Page 29

H akan

The sight of the assassin’s blood on my clothes—Ada’s blood—triggered the memory without warning, as vivid as if it had happened yesterday instead of five years ago.

I’d found her at a tavern near the docks—beautiful, willing, and completely forgettable. A few charming words, a flash of gold, and she'd followed me home with eager anticipation, already imagining whatever fantasy she'd constructed about bedding a man of my obvious wealth and power.

I hadn’t bothered to learn her fucking name.

“Strip,” I’d ordered the moment we entered mine and Ada’s bedchamber, the same room where my fated mate would be arriving within the hour. The same bed where I’d held Ada just the night before, where I made love to her and whispered promises of forever that I’d had every intention of keeping.

Until the shadow messenger had arrived, revealing the full truth of what my heritage would cost.

Ada had been there when I’d learned I was Erlik’s son.

Had held my hand through the initial shock, had wiped away my angry tears when I’d discovered my entire life had been a lie.

She’d been supportive, loving, convinced that we could face this new reality together.

She was everything that I ever wanted and more.

We had known each other since we were young, and I had always known she was Gün Ata’s daughter—we’d grown up together in the borderlands where light and shadow territories met.

But now that knowledge has become a deadly secret.

It was time to let her go. Ada needed to be protected because I didn’t trust Erlik.

In his message, he’d claimed my mother had run away from him and never told him she was pregnant with his child, but I knew he would view my love for the daughter of his ancient enemy as the ultimate weakness—and the ultimate opportunity for revenge.

What Erlik didn’t know yet was Ada’s true parentage.

That secret had been carefully guarded by both our families, but I knew it was only a matter of time before he discovered it.

When he did, he would see her not as my weakness, but as his greatest prize.

Love made me vulnerable—a liability Erlik couldn’t afford in his heir.

She couldn’t remain by my side when I claimed my birthright.

I hadn’t told her when I’d discovered it all. I couldn’t bear to see the fear replace her love. And so I’d made the decision alone—to save her by breaking her heart so completely she’d never look back.

The woman had smiled, mistaking my coldness for passion, my abruptness for desire.

The dress had slipped from her shoulders with practiced ease, revealing a body that should have tempted me but left me hollow.

I'd forced myself to appear appreciative, to gesture toward the bed with a smirk that burned bitter on my lips.

I fucking loved Ada more than I loved myself, but I knew I had to choose.

The shadow power called to me, promised me greatness, and I told myself that claiming it would give me the strength to protect her from a distance.

In that moment, I chose power, convincing myself it was the only way to keep her safe from what I was about to become.

“Aren’t you going to join me?” she’d purred, stretching across the sheets where Ada’s scent still lingered.

Ada always made me lose control so easily. She was also the only one who could calm me down. But the woman before me now was nothing more than a means to an end.

"Eager, aren't we?" I challenged.

She giggled with fucking childish delight.

I stripped and slipped under the covers.

I brought her close to me and kissed her, still drowning in Ada’s scent.

It had been a necessary move—I had already sensed Ada approaching, and this had to seem real.

The woman moaned into my mouth, and for a second, I imagined that I held Ada when the door of our bedchamber opened.

I pushed off the woman and glanced toward the doorway, where the woman who filled my days with light stood frozen.

The moment she saw me, the light had died in her eyes.

Not gradually, not sputtering to darkness—but instantly, catastrophically extinguished.

She’d stood frozen, her skin ashen, the basket she’d been carrying—probably containing the lunch she’d planned to surprise me with—crashing to the floor.

For one terrible moment, silence had filled the space.

Then came the scream. Not of anger or even shock, but of pure, primal agony.

The sound of something vital being ripped away.

It had cut through me more painfully than any blade, embedding itself in my soul where I knew it would echo for eternity.

I didn’t fucking expect her to feel this pain, her pain, and it was agonizing.

Her anguish mirrored my own, buried beneath my carefully constructed facade.

As she stood there, shattered by my betrayal, I forced myself to look annoyed rather than devastated.

It was the hardest performance of my life, but I had to see it through.

For her sake. For power. For the destiny I’d never asked for but couldn’t escape.

“Hakan!”

Sarp’s voice dragged me back to the present. To the chamber beneath the palace, where darkness regained eternal, and the air tasted of fear and metal.

“What?” I snarled and blinked away memories that had no place here.

What the fuck was wrong with me? She was supposed to mean nothing to me, and yet I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since the wedding.

The lie tasted bitter even in my mind. If she meant nothing, I wouldn’t be standing here covered in her blood, wouldn’t have just prepared to shatter a man’s mind for daring to touch her.

“You were somewhere else,” Sarp observed, his expression carefully neutral. “And our guest is getting impatient.”

The assassin hung suspended in the center of the room, bound by shadows that pulsed with cruel power.

Blood dripped from numerous shallow cuts, each methodically placed to cause maximum pain with minimal damage.

His mask had been removed, revealing a face that might have been handsome once, before fear and pain had twisted it.

“Fuck you both,” the man gasped, blood bubbling between his lips. “The Crown of Shadow and Ashes won’t get anything from me.”

I approached slowly, letting my shadows trail around me, tasting his fear.

My shadows could taste his emotional attachments—the desperate love for someone named Ayfet—but extracting specific memories required breaking down his mental defenses first. Surface emotions were easy to read; buried secrets needed coaxing through pain.

“You’ve spilled enough already,” I lied, and watched his eyes widen slightly. “I just want to confirm a few minor details.”

“I’ve said nothing!”

“Haven’t you?” I smiled, and he flinched as though I’d struck him.

“You’ve told me you’re not a common assassin.

Your accent, your bearing, your technique—you’re court-trained.

A shadow noble’s personal killer.” I let my power brush against his skin, freezing and burning simultaneously.

Part of me—the part corrupted by years of shadow magic—wanted to fucking torture him until he would beg for mercy.

But as I looked at the evidence of Ada’s blood still staining my clothes, that savage impulse warred with something deeper, something that remembered what she’d once meant to me.

“You’ve told me this was no random attack. My wife was the specific target.”

“I don’t?—”

My hand shot out, shadows extending from my fingertips to pierce his shoulder, driving into the joint with ruthless efficiency. His scream echoed off the stone walls.

“Interrupt me again,” I said conversationally, “and I’ll take your tongue.

Not cut it out—that’s crude. I’ll dissolve it from the inside out, nerve by nerve, until you feel every cell die individually.

” I withdrew the shadow-blade and left a perfectly cauterized wound that would provide no relief through blood loss.

“Now, as I was saying. You came for my wife specifically. The question is…who sent you?”

The assassin spat blood onto the floor between us. “Fuck you!”

“I have a better idea.” I nodded to Sarp, who stepped forward with a small silver box. “But first, I want to show you something.”

Sarp opened the box, revealing a small black stone that pulsed with sickly energy.

“Do you know what this is?” I enjoyed the flash of recognition in the assassin’s eyes. “Yes, I see that you do. And I also know about your beloved Ayfet. She’s so beautiful.”

His eyes widened with fear. My shadows had tasted that attachment, that desperate love that made him vulnerable.

“Stay away from her,” he snarled, voice filled with fear.

“It’s a soul-trap. Ancient magic, forbidden even in the shadow realms. It can rip a soul from a living body and trap it for eternity.” I lifted the stone and watched it writhe between my fingers. “I don’t need to wait for her to die naturally.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he whispered, but doubt had crept into his voice. “Even you wouldn’t break that taboo.”

“For her?” I leaned close and let him see the truth in my eyes. “I would tear apart the fabric of reality itself. A minor taboo like soul-trapping doesn’t even register.”

The soul-trap was my ultimate weapon, but using it too soon would make him shut down completely. Fear needed to build slowly—desperation made tongues loose, but pure terror made them silent.

"Hakan," Sarp interjected with caution, sensing the dangerous shift in my mood. "Perhaps we should?—"

"Leave us," I ordered, not taking my eyes off the assassin. "Now."

"No." Sarp seldom defied me so directly, and the single word hung in the air between us.

I turned with deliberate slowness, shadows coiling around me as agitated serpents. "What did you say?"