Page 21

His eyes were completely black. Not just the pupils—everything. The whites, the irises, all of it consumed by shadow until nothing remained but empty, endless voids staring at nothing while his small body rocked and rocked and rocked.

“Mama,” he whispered to the darkness. “Mama, it hurts. Make it stop hurting.”

The broken plea shattered something fundamental inside me. Not just my heart—something deeper, something that connected me to every mother who had ever lived, ever loved, ever lost a child to monsters who saw innocence as raw material.

My legs gave out. I crashed to my knees before the barred door, clutching the iron so tightly that my knuckles went white.

This is what they do here. This is what Hakan’s world creates.

These weren’t just random victims. Looking at them—really seeing them—I realized they’d been chosen with care. Their ages, their sizes, even their coloring seemed deliberate. They were all the perfect age to be my daughter.

If Hakan ever found out about Kiraz…

The thought illuminated terrifying possibilities I’d never allowed myself to consider. What if this wasn’t random? What if they were looking for her?

The rage started as a flicker, deep in my chest. A tiny flame of fury that began to grow, fed by every detail I absorbed, every face I memorized, every evidence of suffering I witnessed.

These were someone's babies. Someone's whole world. And they had been treated as disposable objects, harvested as fuel for dark magic.

No more.

I rose to my feet, my light magic responding to my emotional state, radiance burning beneath my skin. The rage that had been building now crystallized into something pure and deadly.

Light exploded outward from my skin, blasting the inner door off its hinges with a sound of thunder.

The metal shrieked when it tore apart, pieces flying across the room.

Both men in the laboratory cried out in shock and terror as they were knocked backward, crashing into tables of equipment that shattered under their weight.

“WHO AUTHORIZED THIS?” I roared, my voice echoing off the stone walls with inhuman power. The light pouring from me was no longer gentle warmth—it was the fury of a star going supernova, white-hot and merciless.

One of the men scrambled backward on his hands and knees, his face a mask of terror. “L-Lady Ada, please?—”

“ANSWER ME!” I advanced on him, light magic crackling around my fingers. “Who gave you permission to torture children? Who ordered this atrocity?”

“L-Lord Azad.” He cowered against the wall. “The vessels are being prepared for a ceremony to please Lord Erlik?—”

The rage reached a breaking point. Light magic erupted from my hands, forming ropes of searing energy that wrapped around both men forming into burning chains. They screamed when the magic touched them, leaving angry red marks on their skin.

“These are CHILDREN!” I shrieked, my voice breaking with the force of my fury.

“CHILDREN! BABIES!” Each word was punctuated by another flare of power, another tightening of the bonds.

“They have mothers who love them! Fathers who would die for them! And you—you MONSTERS—you turned them into experiments!”

“Please, my lady, we were only following orders?—”

“FOLLOWING ORDERS?” I was beyond reason now, beyond control. The protective fury of every mother who had ever lived coursed through me, demanding justice, demanding blood. “You were following orders to torture BABIES?”

“Necessary…necessary sacrifices,” the second man wheezed, his words barely audible. “The prophecy requires…vessels of innocence…”

That did it. The last thread of my restraint snapped.

“NECESSARY?” I screamed, and the very air around me ignited with pure light. “SACRIFICES?”

I lifted both men off the floor with my magic, their feet dangling while they choked and burned in my grip. For a moment—just one crystalline moment—I wanted to kill them. I wanted to watch life leave their eyes, wanted to make them pay with their blood for every tear these children had shed.

But then I heard it—a tiny, frightened whimper from behind me. It must have been one of the children, scared by the violence, and by the fury radiating from me.

The sound sliced through my rage with shocking clarity. These babies had seen enough violence, enough horror. They didn’t need to watch me become another monster, no matter how righteous my anger.

I forced myself to pull back, to contain the inferno burning inside me. But I didn’t release the men entirely. They hung suspended in my magical grip, gasping and burned but alive.

I shattered the cell locks with light magic and approached the black-eyed boy. Despite everything they’d endured, when he looked up at me, his words still carried hope.

“Are you…here to help us?”

“Yes,” I promised, and knelt to his level despite the shadows writhing around him. “Who took you?”

“The man with the black eyes. He came while we were sleeping.”

Azad. My hands clenched into fists.

“Did he speak of why you were chosen?” I asked, though I dreaded the answer.

The boy stopped rocking, his black gaze fixing on me with disturbing intensity. “He said we were special. Chosen.” His voice carried the careful cadence of someone reciting memorized words. “He said we would become vessels for the Dark Lord’s glory and help him overthrow the false heir.”

False heir.

The words slammed into my consciousness, each syllable carrying implications. My blood ran cold.

This wasn’t just torture. This wasn’t even just experimentation. This was preparation for war.

Azad wasn’t just corrupting children for cruelty’s sake—he was building an army. An army of innocents twisted into weapons, their pure souls perverted into tools of destruction. And that army was meant to be used against Hakan.

Which meant this was treason of the highest order.

I looked at these babies—someone’s Kiraz, someone’s whole world—and something fundamental shifted inside me. These monsters had declared war on innocence itself.

“How many of you were there originally?” I asked.

“Thirteen,” the girl with blonde curls whispered. “But some…some went to sleep and didn’t wake up. The shadows ate them all the way.”

Dead. Some of these children were dead.

“Listen to me,” I said, and addressed all the children. “I’m going to get help. Real help. People who can heal you, who can make the shadows go away.”

“Promise?” The girl pressed closer to the bars.

“I promise,” I said, and meant it with every fiber of my being. “I’m going to make sure the people who did this to you can never hurt anyone else ever again.”

I turned to the conscious prisoner, strengthening his bonds. “You’re coming with me,” I told him, my voice deadly calm. “The Shadow Court needs to see what’s been happening beneath their feet.”

The man whimpered, but I felt no pity. Not for someone who could look at children like these and see only raw material for dark magic.

Not for someone who had helped turn babies into weapons of war.