Chapter 5 #2
That was when I felt it. The prickle at the back of my neck. The weight of a gaze, heavy as a hand.
I looked up.
Hakan stood across the courtyard, half-hidden by a marble column, wine cup in his hand. He wasn't looking at the festival. He wasn't looking at the lanterns or the dancers or the crowd of nobles preening in their gold.
He was looking at us. At me. At Sarp's arm near mine, at the smile still fading from my face.
Even from this distance, I could see the scar on his jaw. My scar. And the look in his eyes — not cold, not controlled. Something raw and wild and barely leashed. Like Sarp's arm near mine was killing him slowly.
Then he turned and walked away. Toward the eastern edge of the palace, where the gardens grew dark and the lanterns thinned and nobody went unless they wanted to be alone.
My chest did something complicated.
"Ada?" Sarp's voice, careful. He'd seen Hakan too. "You alright?"
"Fine." I wasn't fine. My heart was beating too fast and my magic was flaring under my skin. "I need some air."
"You're standing outside. There's quite a lot of air available."
"Different air." I pulled away from the fountain. "I'll be back."
Sarp caught my wrist. Gently. The gentleness was what stopped me.
"Ada." His eyes were sharp beneath the easy manner. He knew exactly where I was going. "Be careful with him tonight. He's been drinking, and Hakan when he's drunk is —"
"I know what he is."
He held my gaze. Then he let go. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I know you do."
I walked away from the fountain, away from the music and the golden light and Sarp's worried eyes, and followed Hakan into the dark.
I found him at the eastern edge of the Light Palace, half-hidden by shadow. His wine cup was nearly empty, and from the flush on his neck and the unsteadiness when he shifted his weight, it wasn't his first. Or his third.
He saw me approaching and his expression shuttered. Not his usual cold mask — that was smooth, controlled. This was messier. Rawer.
And there — the scar. Running from his chin to the hollow beneath his ear, raised and angry, the skin still faintly pink. My handprint, written in light.
He caught me looking. His fingers drifted to the mark and something dark flickered across his face.
"Funny," he said. His words slurred slightly. "I could've sworn you were busy. Looked cozy by that fountain. Sarp buying you drinks now? Walking you through the gardens? Didn't take him long."
"Jealous?" The word came out before I could stop it.
"Of Sarp?" He laughed — ugly, hollow. "Please. The man couldn't hold your attention for five minutes without a script."
"He held it for an hour. Without cruelty, without insults. He actually apologized for the way you've both treated me. Which is more than you've ever done."
Something flinched behind his eyes. "How touching. Did he mention he spent three years helping me make your life hell? Or did that not come up between the wine and the witty banter?"
"It came up. He owned it. That's the difference between you and him."
"The difference between me and him," Hakan said, pushing off from the wall and stepping toward me, "is that he's performing, and you're too desperate for someone to be kind to you to see it."
The words landed like a slap. Because there was a splinter of truth in them — I had been so starved for basic decency that an evening of Sarp not being cruel had felt like sunlight after a long winter, and the fact that Hakan could see that, could identify the exact shape of my loneliness and use it against me —
"Ferit is going to be executed." I seized the anger before the hurt could swallow me. "You know that, don't you? You got what you wanted at the market, and now he's going to die for words you put in his mouth."
"Got proof of that?"
"I don't need proof. I know you."
"No." He drained his cup and tossed it aside. "You knew me. Past tense. You told me at the market that you hated me. I told you then — the feelings are mutual."
But that felt distant now — overshadowed by what had happened since. The corridor. His body caging mine against cold stone. His voice dropping to that register that scraped against something raw inside me while a girl screamed two floors below.
"And the corridor?" I said. "After Selim's class? Was that hatred too?"
Something shifted in his face. Quick, shuttered. "That was a mistake."
"You pinned me against a wall."
"You burned my face off." He gestured at the scar. "I'd say we're even."
"We are not even. You know what you said to me in that corridor."
"I said a lot of things. Doesn't mean any of it matters.
" He stepped closer. "What matters is you came here instead of staying with Sarp.
You had wine and laughter and a man who was actually being decent to you, and you walked away from all of it to follow me into the dark.
" His gaze dropped to my mouth and my heart stammered.
My light started dancing on my shoulders — it always happened when he was close, our magic bouncing off each other. "What does that tell you, starlight?"
"Don't call me that."
"Why? Does it remind you of before — when we were kids in the borderlands and you used to look at me like a lovesick fool? Before I ruined it?"
"You're drunk."
"Not drunk enough." His hand came up, hovering near my face without touching. Trembling slightly. "If I were drunk enough, I wouldn't care that you left him to come find me."
"You reckless, stupid —" My voice shook. "Do you have any idea what could have happened if you'd been caught? You risked everything for —"
"For what?" He leaned in, wine and something darker. "Say it, Ada."
"For petty revenge."
"Petty." His smile was vicious. "Maybe I just don't like competition. Can't have other people calling you a whore when I've been working so hard to earn the privilege myself."
I slapped him. My palm ignited with light magic — the same way it had in the corridor, my power reacting to my fury before I could leash it.
The crack echoed through the garden. His head barely turned. Something that looked like satisfaction flickered in his eyes.
"There she is," he said softly. "The girl who burns first and thinks later."
"Why are you so cruel? What did I ever do to you?"
"You existed. That's been enough." He backed me toward the tree, slow and deliberate, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
"You don't even hate me properly. You keep trying to understand me instead.
It's exhausting to watch." His gaze dropped to my mouth.
"I know you're furious right now. I know your heart's racing.
I know you left Sarp to come find me." Back up to my eyes. "What does that tell you?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't.
"Then go back to him." His voice dropped.
"Go back to the fountain and the man who combed his hair for you.
Let him court you properly. Let him buy you jasmine from the night market and be everything I'm not.
" A beat. His jaw worked. "Go back, Ada.
" His voice cracked on my name. "Go back to someone who won't destroy you. "
"You risked everything—"
"For you." He said it like a curse. Like something being torn out of him. "I risked everything because that drunk piece of shit called you a whore and I couldn't—" He stopped. Pressed his mouth together. "I couldn't let it stand."
"Why?" Too raw. Too desperate. I knew how I sounded and I couldn't stop. "Why do you care? You've spent years making it clear—"
"Because I can't stop." The words came out wrecked, stripped of everything.
"That's the answer. That's all of it. I cannot stop.
" He closed his eyes. When he opened them again they were dark and wild and exhausted.
"I hate that I can't stop thinking about you.
I hate that I lie awake remembering how you used to look at me before I ruined it.
I hate that some drunk bastard can say your name and I want to burn everything to the ground.
" His voice dropped to almost nothing. "I hate that nothing I do changes what I feel.
I have tried. I have tried for years, Ada. "
"You said you hated me," I whispered. "You said the feeling was mutual."
"I do hate you." Rough. Raw. Like the words had been dragged out of him. "And no one speaks to you that way. Not while I'm breathing. Those two things are both true and I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with any of this."
"So you defend me and then push me away—"
"Yes." No hesitation. "Because the alternative is worse.
" His laugh came out bitter. "I'd do it again.
I'd do worse. I'd burn down every room you've ever been humiliated in and I'd feel nothing about it except relief.
" He looked at me like I was something he couldn't solve.
"And then I'd still push you away. Because you should go back to Sarp. You should go back right now."
I should have. The warm eyes and the apology and the careful, uncomplicated kindness were twenty feet away.
I didn't move.
He was going to kiss me. I could see it in every line of his body, in the tension coiling through him like a spring about to break.
Part of me had wanted this for years. I had dreamed about it and hated myself for dreaming.
Then he stepped back. Jerked away like I'd burned him.
"Go back to your festival." Flat. Cold. The mask slammed back into place. "Go back to Sarp."
"Don't you dare —"
"Go, Ada." Desperate. "Before I do something we'll both regret."
"Like what?" I grabbed his shirt. Fisted my hands in the fabric and yanked him back. "Like admitting you still give a shit about me? Like showing me you're not the heartless bastard you pretend to be?"
"You don't know what you're asking for."
"Then tell me. Tell me why you really got him arrested. Tell me why you risk everything for someone you claim to hate. Tell me —"
He kissed me.
Desperate and hungry and nothing like gentle. His hand cupped my face while the other braced against the tree, and he kissed me like he'd been starving for it. Like he'd been holding back for months and couldn't anymore. Like this might be the only chance he ever got.
I kissed him back just as desperately. Pulled him closer and opened for him and gods, this was madness but I didn't care, didn't care about anything except the taste of him and the heat and the way his body pressed against mine like he was trying to crawl inside my skin.
Then our magic connected.
Light poured out of me into him — divine energy flooding through the connection between our mouths, our bodies, our souls. And something rose up to meet it. Something dark. Something that felt like void, like the space between stars, like shadows given form and hunger.
The collision was violent. Wrong. My light magic slammed into his and both of us gasped as the energies twisted together, fought each other, tried to find some impossible balance.
He tore away with a gasp. Stumbled back, eyes wide, and I saw it — darkness flickering across his hands like living smoke. There and gone so fast I might have imagined it, but the smell of char lingered. The smell of something burning.
"What —" I reached for him, but he flinched back.
"Don't." His voice shook. "Don't touch me. Don't —" He looked at his hands like they belonged to someone else. Like they'd just done something monstrous. "This was a mistake."
"Hakan —"
"Go back to your father, Ada." He wouldn't look at me. "Go back to the light where you belong. And stay the fuck away from me."
"What just happened? What was that?"
"Nothing." But his hands were still trembling. Still smoking faintly. "It was nothing. Just — go. Please."
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me —"
"I said GO!"
The shout echoed through the garden. Shadows exploded around him — actual shadows, pooling at his feet, crawling up the tree behind him, making the lanterns flicker and dim.
I stumbled back. Stared at him. At the darkness that shouldn't be possible, not here, not in someone apprenticed to the Light Court.
"Why have you got shadows Hakan?" I whispered.
He laughed. It sounded broken. "I don't know. But you should run, starlight. Forget this ever happened."
He turned and walked away, shadows trailing after him like a cloak. Like they were part of him. Like they'd always been there, waiting for the right moment to show themselves.
I stood there alone, hands shaking, mouth still burning from his kiss. My light magic was rioting under my skin, reaching for something that was no longer there. Reaching for the darkness that had answered it. That had felt like —
No.
I touched my lips. Tasted wine and shadow and something that might have been ash.
Somewhere above us, a branch cracked. I looked up.
A single bough of the old oak had caught — just the tip, barely a flame, gold and violet flickering along the bark where our magic had bled together.
It burned for a handful of seconds, then died, leaving a thin curl of smoke and the smell of scorched wood hanging in the air.
Above me, golden lanterns swayed in the breeze.
In the distance, music started. Drums and strings and voices raised in celebration of light's eternal victory over shadow.
And I wondered what we'd just unleashed.
What we'd just become.