the expert on seduction techniques. Just ask any of the terrified courtiers who've found themselves in my bed over the centuries."
His reply is too muttered to hear clearly, but I catch enough to know it's both anatomically impossible and decidedly unflattering.
I find my wife standing by the window, silhouetted against the perpetual twilight that bathes the Shadow Court. She wears a simple gown of deep blue that hugs the curves I've come to know intimately, her dark hair loose around her shoulders .
"My shadows sensed your return to our chambers," I say by way of greeting. "Missing me already? I know I'm irresistible, but this level of dependency might become problematic."
She turns, and my breath catches at the sight of her face. Something has changed since this morning. Something in her golden eyes, in the set of her mouth.
"I was consulting with Banu about... court matters," she murmurs, her voice carefully controlled.
"That fairy knows less about court protocol than a drunken troll," I observe, moving closer to her. "Unless it was fashion advice you sought? She does have a unique sense of style. All that... glitter. It's like she murdered a rainbow and rolled in the remains."
A trace of a smile flickers across her features. "I've grown fond of her peculiarities."
"As have others, apparently," I murmur, thinking of my general's uncharacteristic reaction. "Though her taste in men is questionable. Stern, perpetually worried, speaks primarily in disapproving grunts..."
"And what of yours?" she asks, watching me with those perceptive golden eyes. "Your taste in women?"
I reach her at last, close enough to catch her scent, sunlight, and something floral, with an underlying sweetness that's uniquely hers. My body responds instantly, shadows coiling around my feet in anticipation.
"Impeccable," I reply, voice dropping to a lower register as I trace my finger along her jawline.
"I only choose the most dangerous, defiant creatures.
The ones who might actually be capable of killing me in my sleep.
It adds a certain... excitement to breakfast, wondering if today's the day you'll finally put that assassin training to use. "
"Is that what draws you to me?" she asks softly. "The danger?"
"Among other qualities," I admit, my hand sliding into her hair, cradling the back of her head.
"Your intelligence. Your strength. Your remarkable capacity to surprise me, even after all this time.
The way your eyes flash gold when you're angry.
The sound you make when I touch you just..
. here." My fingers brush the sensitive spot behind her ear, drawing a small, involuntary shiver.
Her eyes search mine, looking for something I'm not sure I can provide. Something frightening in its vulnerability, in its power to destroy me completely.
I love you , I think, the words forming in my mind with perfect clarity yet refusing to pass my lips. I love you , and it terrifies me more than anything has in centuries.
Instead of speaking the truth, I capture her mouth with mine, pouring every unspoken feeling into the kiss. She responds with equal fervor, her hands coming up to clutch at my shoulders as if she might fall without my support.
When we finally break apart, both breathing heavily, I rest my forehead against hers. "What is it, hatun ?" I ask, sensing her turmoil through our bond despite her attempts to shield her emotions. "Something troubles you."
She pulls back slightly, her gaze guarded as she composes her next words carefully. "I was thinking about the children," she says.
"The orphans?" I ask, surprised by the change of subject. "Did you visit them again today?"
"No, I—" She hesitates, her hand rising unconsciously to rest on her stomach. "I was considering more generally. About children... and their fathers."
Something cold slithers down my spine at her words, at the small protective gesture of her hand. A suspicion begins to form, unwelcome and terrifying.
"What of them?" I ask, my voice suddenly hoarse.
"I was wondering..." She looks up at me, something vulnerable and hopeful in her expression. "How you felt about them. About the idea of... of having them. Someday."
The world seems to tilt beneath my feet as understanding crashes into me. Children. She's asking about children. Our children. A possibility I've never allowed myself to contemplate, not since—
Isil's face flashes before me, her joy when she told me she was carrying my child. The darkness that rose within me, the control I lost, the shadows that lashed out in panic. The terrible consequence of that instant of vulnerability.
Horror floods through me, my shadows responding before I manage to stop them, darkening violently as they whip around the room in agitation. I step back from her, desperate to put distance between us as memory overwhelms me.
"Kaan?" she questions, confusion and the beginnings of fear in her voice.
I try to respond, to explain that it's not her I fear, not our potential child, but myself, my capacity for destruction when faced with such vulnerability. But no words come, only a strangled sound of denial.
Her eyes widen as she misinterprets my reaction completely. Through our bond, I feel her sudden panic, her protective instinct flaring. She backs away, her hand still covering her stomach in a gesture that now seems unmistakable.
"I…I just remembered," she whispers, her voice strained as she edges toward the door. "I need to speak with Banu again. About tomorrow's...attire."
I reach for her, finally finding my voice. "Nesilhan, wait…"
But she's already slipping through the door, her movements fluid and quick as the assassin she was trained to be.
I notice the shift in her expression—fear, disappointment, determination, but she's gone before I can explain, before I can tell her that my reaction has nothing to do with her and everything to do with the monster I fear still lurks inside me.
She thinks I would harm our child. She thinks I'm capable of hurting her.
And why wouldn't she? I've never shared the truth about Isil, about what happened. I've never explained why the idea of fatherhood fills me with such terror—not for the child, but for what I might do to it in an instant of weakness.
I've never revealed that I love her too much to risk destroying her as I destroyed Isil.
I turn to the obsidian mirror, my reflection a stranger staring back at me, a man caught between the monster he's cultivated and the vulnerability he's tried to deny.
Behind that reflection, sits the crown I've had crafted for tomorrow's ceremony, waiting in its velvet box—the physical manifestation of a future I dared to imagine but was too afraid to fully embrace.
A future that now hangs by the thinnest of threads, all because I couldn't face my past.
I need to find her. Need to explain. Need to tell her everything, even the parts that might make her hate me again. Because if there's even the slightest chance that she is carrying our child—a child of both shadow and light, then that child deserves a father who is more than just a monster.
And she deserves to know the man beneath the shadows who has fallen hopelessly, irrevocably in love with her.