Chapter 23 #2
"You're clearly not fine, but I appreciate the commitment to the lie.
" He fell into step beside me as I walked toward the main building.
"So. Three days. Mysterious disappearance.
Shadows acting weird." He gestured at the darkness pooling at my feet.
"There's an order being circulated — something about a shadow-wielder who slaughtered twelve attackers in the Border Forest. Council's very interested in identifying this mysterious figure.
" His voice dropped, losing its teasing edge.
"Wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you? "
I stopped walking. "What exactly do you know?"
"Enough." His eyes were sharp beneath the casual facade.
"I've been watching you for months, Hakan.
The gloves. The way you flinch when you're angry, like you're holding something back.
The night Tahir died in the forest." He held up his hands when I tensed.
"I'm not afraid of you. Just concerned. There's a difference. "
"I found out that I inherited my shadows from Erlik. My father."
The words came out before I could stop them. Sarp went very still.
"Fuck."
"That about sums it up."
Sarp was quiet for a long moment, processing. Then: "Is that why the warrant got dropped? Because Gün Ata found out you're basically shadow royalty and decided to keep his enemies close?"
"Probably. I don't know his game yet."
"And your mother?"
"Doesn't remember. Erlik altered her memories. She thinks we were hiding in the mortal realms."
"But you weren't."
"No."
Another pause. Then Sarp reached out and clapped me on the shoulder, his grip firm. "Well. This certainly explains your personality. Nature versus nurture and all that — turns out you're genetically predisposed to being an intimidating bastard."
A laugh escaped me, unexpected and genuine. "That's your takeaway?"
"I'm processing. Give me a minute." He squeezed my shoulder once more before letting go.
"Look, whatever happened in Kara Cehennem — and I'm assuming it was bad, because your face does this thing when you're holding something ugly inside — you're not alone in this.
Ada's been searching for you for three days straight.
She's barely slept. And I've been fielding questions from approximately everyone about where you disappeared to.
" He grinned. "I told them you were on a spiritual retreat to contemplate your many flaws. Very believable."
"I need to find her."
"She's in the palace library. Been practically living there since you vanished." His expression softened. "Go. Talk to her. And Hakan? Try not to be a complete ass about whatever you're hiding. She deserves better than your protective bullshit."
I found Ada in the oldest wing of the palace library, surrounded by towering shelves of crystal and ancient texts. She sat at a study table, books spread around her, dark circles under her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights.
She looked up when I approached, and her face —
Gods, her face. The relief that cracked across it, the way her eyes filled with tears she was too proud to let fall, the trembling of her lower lip before she pressed them together.
"Hakan." My name was barely a whisper.
"Ada."
She was on her feet in an instant, crossing the distance between us, and then she was in my arms and I was holding her and everything else fell away — the horror of Kara Cehennem, the deal I had made, the impossible weight settling into my bones.
There was only her warmth, her light, the rapid beating of her heart against my chest.
"Three days," she said into my shoulder, her voice thick. "Three days and no one knew where you were and I thought — I thought he'd taken you forever —"
"I'm here." I pulled back enough to see her face, brushing the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs. "I'm here, starlight."
"What happened?" Her hands gripped my shirt like she was afraid I'd disappear again. "The portal closed and Milan couldn't find you and I tried everything, every tracking spell I know, but you just vanished —"
"The portal went wrong." The lie tasted like ash. "We ended up in the mortal realms. Had to lay low until we found a way back."
Ada went still.
Not the stillness of someone accepting an answer. The stillness of someone deciding what to do with the answer they've been given.
"The mortal realms," she said.
"The portal scattered us. Milan didn't know where we ended up."
She looked at me for a long moment. I watched her read my face the way she always read it — methodically, thoroughly, the way she read everything — and I watched her find what she was looking for and set it aside.
Not because she believed me. I could see she didn't believe me.
She had never been easy to lie to, not even when we were young, and whatever I'd become in the last three days had apparently made me worse at hiding things, not better.
"And Erlik?" she said.
"I met him. In the shadow paths, before the portal scattered us. He wanted me to come to Kara Cehennem and claim my birthright." I let the contempt in my voice be real, because that part at least was. "I refused."
"You refused the God of the Underworld."
"I told him I have a life here. People I care about." I pressed my forehead to hers. "He wasn't happy. But right now, I'm here. With you."
She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was careful in a way that meant she was being very deliberate about every word.
"Don't ever disappear on me like that again."
"Ada —"
"I'm not asking you to tell me everything right now.
" Her hands tightened in my shirt. "I'm not — I know there's something you're not saying, Hakan.
I'm not blind and I'm not stupid and I know your face better than I know my own.
" She pulled back enough to look at me directly, and her eyes were dry now, the tears burned off by something steadier and harder.
"But I also know that you came back. You're here, and you came back, and whatever happened in those three days — you chose to come back.
" Her jaw set. "So I'm going to give you the space to tell me yourself.
When you're ready. But when you are ready, you tell me everything.
Not the version you think I can handle. Everything. "
I looked at her — the gold of her eyes, the particular set of her chin when she had decided something — and felt the lie sit in my chest like a stone.
"Together," I heard myself say. "We'll face it together."
She held my gaze for one more moment, making sure I understood that she'd heard exactly what I hadn't said.
Then she pulled me back in and held on, and I pressed my face into her hair and made myself memorize the way she felt — warm and certain and entirely herself — because I knew exactly what was coming.
I had agreed to it. I had looked a god in the eye and said yes, and the price of that yes was standing in my arms right now, trusting me, giving me space to tell the truth, and I was going to break her heart because the alternative was watching her die.
I held on tighter.
And I began to mourn what I hadn't lost yet.