Page 53

Hakan

B lood and smoke. The stench hit me first—copper and salt thick enough to coat my tongue, mingling with the electric tang of spent magic that sent my teeth aching. My shadow warriors moved silently as we approached the forest edge, their forms barely distinguishable from the darkness.

Something was wrong. The border conflicts had been escalating for months, but this…this felt orchestrated. A stage set for a performance I hadn't agreed to join.

"We shouldn't be here," I muttered, sweat trickling down my spine despite the cool air.

Ada stood beside me, her shoulders set in that stubborn line I knew too well. The light beneath her skin was dimmed but still visible, pulsing softly in rhythmic waves.

“Your intelligence said Midas’s forces were using this route,” she whispered, her fingertips brushing against mine, sending sparks through our connection.

Sarp materialized from the darkness. His eyes were narrowed to golden slits—a sign of concern I’d learned to read.

“Perimeter secured,” he reported. “No sign of gold troops. But there’s evidence of recent combat.” He gestured to the scorched earth. “Less than an hour old.”

The dread in my gut crystallized into certainty. “A trap,” I breathed.

Ada stepped forward before I could stop her, her light flaring while she extended her senses. The glow beneath her skin intensified, illuminating the fine bones of her face.

“There’s residual magic everywhere,” she murmured. Her eyes widened suddenly. “And something…corrupt.”

“Fall back,” I ordered, my throat tightening. “Now.”

“Wait—” Ada pointed toward a clearing ahead.

The world exploded in golden light.

The blast came without warning—a sun igniting at ground level. Trees disintegrated. Earth erupted in geysers of dirt and stone. The screams of my shadow warriors cut through the roar of destruction, then silenced with sickening abruptness.

Time slowed. I lunged toward Ada, shadows pouring from my hands, my heart, my very being. They coalesced into a shield around us both a heartbeat before the blast reached us.

The impact hurled us backward. My back slammed against an ancient oak, ribs cracking. Pain exploded along my spine. Ada crashed against my chest, her weight driving out what little air remained from my lungs. My shadows cushioned us, but still the world spun.

Dust filled my nose and mouth. For a moment, all I could do was cling to Ada, her heartbeat frantic against mine, her light pulsing in panicked bursts beneath her skin.

When my vision cleared, the forest had transformed into a hellscape. Burning trees stood as tortured sentinels. Cratered earth. The bodies of my warriors—my friends—strewn across scorched ground, their shadows wisping away as death claimed them.

Through the heat haze and smoke, a figure approached, gleaming with vengeful radiance.

Midas.

He'd changed. This creature striding through destruction moved with predatory grace, each step leaving molten footprints. His armor had fused with his flesh, becoming a second skin of living metal. Veins of gold pulsed beneath the surface in parasitic networks.

His eyes froze my blood—burning with unhinged glow, pupils contracted to pinpoints within irises of molten gold. No humanity remained in that gaze—only hunger, madness, and power gone feral.

"Shadow Lord!" he called, his voice carrying a metallic undertone that raised goosebumps. "So predictable! So easily manipulated!" Golden light cascaded from his fingertips in streams of liquid radiance. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice your spies?"

Beside me, Ada stiffened. Through our binding, I felt her fear—not for herself, but for us.

I pulled her behind me, shadows gathering into a defensive barrier.

Golden soldiers emerged from the smoke—dozens of them, their movements too fluid, too synchronized. Not individual warriors but extensions of Midas’s will.

“You never intended to invade the Light Court,” Ada said, her voice tight with fury. Small flames danced across her fingertips. “This was all to lure us here.”

“Very good, Princess!” Midas clapped, and produced a shower of golden sparks.

He gestured casually. Four of his soldiers collapsed to their knees, golden fire consuming them from within. Their screams tore through the air as armor melted into flesh, flesh into magic. The energy coalesced into a sphere hovering above his palm.

“You see,” he said, as if discussing politics over wine, “I need your binding. The power it will unlock when completed.”

He took a step closer.

“Don’t,” I warned Ada. “His magic is corrupted. Look at his skin.”

“He’s insane,” she whispered.

“Completely,” I agreed. “Which makes him dangerous.”

Without warning, Midas flung the sphere of stolen magic at us. I deflected it with a wall of shadows, but the explosion still threw us apart. Ada was sent sprawling to the left, while I was driven right.

“Separate them!” Midas commanded, and his soldiers moved with unnerving synchronization, forming two rings—one around Ada, one around me.

Golden chains materialized from the ground, wrapping around Ada’s wrists and ankles. She cried out when the metal seared her flesh, light flaring defensively.

“MIDAS!” My voice thundered through the clearing, and dropped the temperature by twenty degrees in an instant. The ground beneath me cracked and frosted over. My power surged. “Release her NOW!”

I didn’t wait for his response. Darkness exploded from me in a tidal wave of raw destructive force.

The shadows didn’t just move—they hunted, sentient in their rage.

They tore through the golden soldiers, not merely killing but obliterating them.

Bodies didn’t just fall—they disintegrated, reduced to particles and then to nothing. Darkness consumed them utterly.

The air itself seemed to darken around me, daylight receding as if frightened. Blood misted the air where my shadows struck, golden rather than red, evaporating into acrid smoke on contact with my power.

“You dare touch what’s mine?” My voice had changed, and resonated with the ancient power of all Shadow Lords before me.

The veins in my arms ran black beneath my skin when I accessed deeper, more primal shadow magic than I’d used in years.

“I will flay the gold from your bones and cast your soul into eternal darkness!”

I strode forward, not walked but stalked, each step leaving blackened earth in my wake. Soldiers that rushed me simply ceased to exist, their screams cut short while shadow consumed them. But still they came, still Midas conjured more, a lethal barrier forming between me and Ada.

Through our binding, I could feel Ada’s pain—the gold burning her skin, her light struggling against the foreign magic.

Her agony fueled my rage, shadows coalescing around me resembling a living armor, tendrils whipping outward with lethal precision.

I was no longer just Hakan, but the Shadow Lord in full might, unleashed.

“She’s quite magnificent,” Midas observed, and strolled toward Ada. His golden boots left molten footprints. “Gün Ata’s daughter. The last true light-bearer.” He reached out toward her cheek.

Before his fingers could make contact, a shadow tendril as thick as my arm lashed out, severing his hand at the wrist. Golden ichor sprayed across the clearing. Midas howled in shocked pain.

“Touch her and lose more than a hand,” I snarled, my voice deeper, distorted by the shadows swirling around me. “That was your only warning, Midas.”

The severed appendage dissolved into golden particles, and already a new hand was forming at the end of his wrist, gold magic reconstructing what he’d lost. His face contorted with rage, the madness in his eyes burning hotter.

“You think to challenge me? ME?” he screamed, spittle mixing with molten gold at the corners of his mouth. “I am becoming a GOD!”

“You’re becoming nothing but a memory,” I countered, and drew more darkness to me. The shadows of the entire forest seemed to bend toward me, feeding my power.

Midas gestured violently, and his remaining soldiers charged at once. Twenty, thirty golden warriors converging on me from all directions.

I didn’t move. Didn’t have to.

With a thought, I condensed shadow into armor that covered me from head to toe, ancient patterns appearing in the darkness—the ceremonial battle garb of the first Shadow Lord.

Then I extended my hand, and darkness coalesced into a massive blade of pure shadow-stuff, drinking in all light that touched it.

The first soldier reached me. I moved with preternatural speed, the shadow blade cleaving through golden armor as if it were paper. The second and third fell just as quickly, their bodies crumbling into dust before they hit the ground.

“Is this the best you can do?” I taunted Midas while I carved through his forces, each strike precise and devastating. “Send children against me while you hide behind your corruption?”

But they kept coming, an endless wave of golden puppets.

For every five I destroyed, Midas formed ten more, each one drawing from his seemingly limitless reserves of corrupted power.

Sweat beaded on my brow. I maintained the shadow armor, each soldier I destroyed requiring energy I couldn’t afford to spend.

Midas knew it, too. His manic smile returned when he saw me falter for just a moment, a split second where my blade moved a fraction slower than before.

“Tiring already, Shadow Lord?” he called, and circled around toward Ada again. “Your father would be disappointed. Erlik would have leveled this entire forest by now.”

“I’m not my father,” I growled. I decapitated three soldiers with a single sweep of my blade.

“No,” Midas agreed, his voice dropping to a dangerous purr. “You’re weaker. Softer. Tainted by love.” He pressed his palm to Ada’s sternum. “Shall we see what happens when I extract her light?”