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“Because I—” He cut himself off, and turned away in frustration.

I grabbed his arm, pulling him back to face me. “Because you what, Hakan? Finish the sentence!”

“Because I can’t lose you again!” The words erupted from him, raw and unexpected. “I can’t watch you die knowing I could have prevented it!”

The confession echoed in the space around us, charged with everything we’d left unsaid. For a moment, the only sounds were the raging storm and our ragged breathing.

“You already lost me,” I said finally, my voice dropping. “Five years ago, when I walked away. When your ambition mattered more than whatever we shared.”

A shadow of pain crossed his features. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t remember every day what I sacrificed? What I lost?”

“Then why are we fighting about this?” I asked, suddenly tired. “Why does it matter to you whether I live or die, as long as your ritual succeeds?”

His eyes locked with mine, intense enough to burn. “Because despite everything that’s happened, despite what I did to you, despite the hatred between us now…” He hesitated, as if the words physically pained him. “I still can’t bear the thought of a world without you in it.”

The admission shocked us both. Hakan looked as if he wanted to snatch the words back, to bury them beneath his usual cold control. Instead, he backed away, his shoulders rigid with tension.

“Go to your chambers,” he said, his voice rough. “Stay there until we return.”

I reached for his arm again, prepared to resume our fight, but the moment I touched him, something unexpected happened.

A jolt of energy surged between us—not pure light, not shadow, but something different.

In the days we’d spent preparing for the alternative ritual, we’d noticed subtle changes when our magics interacted during the prescribed exercises—brief flashes of a different energy, neither light nor shadow. But nothing like this.

Where our magics met now, they didn’t cancel each other out but transformed, creating ribbons of twilight energy—a luminous purple-grey power that coiled around our joined flesh as living smoke. It pulsed with a rhythm that matched our heartbeats, growing stronger with each second of contact.

The ancient texts had mentioned this phenomenon—when shadow and light achieved perfect balance, they created twilight magic, neither consuming nor being consumed.

But the texts had warned that such magic was unstable, requiring precise emotional harmony between the wielders.

Too much anger or fear from either party could cause the energy to collapse back into opposing forces, potentially harming both magic users.

Hakan felt it, too. He froze, glancing down at where my fingers gripped his forearm.

“What was that?” he asked, momentarily distracted from our argument.

I shook my head, equally confused. “I don’t know.”

Experimentally, I tried to step away. The energy between us tightened into a physical cord, making separation painful. Hakan's eyes widened with understanding as I struggled to process what was happening.

"The binding," he muttered. "It's evolving."

"What do you mean?" I asked, still unable to break contact without discomfort.

"The ritual preparations," he explained, frustration evident in his voice. "The exercises we've been doing to align our magics. They're strengthening the binding beyond what I anticipated." He met my eyes. "It doesn't want us separated."

"It? The binding is sentient now?"

"Not sentient," he clarified. "But magical bindings have…inclinations. Purposes they work toward. This one draws power from both light and shadow—it seeks balance between opposite forces. Ours seems to be pushing for unity, not division."

I tried to step away again, wincing at the resulting feedback of magical energy. A visible arc of twilight power snapped between us in electric bursts. "So what, we're stuck together?"

A muscle worked in his jaw as he considered the implications. “It seems that way. At least temporarily.”

Understanding dawned, bringing with it a surge of triumph. “Which means I have to come with you to face Midas’s forces.” I couldn’t keep the satisfaction from my voice. “Unless you want to stay here, too.”

Hakan’s expression darkened. “This doesn’t change anything. The mission is too dangerous.”

“The mission is happening,” I countered, “and apparently, I’m coming with you whether you like it or not.”

Sarp moved from his corner, crossing to examine the magical connection between us.

“Fascinating. The ancient texts mentioned this possibility—opposing magics creating a third force when bound.” He poked at the twilight energy with a tendril of his own shadow, and yanked back when it snapped at him.

“This could actually be useful against Midas. His gold magic disrupts the shadow, but this…this is something he won’t expect. ”

We glared at each other, magical energy still crackling between us, neither willing to concede. Outside, the storm subsided, as if it had spent its fury alongside our own.

“Well,” Sarp continued with a smirk, “that was the most violently erotic argument I’ve ever witnessed. Should I leave you two alone to finish…whatever this is?” He gestured between us. “Because I’m sensing some unresolved tension that might be better addressed before we face potential death.”

Heat rushed to my cheeks. Hakan’s shadows lashed out, knocking over a chair near Sarp, who didn’t even flinch.

“We leave in twenty minutes,” Hakan growled, finally breaking eye contact with me. “Gear up. Stay close during the operation. One wrong move and I’ll drag you back here myself, binding be damned.”

He stalked toward the door, then paused. "We're going to the archives. Now. And Ada? If you get yourself killed during this fool's mission, I'll find a way to bring you back just so I can kill you myself."

With that parting threat, he swept from the room, leaving a trail of frost in his wake.

Sarp rose, and stretched lazily. “Just like old times, eh?”

“Shut up, Sarp,” I muttered, still processing what had just happened.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, his usual levity momentarily absent, “that binding might save our lives tonight. Midas isn’t expecting light magic, and whatever this twilight power is…” He shrugged. “It might be our edge.”

I glared at him but found it hard to maintain my anger in the face of his unexpected insight. “We’re not together as lovers.”

“Of course not,” he agreed, his tone making it clear he believed exactly the opposite. “Just two people magically bound together, fighting with the intensity of a thousand suns. Totally platonic.”

Left alone in the great hall, I touched my throat where Hakan’s hand had been—not hurting me, but claiming me, challenging me. The memory sent an unwelcome heat through my veins.

I hated him. I had to hate him, after what he’d done. After how he’d left me.

And yet a part of me had come alive during our confrontation, a part I’d thought long dead. The raw honesty of our clash had felt more real than anything I’d experienced in five years.

That was the true danger of Hakan—not his shadows, not his temper, but his ability to make me feel when I’d worked so hard to feel nothing at all.

I pushed the thoughts aside, focusing on the mission ahead. Midas’s forces. The border of the light realm. Fighting alongside the man who had broken my heart, bound to him by magic neither of us fully understood.

One battle at a time. I could hate Hakan tomorrow. Tonight, we had a war to fight.