His gaze narrows and he raises one hand. His remaining guards—fifty at least, maybe more—surge forward in perfect formation. They flow around the commander, shields slamming together, forcing the Fae commander back. More pour in from the sides, from behind, forming a wall of golden armor and blazing weapons.
A wall between Kaan and me.
"No—" I reach for him, but guards are already filling the gap, shields locking, cutting us off from each other. "KAAN!"
"NESILHAN!" His shadows lash out, tearing through the first rank of guards, but more replace them. Always more. The golden wall holds.
Father's sword descends.
I try to block. I bring my blade up, call on the twilight magic, pour everything I have into the defense?—
Not enough.
The impact explodes through my shoulder. White-hot pain. The crack of bone. My sword flies from fingers that have stopped working, spinning away into the mud. My knees hit the ground before I realize I'm falling.
Father stands over me, his light blazing so bright I can barely look at him. Blood runs down my arm, dripping from my useless fingers. The twilight magic gutters in my chest like a candle in a storm.
"You were always too idealistic." His voice is gentle. Patient. The voice he used when I was a child and he was explaining why the world didn't work the way I wanted it to. "Too willing to believe in fairy tales about love conquering all."
Behind the golden wall, I can hear Kaan fighting. Shadows screaming. Steel clashing. His voice raw with fury, with desperation. "NESILHAN!"
Every guard he kills is replaced by another. And another. And another. The wall holds.
"But this is the real world, daughter." Father crouches before me, and up close I can see the lines around his eyes, the grey in his hair. When did he get old? When did either of us? "Power is the only truth that matters."
"You're wrong." The words scrape out of my throat. "You've always been wrong."
"Perhaps." He stands, raising his sword. "But I'm the one still standing."
The commander breaks through three guards at the edge of the wall, wild magic blazing. Father doesn't even look—a gesture, a flare of light, and more reserves appear, pushing the Fae commander back.
"You see?" He returns his attention to me, sword point hovering over my heart. "Your monster cannot save you. The Fae cannot reach you. Your army is fighting its own battles. There is no rescue coming."
I look past him, searching for any hope. Kaan is tearing through guards, but they keep coming. The commander is pinned down by a dozen soldiers. Yasar is nowhere I can see.
No one is coming.
"In the end," Father says softly, "you have only family. Only blood. Only me."
He raises the blade.
Light magic gathers along the edge—so bright it burns afterimages into my vision, so bright it drowns out the sun. This isn't just a sword anymore. It's judgment. It's execution. It's every choice I made that led to this moment.
"I am sorry," Father says, and the terrible thing is that he means it. "You gave me no choice."
The blade begins to fall.
Time stretches.
I watch the sword descend—slow, impossibly slow—blazing with enough power to burn through any defense I could raise. I watch the light reflected in Father's eyes, the certainty there, the absolute conviction that he is doing the right thing.
I watch Kaan on the other side of the golden wall, shadows exploding from him in waves, killing and killing, but never fast enough. I see his face. The terror there. The knowledge that he won't reach me in time.
I watch the commander fighting desperately against the guards, wild magic flashing, getting closer but not close enough, never close enough.
The blade is inches from my chest.
I think: this is how it ends.
