Chapter 45 #2
"This is wrong," Elcin mutters, her blade now drawn. "The dungeons have been empty for years."
We find her in the deepest cell, exactly as I saw in the dream. Chained to the wall with her wings spread wide, her beautiful face streaked with tears as she struggles against silver restraints.
"Nesilhan!" she gasps with desperate relief. "Thank the gods you found me! They took me while you were sleeping—I tried to fight, but there were too many of them!"
"Stay back," Elcin commands, putting herself between me and the cell. "This doesn't feel right."
"It's Banu!" I protest. "She needs our help!"
"Who did this?" Elcin demands, not moving from her defensive position. "Who exactly took you?"
"Light Court agents," Banu sobs. "They said something about timing, about making sure Nesilhan couldn't interfere with their plans. Please, hurry—I think they're coming back!"
I push past Elcin despite her protests, golden light already flowing from my hands to dissolve the cell door. The ancient locks are no match for my magic.
"Nesilhan, don't—" Elcin starts, but I'm already rushing toward Banu's chained form.
My hands pass through her like smoke.
The illusion dissolves, leaving only empty chains. For a moment, we both stand frozen in shock.
"What the—" Elcin starts, then spins around, sword already drawn. "It's a trap. We need to leave. Now."
But before we can move, we hear it—soft crying from deeper in the dungeons, beyond a turn in the corridor we hadn't noticed before.
"That's her real voice," I whisper, recognizing the genuine distress. "She's really here somewhere."
"Or it's another illusion," Elcin warns, but she's already moving toward the sound, keeping me behind her.
We follow the crying through a narrow passage that opens into another cell block, older and darker than the first. There, in the furthest cell, is Banu—chained to the wall, her face streaked with real tears this time.
"Don't come closer!" she cries when she sees us. "It's a trap! They're using me as bait!"
But even as she warns us, I can see the blood on her wrists where she's been fighting against the chains, the exhaustion in her eyes.
"We can't leave her," I tell Elcin.
"I know," Elcin sighs, checking every corner before approaching. "But stay behind me."
This time when my golden light dissolves the chains, Banu collapses forward, solid and real in my arms.
"Are you hurt?" I ask, supporting her weight as she trembles against me.
"Just scared," she whispers, clinging to me. "So scared. The things they said they would do—" Her voice breaks, and she buries her face against my shoulder.
"It's alright now," I soothe, rubbing her back. "You're safe. We've got you."
Elcin approaches, her expression softer now. "Can you walk? We should get you to the healers, make sure you're not injured."
"I think so," Banu says, pulling back slightly to wipe her tears. "Just... dizzy. Everything feels strange." She sways on her feet, and I steady her.
"There's a bench here," Elcin notes, gesturing to an old stone seat against the cell wall. "Let her sit for a moment, catch her breath before we climb all those stairs."
I guide Banu to the bench, my arm around her waist as she leans heavily against me. "Here, sit down. Take your time."
As I'm helping her settle onto the bench, she suddenly pulls me into a fierce embrace, her arms wrapping around me with surprising strength.
"Thank you," she whispers against my ear, her voice strange—layered somehow. "I'm so sorry."
"Sorry for wh?—"
The blade slides into my belly in one smooth motion, aimed precisely at where my child grows, so fast and unexpected that for a moment I don't even understand what's happened. It's only when I feel the cold spreading from my womb, see Elcin's face transform from concern to horror, that I realize.
"I'm sorry," Banu whispers, still holding me close as if in comfort even as the blade twists deeper into my stomach. "I'm so sorry. Forgive me. Please forgive me."
"NO!" Elcin roars, ripping Banu away from me, her sword already drawn. But Banu—or whatever is wearing her face—dissolves into smoke and shadow, vanishing before Elcin's blade can find her.
I collapse against the stone bench, my hands instinctively flying to my stomach where the blade entered.
Blood—warm and thick—seeps between my fingers, but that's not what terrifies me.
It's the stillness where there should be movement.
The flutter of life that's been my constant companion for months has gone quiet.
"No, no, no," I whisper, pressing harder against the wound as if I could hold my child inside through sheer will. "Please, baby, please move. Please."
Elcin is already at my side, her hands glowing with golden light as she presses them against my belly. I can see her lips moving in desperate prayer, feel the heat of her magic trying to knit flesh back together, but the cold is spreading faster than she can heal.
"Don't you dare die," she snarls, but her voice cracks on the last word. "Don't you fucking dare. GUARDS! HEALERS! NOW!"
Through our bond, I feel Kaan's sudden alarm as my pain crashes across the distance between us. His rage ignites like a supernova, shaking the very foundations of reality. I can feel him racing back, shadows tearing through space itself in his desperation to reach me, but he's so far away. Too far.
Kaan, I send with failing strength. Not her fault—real Banu trapped—nest of stars ? —
But what I really want to say is: Our baby isn't moving.
"The baby," I gasp out loud, my voice barely a whisper as blood bubbles up in my throat. "I can't—I can't feel?—"
"Shh," Elcin says fiercely, tears streaming down her face as she pours more power into her healing. "Don't talk. Save your strength."
But I can see the truth in her eyes. She's checking with her magic, searching for that precious heartbeat, and the growing horror on her face tells me everything. The poison—whatever was on that blade—it's not just killing me. It's killing our child.
My chest heaves with a sob that sends agony through the wound. This can't be happening. Not after everything we've survived. Not when we were so close to happiness.
Footsteps thunder down the stairs—guards, healers, chaos erupting through the palace. Someone's screaming, and I realize it's me, a wounded animal sound of pure grief as I feel something fundamental breaking inside me. Not just my body. Something deeper.
"Please," I beg anyone who might be listening—gods, fate, the universe itself. "Take me instead. Please, just let my baby live. Please."
Elcin's hands are shaking now as more healers arrive, their combined magic flooding through me in waves of golden light. But the cold is winning. I can feel it creeping up from my womb, claiming territory with each heartbeat, turning everything to ice.
Through blurring vision, I see Elcin's face above me, streaked with tears and twisted with determination. "Hold on," she commands, but her voice is breaking. "That's an order, cousin. You hold on. Both of you."
I try. Gods, I try. My hands clutch at my belly, willing my child to move, to fight, to live. But there's only stillness and spreading cold and the terrible knowledge that I've failed the one person I was meant to protect.
I'm sorry, I think to the little life inside me. I'm so sorry I couldn't keep you safe.
The edges of my vision go dark. Sound becomes distant, muffled, like I'm sinking beneath black water.
The last thing I feel is Kaan's anguish through our bond, his soul-shattering scream echoing across impossible distance as he feels what I feel—the terrible, yawning possibility that when he arrives, there will be nothing left to save.
Then darkness claims me, and I'm falling into nothing, still clutching my silent womb, still praying for a miracle that feels impossibly far away.