I try. They twitch weakly, but the pain makes my vision blur.
"Emir!" Kaan's voice cuts across the dying battle. "Get healers to the command tent. Now. And find Banu—her magic works fastest."
"I can still fight—" I start.
"You can still bleed out if I don't get you to safety." He's already lifting me with surprising gentleness despite the blood and chaos around us, cradling my injured arm against his chest. "Besides, I have a reputation to maintain. Can't have my wife dying after I've spent all this effort keeping her alive."
Around Kaan's protective hold, I stare at Father's body—at the blood pooling beneath it, at the head with its open eyes and surprised expression. At the man who raised me and tried to kill me and loved me, in his own broken way, until the very end.
"It's over," he says quietly. "It's finally over."
Around us, the battle dies. Word spreads through the valley—the Lord of Light is dead. Light Court soldiers throw down their weapons. Some kneel. Some run. Some simply stand, lost, unable to comprehend a world without the man they served.
The fae commander lands nearby, wild magic settling into stillness.
The giant butterfly's wings fold closed.
Silence falls over Kizil Vadi.
Kaan starts moving, carrying me toward the command tent. Each step jostles my shoulder and I bite back whimpers of pain.
"Stay with me," he murmurs.
"The healers will have you sorted soon. Banu's magic can fix almost anything."
"Almost?" I manage.
"Well, it couldn't fix your taste in husbands, but we can't expect miracles." Despite everything—the pain, the grief, the shock—I almost laugh.
Silence falls over Kizil Vadi.
Not a peaceful silence. A heavy one. The kind that follows catastrophe, when the world is still catching up to what just happened.
The command tent'sinterior swims in and out of focus. Kaan lowers me onto a cot with surprising gentleness, but even that careful movement sends white-hot agony through my shattered shoulder. I bite down on a whimper, refusing to give the pain that satisfaction.
"Here." He brushes blood-matted hair from my face, his shadows still coiling protectively around us. "The healers will?—"
"My lord!" A young healer rushes over, hands already glowing with golden light. "Let me see?—"
"Find Banu," Kaan interrupts, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Now."
"She's still on the field, my lord. She's?—"
"Right here." Banu limps through the tent entrance, blood-splattered and exhausted, but her magic is already flickering to life around her hands. "Move aside. Let me look at her."
Kaan steps back, though his shadows remain close—a dark, protective canopy that makes the other healers give us a wide berth.
Banu's hands hover over my shoulder, her expression tightening. "Bone fragments everywhere. This is going to hurt."
"Everything already hurts," I manage.
"Fair point."
Her magic sinks into the wound like molten gold, and I arch off the cot with a strangled cry. Pain explodes through every nerve, white-hot and all-consuming. Kaan's shadows surge forward instinctively.
"Kaan." I force the word through gritted teeth. "I'm fine. Go."
"You're not?—"
