Page 37

Ada

I was halfway to his private wing when a hand caught my arm, dragging me into an alcove. “Bad idea, starlight,” Sarp murmured, and released me once we were hidden from passing guards. “Trust me.”

“I need to speak with him,” I insisted.

“No, you don’t.” Sarp’s usual sarcasm was absent, replaced by genuine concern. “He’s been drinking shadow spirits since he returned from seeing his father. He’s in a spectacularly foul mood.”

“Good.” I moved to leave, but Sarp blocked my path. “I mean good that he’s in a bad mood.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, voice dropping lower. “Hakan…isn’t himself when he drinks. The control he maintains so carefully? Gone.” His eyes held mine, uncharacteristically serious. “Those spirits are his darkness that rushes through his veins, freezing what little humanity he has left.”

A chill ran through me, but I pushed past him anyway. “I can handle him.”

“When he inevitably loses control, remember I warned you.” Sarp sighed dramatically. “Also, aim for his left side—an old injury that never healed properly.”

I found Hakan in his private gardens, a twisted Eden of shadow-blooms and ancient trees whose branches seemed to reach for me as if they were grasping fingers.

He sat on a stone bench, a bottle of dark liquid dangling from his fingers, head bowed.

Frost covered the ground at his feet, spreading outward with each passing moment.

“Come to gloat?” he asked, his voice slurred with drink.

“Celebrating something?” I countered, and took in the scene.

He laughed, the sound bitter and broken. “Mourning, actually.”

“Whose death?” I stepped closer. Something in his tone triggered unease that made my heart race.

“Yours.”

I went very still, my mind struggling to process what he’d just said. “What?”

He met my gaze, and in his eyes I saw something I’d never seen before—genuine anguish, the kind that came from having your soul torn apart.

“The Crown of Ashes Ritual, Ada. My father’s grand design.” He stood, and swayed slightly, moving toward me with that predatory grace that alcohol couldn’t quite suppress. “It requires your death.”

The pieces clicked together with horrible clarity—the binding, the timeline, his father’s interest in my bloodline. “I don’t understand,” I whispered, though I was beginning to.

“The winter solstice. Two weeks from now.” He caged me against the wall, his arms on either side of my head, his scent surrounding me—shadow spirits and darkness and despair.

“Your light will be consumed completely. Drained to strengthen the shadow realm and fulfill my father’s revenge against your father. ”

My legs went weak. Two weeks. Two weeks and then…nothing. All my plans to escape, to return to Kiraz, to build a life away from this nightmare—meaningless.

“And you…you knew this all along?” The betrayal cut deeper than any physical wound.

“I suspected. But I didn’t know for certain until today.” His voice was rough, broken. “My father made it very clear. Your death is not negotiable.”

“So that’s it?” My voice cracked despite my efforts to stay strong. “Two weeks and then…nothing?”

“Not nothing.” He rested his forehead against mine, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath, could feel the tremor in his hands. “Your essence will live on in the shadow realm. Part of the eternal darkness.”

“That’s not living,” I said, tears threatening. “That’s not life.”

“No,” he agreed, his voice barely above the whisper. “It’s not.”

We stood like that for a moment—destroyer and destroyed, bound together by magic and fate and something neither of us wanted to name.

The knowledge of my approaching death should have terrified me, should have sent me running.

Instead, it crystallized something I’d been fighting since my return to his life.

If I only had two weeks left, if this was truly the end of everything I'd ever be, then I needed to use every weapon at my disposal. His weakness had always been me—and the alcohol clouding his judgment made him vulnerable in ways his sober self never would be.

"Then make it worth something," I said quietly, my decision crystallizing into a cold strategy.

This was my chance to extract the truth—about alternatives to the ritual, about his real feelings, about anything that might save my life or help me escape.

I just had to be willing to use our history as leverage.

He stared at me through the haze of alcohol, blinking slowly as if trying to process my words. “Make what…worth something?” His voice was rough, confused, the shadows around him wavering as smoke in wind

“This.” I gestured between us, and stepped closer. “All of it. The time we have left.”

“Worth something?” He swayed slightly. “You want me to—what are you asking?” There was something lost in his expression, like he was grappling with a concept just beyond his intoxicated grasp. The shadows coiled tighter around him, responding to his inner turmoil rather than his conscious will.

I stepped closer, deliberately invading his space, knowing how much he used to love my scent. “Since I’m just a vessel to be drained,” I said, and watched his confusion deepen. “A stepping stone to your precious throne. Make these last weeks mean something more than that.”

He blinked at me, still processing through the alcohol’s haze. “Mean something more?” He shook his head slowly, as if trying to clear his thoughts. “I don’t…what do you want from me, Ada?” His voice was raw, confused. He swayed slightly, catching himself against the garden wall.

“What do I want?” I reached for the bottle in his hand, deliberately letting my fingers brush his, a jolt of electricity sparking where our skin met.

The binding flared, sending waves of heat through my body despite the chill of his shadows.

“I want to know that this”—I gestured between us—“meant something to you. That I wasn’t just a means to an end. ”

He didn't pull away from my touch, but his grip on the bottle tightened. His eyes struggled against revealing too much. "You think…" He stopped, and shook his head. "You think I don't care what happens to you?"

"Do you?" I took the bottle, and lifted it to my lips for a defiant sip. The liquid burned as liquid shadow, sending tendrils of cold fire down my throat. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you married me for a ritual that ends with my death."

He watched me drink with something that resembled anguish, his shadows danced at his fingertips restlessly.

"I married you because I wanted you back.

I remember loving you—Gods, I remember it so clearly it physically hurts.

But I also remember five years of being someone else, someone who found satisfaction in others' pain.

I don't know if I can be the man you loved again, or if I'm permanently the monster I became. "

“Then explain it to me.” I moved closer, close enough to smell the spirits on his breath and the darker scent of his magic. “Make me understand why my life has to be the price.”

“Because if I don’t, everyone dies. Everything ends.” He stumbled closer, his hands finding my shoulders, grip unsteady but desperate. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch you —” He stopped, and shook his head as if trying to clear it. “To know that every day brings you closer to…”

The knowledge of my approaching death should have terrified me, should have sent me running. Instead, it crystallized something I'd been fighting since my return to his life.

I stood there, weighing my options. Run, and likely die anyway when he caught me. Fight, and certainly die in the attempt. Or... use the one weapon I'd always had against him. The one thing that had always made him vulnerable.

My body. My touch. The memory of what we'd been. It felt like betrayal—of myself, of my principles, of everything I'd rebuilt after he'd destroyed me. But if I only had two weeks left, if this was truly the end of everything I'd ever be, then I needed to use every advantage I possessed.

“Then give me something real,” I whispered, and stepped into his space until we were barely inches apart. “Before it’s too late. Make these weeks count.”

His eyes widened slightly while understanding finally broke through the alcohol’s haze. “Ada…” His voice was rough, uncertain.

“I’m going to die anyway,” I said, my hands finding his chest. “At least let me feel alive first.”

Something snapped in his expression—the last of his restraint crumbling.

Part of me recoiled at using intimacy as a weapon, but desperation made monsters of us all.

If this could save my life or reveal information I needed, then I would pay whatever price my conscience demanded later.

His hands tangled in my hair, and he pulled me against him, his mouth crashing down on mine with desperate hunger.

This wasn’t like our previous encounters—this was rage and desire and darkness unleashed, demanding surrender and submission.

His hands gripped my face hard, and I wanted so much to pull away but couldn’t.

Hakan’s mouth brought back all the memories that I’d buried deep, creating a burning sensation between my legs.

I felt his rage in that kiss, spreading down to every cell in my body.

He made me lose the last bit of sanity that I held on to.

I bit his lower lip hard, my body almost levitating with desire, tasting copper and shadow. He growled against my mouth, hand tightening in my hair when he walked me backward until my spine hit the trunk of an ancient tree.

“Fuck Ada … I can’t stop now … I won’t,” he said, and his hand tore the front of my dress, exposing my breasts and hardened nipples. “Tell me you want this?”

“Yes” I said, not even thinking about the consequences at this point. I felt breathless with desire. I didn’t think I could survive this night if he didn’t let me come.