I glance at Emir without thinking—a reflex, maybe, to avoid looking at Kaan. Something flickers in his expression. Hope, barely contained. He doesn't say a word, but his jaw tightens, and I remember suddenly that he cares about Banu too. Perhaps more than he's ever admitted.
"There's more." Kadir sets the vial down carefully on the map, the glow casting strange shadows across territorial boundaries. "We found containment spells woven through the grove. Old magic. Powerful magic. The kind that takes multiple casters working in concert—some using light, some using shadow."
The words hang in the air like accusation. Light and shadow working together. Impossible unless someone from both courts collaborated.
My healer's mind processes this information with cold calm even as my heart rebels against it. "That's not possible," I say, though my training tells me it is. Difficult, dangerous, requiring perfect synchronization and trust between casters, but possible if you knew what you were doing. "The courts haven't worked together since?—"
"Since before the Great Divide," Kaan finishes. His shadows coil tighter around his boots, writhing like living things responding to his anger. "Which means whoever took Banu has knowledge of ancient magic. Pre-division magic."
"Or access to someone who does," Kadir adds grimly. He runs a hand through his dark hair, the gesture betraying exhaustion he's trying to hide. "I tried to break the containment spells. Every technique I know, every shadow manipulation in my arsenal. They held firm. Whatever bound Banu there was designed by someone with power that matches or exceeds mine."
The implications settle like ice in my stomach.
"Even working together, my lord," Kadir continues, his dark eyes meeting Kaan's across the table, "I'm not certain our combined power could break what's been woven there. This is an ancient craft—older than either of us, requiring knowledge that's been lost for centuries. The spell work included fairy-warding runes, iron-laced shadows that would burn any fae creature who tried to escape. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were binding."
I can still remember her laugh—the real one, not the vacant sound the imposter made. Banu used to braid flowers into my hair before court functions, her tiny fingers moving with impossible speed while she whispered gossip about the lords. "They're all terrified of you," she'd say, her pale lavender eyes sparkling with mischief. "Good. Let them be."
Gods, I miss her. I miss my friend.
The grief rises sharp and sudden, threatening to drown me. My hand moves unconsciously to my abdomen, to the scars hidden beneath silk and grief. I couldn't save my child. I can't let Banu die too.
"She could still be there," I say, pushing away from the table with enough force that my chair scrapes loudly against the stone.The sound echoes in the war room like a scream. "Trapped. Waiting for someone to free her. We have to go back. I'll go with you this time—my light magic might be able to counter the shadow bindings, or at least?—"
"No." Kaan's voice cuts through my planning like a blade, sharp and absolute. "Absolutely not."
I turn on him, my rage finding a convenient target. My light magic surges, golden sparks crackling in the air between us like fireflies made of fury. "You don't get to tell me no. She's my friend. My responsibility."
"You're barely recovered from being stabbed." His shadows rise in response to my light, coiling up his arms like serpents made of darkness. The temperature in the room plummets as frost spreads across the table in crystalline patterns. "Your magic is unpredictable at best. You want to walk into a situation that overwhelms Emir and his best scouts?"
"I want to find my friend!"
"And I want my wife alive!" The words explode out of him with enough force that the frost spreads faster, climbing up the walls in delicate lacework. The windows fog over with ice. "Do you have any idea what it would do to me if you died trying to rescue someone who might already be?—"
He cuts himself off, but the damage is done. The unfinished sentence hangs between us, sharp and ugly as a blade.
"Go ahead," I say quietly, my voice deadly calm even as my magic flares brighter. Golden light meets shadow in the space between us, and for a moment we're surrounded by a storm of our own making, neither giving ground. The jet-black table begins to crack under the pressure of our combined magic, hairline fractures spreading like spiderwebs. "Finish that sentence. Someone who might already be what? Dead? Better off dead? Not worth the risk?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Isn't it?" My light magic surges, and somewhere in the palace I hear glass shatter—windows giving way to the pressure of my uncontrolled power. "You made your priorities clear four months ago. You chose me over our innocent child. Why would I expect you to value anyone else's life when you've proven you'll sacrifice anything for your own wants?"
The accusation lands like I intended—I see it in the way his shadows recoil as if struck, the way his jaw tightens with guilt and rage. But there's no satisfaction in hurting him. Just more emptiness where satisfaction should be, an empty ache that never stops bleeding.
"My lord, my lady," Kadir interrupts with the careful diplomacy of someone trying to prevent bloodshed. His hand rests on his sword hilt—not threatening, but ready to intervene if we tear the palace down around us. "Perhaps we should focus on the information at hand."
From the corner of my eye, I see Emir shift his weight—the only sign that the tension affects him at all. His gaze moves between Kaan and me with quiet assessment, but he doesn't intervene. He never does when we're like this. Maybe he knows there's nothing to say. Maybe he's simply wise enough not to step between two storms.
I force myself to breathe. To push down the anger that threatens to consume everything, to drag my magic back under some semblance of control. The golden sparks slowly fade, leaving only the cold light from the frosted windows. Banu needs me to be functional, not caught in the same spiral of rage and grief that's defined these past few months.
"What else did you find?" I ask, directing my attention back to Kadir. My voice sounds soulless even to my own ears.
He exchanges a glance with Kaan—some silent communication I'm not privy to, centuries of trust and understanding that I'm no longer part of—before continuing."The containment circle was empty when we arrived. No sign of Banu except the blood and a few of her feathers caught in the trees. They were..." He pauses, choosing words carefully. "They were torn from her wings. Not molted naturally."
My stomach churns. Fairies' wings are extensions of their souls. Tearing them is torture.
I feel more than see Emir go rigid behind me. When I glance back, his expression hasn't changed—still that mask of professional calm—but his hands have curled into fists at his sides. The knuckles are white.
"But the spell residue suggests the circle was maintained for months before being deliberately broken from the outside," Kadir continues. "Whoever took her, they kept her there for a long time. And then someone—or something—broke the binding and took her somewhere else."
