Chapter 23
The Distance Between Us
N esilhan
My body aches in ways that I don't want to comprehend.
So instead, I focus on the room around me—it is unfamiliar—obsidian walls carved with healing runes that pulse with soft light, crystals embedded in the ceiling that hum with restorative magic.
This isn't Mira's cottage. My lip trembles as I fight back the tsunami of anguish that demands my attention.
A tear escapes from the corner of my eye.
And there, in the corner like a sentinel keeping watch, sits Kaan.
He looks different. Exhausted. The sharp edges of his aristocratic features seem dulled by something deeper than physical fatigue, and there are shadows under his eyes that speak of sleepless vigil.
His clothes are stained with blood—my blood, I realize with a start—and his usually perfect appearance is disheveled in ways that suggest he hasn't moved from that chair in hours.
When our eyes meet, relief floods his features with such intensity that it makes my chest tight. But underneath the relief, I see something else—a haunted quality that wasn't there before, as if he's witnessed horrors that will follow him into dreams.
"You're awake," he says, his voice rough with disuse. "Thank the gods, you're awake."
I try to speak, but my throat feels raw, scraped clean by screaming I can barely remember.
The memories come in flashes—pale hands, serpentine tongues, the taste of copper and terror.
My legs clench together instinctively, as if I can somehow stop the images from flooding back.
A sob tears from my throat, raw and desperate.
"Kaan," I plead, his name breaking on my lips.
He's beside me in an instant, scooping me up despite my wounds, and I collapse into his shoulder, tears streaming down my face as the dam finally breaks.
The cry that escapes me builds and builds until it becomes a scream—wordless, anguished, carrying all the violation and terror I've been trying to hold back.
I scream into his shoulder, I want to tear the world apart. What they did to me, what they did to my baby. I push back, feeling wild, out of control, and touch my stomach. "The baby..." Kaan's gaze flashes with pain I've never seen before.
"The baby—" I repeat, pleading, needing him to tell me our baby is okay.
"Is fine," he assures me quickly, his hands touch my stomach. "Alive and strong. The healers say the connection is fully restored."
Relief crashes over me so intensely that more tears fall. Through everything—the capture, the feeding, the violation—my child survived. We both survived.
Anger courses through me, so vicious that the chamber lights up. Kaan's hands touch my shoulders. "You are safe." His gaze is glazed over with unshed tears as he presses his forehead to mine. "You are safe, hatun. "
But as the immediate anger fades, another memory surfaces with devastating timing. Not from recent days, but from before—a fragment that has broken through the walls of my amnesia with perfect, cruel timing.
I remember asking him about children, about the possibility of having them someday.
The way his face had changed when understanding crashed into him, the horror that had flooded his features when he realized what I was suggesting.
The shadows that had exploded around him, violent and chaotic, as he stepped back from me like I was something to fear.
"I was wondering... how you felt about them. About the idea of... of having them. Someday."
The darkness had erupted from his skin, and I'd felt his terror through whatever bond we'd shared then. Not joy at the possibility of creating life together. Horror. Pure, undiluted horror at the thought.
I had backed away, my hand pressed protectively to my belly—though he hadn't known then that life was already growing there—understanding with crystal clarity that children were the last thing he wanted.
The memory cuts through me like a blade. Even then, even before he knew I was carrying his child, he'd made his feelings brutally clear. And now, months later, that unwanted child moves within me while he sits vigil beside my bed.
"Nesilhan, I won't let anyone hurt you again." It's a promise that sounds like it's being molded by the hands of the gods. He has mistaken my horror of the memory for fear right now.
I flinch before I can stop myself, my body recoiling from his touch without conscious thought. The movement is instinctive, primal—every part of me that was violated, that was touched without permission, screaming warnings about hands reaching for me.
The hurt that flashes across his features is immediate and devastating. He stops mid-reach, his hand suspended in the air between us.
Tears begin streaming down my face—not just from the memories of assault, but from the impossible tangle of gratitude and fear and remembered rejection that tears at my chest. He saved me.
He fought monsters to bring me home. But he doesn't want this child, doesn't want the life we created together.
"You came for me," I whisper, my voice breaking on the words.
"Of course I came for you," he says, and there's something raw in his voice, something that speaks of terror barely survived. "I felt your fear, felt the baby's distress. I would have torn apart creation itself to find you."
"But you don't want this," I say, my hand pressing protectively to my belly as fresh tears fall. "You don't want us."
Confusion flickers across his features. "What are you talking about? Of course I want?—"
"That night," I interrupt, the words tumbling out between sobs. "When I asked about children. You looked at me like I was a monster for even suggesting it. You stepped away from me like I was something to fear."
"Your memories..." Kaan interrupts. I shake my head and back away from him, drawing my knees to my chest. "Only some."
Understanding dawns in his eyes, followed immediately by something that might be self-loathing. "Nesilhan, that wasn't... You don't understand?—"
He reaches for me again, and this time I can't stop the full-body flinch that runs through me. "Please don't," I whisper, pressing myself back against the pillows. "Please."
The words shatter something in his expression. He stops immediately, his hands falling to his sides as he watches me crumble with an expression of helpless anguish.
"I would never hurt you," he says quietly. "Never. What they did... I will kill them for it. I will tear them apart with my own hands."
"I know," I sob, because I do know. I can smell death on him, can see the evidence of violence in his stained clothes and haunted eyes. "I know you saved me. But you don't want this baby, and I can't..."
"That's not true," he says desperately. "Nesilhan, you have to listen to me?—"
"I remember," I cut him off, my voice breaking completely. "I remember the horror in your eyes. The way you couldn't get away from me fast enough when you realized what I was asking."
The silence that follows is deafening. He sits there, looking like I've just driven a blade between his ribs, and I can see him struggling with words that won't come.
Finally, he speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. "I was afraid."
"Of me?"
"Of myself." The admission seems torn from somewhere deep in his chest. "Of what I might do if I lost control again. Of becoming the monster who destroys everything he touches."
Him not wanting the baby, and what we just suffered, mingles together, and I draw my knees closer to my chest. Light flares up in the room again as my emotions clash.
I want him to hold me, but I also don't want him near me.
I want to hurt him, and I wield my words like a sword. "Where were you when we needed you?"
His eyes close briefly. "I got there as fast as I could."
Hysteria claws at my chest. "They hurt us." I roar, my hands running to my stomach.
His eyes snap open. "I know." His roar sends my light scattering, and the room drops in temperature. "I know what they did. I know I should have been there." He's panting, his gaze wild.
I bite my lip to try and hold back the waves of pain. "They hurt our baby." Tears pour down my face.
Kaan reaches for me, and I crawl into his lap. "You have to make them pay." Anger swirls and light bursts against darkness. "You need to make them pay." I sob.
"They will pay, I give you my oath, even if it costs me my last breath, every one of them will pay, hatun ."
I bury my head into his shoulder, my baby kicks in distress, and I know I need to calm down.
I shiver, and when I open my eyes, crystals have formed on every surface.
My emotions for Kaan are like a yo-yo. I want to take his pain away.
I lean back and look at him, taking his face in my hands.
I have no words left. He covers my hands with his and leans his forehead against mine, but I see something so broken in his gaze.
"You need to rest." He closes his eyes, and the room transforms, the frost leaving, the light returning like he is placing his own emotions into a box.
The baby kicks again, and when Kaan opens his eyes, I see the tears.
I watch one fall down his cheek, before he leans in and presses a kiss to my forehead. "Sleep, hatun ."
As he lays me back and sleep starts to take hold, I hear his final words.
"For what it's worth," he says quietly, "I've never wanted anything more than I want that child. Both of you. You're everything to me."
Sleep drags me under, and I find myself in a field of green, a soft breeze pressing against my face, and a sense of peace that I didn't know existed.