There's a weight to those words—a history I don't possess. A relationship that exists in the space between them, built on decades or centuries of connection I can't fathom. She called her "little spark." The diminutive is familiar, intimate in a way that speaks of childhood pet names and memories I have no right to access.
I feel a strange twist in my chest. Jealousy? No. Something more complicated. I'm watching Banu reunite with family she's been separated from—and I'm envious of that, even as I'm relieved she has this.
I try to ask what she means diplomatically, but what comes out is: "What do you want from me? And don't pretend this is a coincidence—you've been waiting for us."
More truth I didn't mean to speak. The forced honesty tastes like copper in my mouth. Beside me, Yasar shifts uncomfortably, and I can feel through the binding how my honesty is affecting him—guilt and calculation warring in his stolen magic. He's uncomfortable with my vulnerability. Of course he is. Vulnerability is weakness, and weakness is death—and my death becomes his.
Queen Morwenna's attention shifts back to me, and the softness vanishes like it was never there. "Not here," she says briskly. "We don't speak of important matters in the open Grove. Come. My palace isn't far, and you're all clearly in need of rest and healing."
The dismissal stings more than it should.
She gestures, and figures emerge from the shadows—attendants whose forms are hard to focus on directly. Beautiful and strange and unsettling in ways I can't quite name. They're not quite solid, not quite shadow. Not quite Fae, not quite something else entirely. Looking at them too long makes my eyes water and my head ache.
"Take the fairy and the warrior to the healers," Morwenna says, nodding to Banu and Elçin. "And you—" her eyes find mine "—will come with me."
It's not a request.
The journey to the palace is a blur of silver light and towering trees that seem to shift and move around us. I catch glimpses of things between the trunks—shapes that might be creatures, or might be the forest itself taking form. Morwenna walks ahead, her court flowing around her like water. Occasionally I catch her glancing back at Banu with an expression I can't quite read—something between longing and resignation.
I wonder how long it's been since they last saw each other. I wonder what made Banu choose the Light Court over the Grove. I wonder what it cost Morwenna to let her go.
The forest seems to go on forever. The trees grow denser, taller, their branches forming a canopy so thick that the moonlight barely penetrates. Yet somehow, we can still see. There's a luminescence to this place—not from any visible source, but emanating from the very air itself, as if the Grove itself is glowing.
Time feels strange here. I can't tell if we've been walking for minutes or hours. My feet move of their own accord. My body is exhausted beyond measure—fifty years drained from my bones, my leg healed but somehow still lifeless, my mind buzzing with forced truths I can't contain. But I keep moving because stopping feels dangerous.
Finally, the forest parts.
When we emerge into a clearing, I have to stop.
The palace rises before us like something from a dream—or perhaps a nightmare. Architecture that shouldn't be possible, built from materials that shift between marble and wood. Columns that seem to be carved from crystallized light. Wallsthat breathe. Towers that spiral upward in directions that hurt to follow with my eyes.
It catches the moonlight and throws it back in fractured pieces, beautiful and deeply wrong. The entire structure seems to exist as a solid building yet not.
This is a palace built by something that doesn't think like mortals. A palace built by someone who has had centuries—millennia, perhaps—to understand the nature of beauty and power and control.
"Come," Morwenna says simply. "Your rooms have been prepared."
The certainty in those words chills me. She knew we were coming. She didn't know how we'd arrive, perhaps, but she knew. She's been waiting.
As we cross the threshold into her domain, I feel Kaan's hand find mine briefly—a moment of contact that speaks volumes. His shadows wrap around our joined fingers, a declaration of presence. A reminder that I'm not alone in this place, even if I feel utterly isolated.
Whatever comes next, at least we're still together.
At least we have that much.
Once we're inside, settled into chambers that are beautiful and suffocating in equal measure, I finally have space to breathe.
The rooms are elaborate—too elaborate. Every surface gleams with careful attention. Furniture that seems woven from silk and shadow, each piece obviously crafted with centuries of skill. Tapestries depicting scenes I don't recognize—battles I've never heard of, landscapes that no longer exist, people long dead. A window that looks out onto a garden that definitely shouldn't exist beneath moonlight, yet somehow does.
Elçin insists on staying with Banu, who's been taken to rooms with healers attending her. I don't fight her on it. Banu needs someone right now, and Elçin seems to need todo something. Yasar is led away by Morwenna's attendants to somewhere I don't have the attention to care about. And I'm alone with Kaan for the first time since the Peri's bargain.
The silence between us is heavy. Weighted. There's so much to say and no safe way to say it.
I move to the window and stare out at the impossible garden. There are flowers blooming in colors I don't have names for. There are trees bearing fruit that seem to shift between states—ripe and unripe, alive and desiccated. There are fountains running with water that glows faintly silver in the darkness.
"We survived," Kaan says finally, and his voice sounds lifeless. Like he's trying to convince himself as much as me.
"For now," I reply, the forced truth burning through my lips like acid. "But I don't know what we walked into. I don't know what she wants from me. I don't know anything except that Banu is her granddaughter and we're trapped in a palace made of impossible things and I can't lie to save my life."
