Crown of Ruin and Redemption (Kingdom of Shadows #3)

Chapter 1

THE brOKEN BOND

Kaan

Four months. Four months since I've touched her like this—since she's let me close enough to breathe the same air without flinching.

I press Nesilhan against the bedchamber wall, tendrils of night encircling her wrists with desperate possession, pinning them above her head.

Her back is pressed against the cold stone, but her skin radiates heat that calls to every dark instinct I possess.

My mouth finds her throat, tongue tracing the pulse that hammers beneath golden skin.

"Let me in," I rasp against her neck. "Sevgilim. Just let me—"

Her knee drives into my stomach hard enough that stars explode behind my eyes. Before I can recover, before I can even process the pain, her teeth sink into my lower lip. She bites down with savage intent, tearing through flesh until blood floods both our mouths.

The coppery taste mingles with her rage as she wrenches her head away, spitting my blood onto the marble floor between us like an offering to forgotten gods.

"Don't touch me." The words come out low, venomous. "Don't you ever fucking touch me again, you monster."

My shadows tighten involuntarily around her wrists—possessive bastards that they are—and she releases a sound that's half-scream, half-sob.

I loosen my grip immediately, and the moment her hands are free, those delicate fingers I used to kiss curl into claws.

She drags them down my face with enough force that I feel skin split open.

Four parallel lines of fire bloom from temple to jaw.

Blood wells hot and immediate, dripping onto the collar of my shirt.

"Well," I manage, my voice rough with pain and something darker, "I see we're starting with foreplay tonight. Should I be flattered that you remember what I like?"

The joke lands wrong. Of course it does. Everything lands wrong these days.

"Monster," she spits again, and golden light begins crackling beneath her skin in waves that make my shadows recoil like whipped dogs. "You let our child die. You chose me and let our baby die, and I will never forgive you for that. Never."

The words detonate in my chest.

For a moment, I can't breathe. Can't think. The devastation is so complete it feels physical—as if the woman I've bound myself to has reached into my ribcage and crushed what's left of my still-beating heart with her bare hands.

She immediately puts distance between us—backing away until she's across the room, as far from me as the walls allow. Her chest heaves. Tears stream down her face even as fury burns bright enough in her eyes to rival the sun itself.

I should say something. Explain. Defend myself. Tell her she has no idea what that choice cost me.

But my throat has closed around words that won't come, and suddenly I'm not standing in our bedchamber anymore.

I'm in a neutral territory tent, watching General Altín's face drain of color as he realizes how thoroughly I've outmaneuvered him.

His pathetic attempt to leverage border villages against me has failed spectacularly, and the three advisors I killed are still bleeding out on the floor as a reminder.

"You conquered three villages," I'm saying, enjoying every second of his dawning horror.

"I conquered seventeen military installations.

You took farmers who grow wheat. I took soldiers who guard your borders.

So please, General, tell me again how I should surrender my wife because you're concerned about stability? "

Zoran—Nesilhan's useless brother who I've dragged along as mediator—is cowering near the weapon rack where I threw him moments ago. The bruises forming on his throat are deeply satisfying.

Then the bond explodes.

Not gently. Not with warning. One moment I'm savoring my victory, and the next agony rips through my chest with enough force to drop me to my knees.

Terror. Hers. Pouring through our connection in waves so violent they white out my vision.

Pain. Hers. Sharp and immediate and wrong in ways that make my shadows scream.

And underneath it all, threading through every sensation like a discordant note in a familiar melody—betrayal.

I can't breathe. Can't think. Because through the bond, I feel something else. Something small and precious and terrified, reaching for me across impossible distances.

Our child.

Crying for help in ways that have no words.

"Nesilhan," I gasp, blood dripping from my lips where I've bitten through them. "She's—fuck—someone's attacking her. The baby—"

Through our connection, I sense her terror intensifying. The feeling of backing away, hands pressed protectively to her belly. The sensation of cold stone walls around her. The dungeons. She's in the palace dungeons—I can feel it across the thread between us.

Shadows explode from my skin with enough force to disintegrate the tent around us. I tear a portal between realms with my bare hands, reality screaming in protest as I force passage back to the Shadow Court.

General Altín is shouting something—probably threats—but I neither know nor care.

All that matters is getting to her.

The portal deposits me in the palace dungeons.

The scene that greets me will haunt whatever's left of my soul for eternity.

Nesilhan is on the ground.

There's blood everywhere.

Too much blood. A spreading pool of it, black in the dim light, soaking through her dress and painting the stone beneath her like some nightmare artist's canvas.

Elcin is on her knees beside Nesilhan, hands pressed uselessly against her cousin's stomach. Her face is streaked with tears and twisted with helpless fury.

"Hold on," Elcin commands, but her voice cracks. "That's an order, cousin. You hold on. Both of you."

"My lord," Emir says, suddenly appearing in the dungeons, his voice empty. "Banu, she’s–"

He's pointing at a pile of shadow and ash on the floor. All that remains of what used to look like Banu. The body has already dissolved completely, leaving only dark residue as evidence it was ever here.

"The real Banu—" Elcin starts.

"Later." I drop beside Nesilhan, my hands replacing Elcin's. "We find the real Banu later. Right now—"

One vicious stab directly into her stomach—aimed with deadly purpose, designed to destroy the one thing I'd kill entire realms to protect. Emir approaches us, keeping an eye on the still dissolving shadow and ash on the floor, his gaze searching for the missing fairy.

Blood pulses warm between my fingers. Too much blood.

But she's still breathing. Still warm. I'm not too late.

(I can't be too late.)

Through the bond—damaged but still present—her voice crashes into my mind.

"Our baby isn't moving."

And underneath that, not directed at me but bleeding through our connection anyway—her silent apology to our child: "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I couldn't keep you safe."

Out loud, she's begging. Her lips move, blood-flecked, words breaking on sobs: "Please. Take me instead. Please, just let my baby live. Please."

Her eyes find mine, glazed with shock and agony, and I see the moment she recognizes me. Relief and terror war across her features.

"The baby," she gasps. "I can't—I can't feel—"

That's when I notice.

The stillness where there should be movement. That constant flutter of life I've grown addicted to sensing through our bond—our child's presence, bright and curious and impossibly precious—has gone quiet.

"HEALER!" The word comes out as a roar that shakes the dungeon walls. "Get me a fucking healer NOW!"

I feel Nesilhan fading. Feel her life force guttering like a candle in a hurricane. And beneath that, fainter but still present, I sense our child's tiny consciousness.

Confused.

Afraid.

Dying.

Emir starts shouting orders, then disappears for a brief moment. Sometime later he and guards thunder down the stairs, bringing healers with them. Three of them—the best in the Shadow Court—fall to their knees around us, golden light already pouring from their hands.

"Move her upstairs," the lead healer commands. "Now. We need proper facilities."

I don't waste time with stairs. My shadows tear a portal directly to the healing chambers, reality bending to my desperate will. The transition is violent, disorienting, but I don't care—every second counts.

They place her on a table the moment we materialize. More healers swarm in, their combined magic flooding the room with light so bright it makes my shadows recoil.

I stand at the edge of the chaos, useless, while they work to keep my wife and child alive.

The memory fragments, but I can't escape it. Can't pull myself back to the present where Nesilhan is alive and furious and looking at me like I'm every nightmare she's ever had made flesh.

"Why?" Her voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. "Why won't you even try to explain yourself?"

I force my eyes to focus on her. "What's there to explain? You've already decided I'm a monster. Does the monster's reasoning matter?"

"Yes!" The word comes out as a scream. "Yes, it matters! Because I need to understand how you could make that choice. How could you look at our innocent child and decide it was expendable!"

The accusation is a blade between my ribs, all the more effective because part of me—the part that wakes up at 3 AM drenched in sweat and guilt—agrees with her.

"You want to understand?" Something cold and terrible rises in my chest. "Fine. Let me paint you a picture, hatun."

I'm upstairs in the healing chambers, watching them work on Nesilhan's broken body. They've been at it for hours—golden light pouring into wounds that keep bleeding, magic knitting flesh only to have it tear open again.

The lead healer—a woman named Seraphine with ancient eyes and hands that shake from exhaustion—finally steps back.

"My lord," she says, and her voice carries the weight of unbearable truth. "I need you to listen very carefully."

"Fix her." The words come out flat. Empty. "Fix them both. That's an order."