The liquor burns down my throat, sharp and merciful. "How long will you stay?" I ask. "Your people must be missing their commander."
"Let them," she says simply. "I'm not leaving until you're safe. Call it penance if it makes you feel better."
Zoran glances at her, faint amusement flickering across his face. "Even though every Shadow lord here looks at you like you're a spy?"
Elçin shrugs. "I've been looked at worse."
I draw a long breath. "The dreams… they're changing."
Both heads turn toward me.
Zoran's eyes—once bright with Light Court warmth—narrow with a soldier's focus. "Changing how?"
"There's someone else now," I admit. "A man. I can't see him clearly. Dark hair. Violet eyes. He reaches for me through the shadows, but they don't move like Kaan's. They feel—wrong. Like they belong to something older."
The shadows in my dreams have textures, as distinct to me as fabric beneath fingers. Kaan's shadows feel like velvet—soft darkness with a hidden warmth, responsive to emotion. This stranger's shadows feel like oil sliding across water, ancient and patient. Cold in a way that burns. When he reaches for me, the darkness curls around his fingers like it's hungry. And unlike the recurring nightmare of the dungeon, this figure appears in different settings each time—standing at the foot of my bed, waiting in my dressing room mirror, or most disturbing, bent over the empty cradle we never used, as if inspecting what should have been there.
The air tightens between us.
Elçin's hand lands on my arm, gentle but firm. "You've been through more than anyone should. Dreams twist pain into shapes we don't understand."
I want to believe her. I do. But there's something in those shadows—something watching me back.
Before I can respond, a servant appears at the edge of the garden, breathless.
"Lady Nesilhan, Lord Zoran, Commander Elçin—urgent news. Light Court forces crossed the border an hour ago. Three battalions under Lord Taren's banner."
My father's banner.
The world seems to tilt. "Father wouldn't..." But even as I say the words, I know they ring empty. Taren might be my father, but he's merely one of the seven Light Lords, commanding the Eastern Province with its amber fields and copper mines.
Like all Light Lords, he answers to High Sovereign Gun Ata, the true power behind the Light Court's unified front. Unlike the Shadow Court with its constant power struggles between factions, the Light Court's seven provinces operate as a single entity—each territory distinct in resources and culture, yet bound by ancient oaths to the Sovereign's will.
The Western Province with its silver coasts, the Northern with its diamond mines, the Southern with its silk farms, the Central with its libraries and temples, the Mountain Province with its forges, and the Marshlands with their herb gardens and healing houses—all of them ultimately bend to Gun Ata's command.
If my father marches, it's because Gun Ata ordered it.
And if Gun Ata has broken the fragile peace between Light and Shadow, it can only mean one thing: the alliance sealed by my marriage to Kaan has been deemed a failure.
The irony cuts deep—the same father who once handed me to Kaan as part of Gun Ata's strategy to save Zoran's life now marches against us. The political alliance that began with my sacrifice is now splintering despite it. I remember his face that day—resigned but determined, as if handing over his daughter was merely the cost of doing business.
And now, after everything I've lost in service to that bargain, he brings war to our doorstep. "I hope you're right," Zoran mutters grimly."Where's Kaan?" I ask, though the words tremble.
"In the war room, my lady." The servant bows and hurries off.
I should stay away. Should let Kaan handle the politics of war while I drown quietly in peace. But if my father is marching, then my silence is cowardice.
"We need to go," I say, pushing to my feet. "Now."
Elçin rises instantly. Zoran follows. Together, we cross the mist-laced garden, the dawn light deepening to gold. The air feels charged, full of beauty and dread in equal measure.
As we reach the palace doors, I pause. "Go ahead without me," I tell them. "I need to change."
Elçin studies me carefully. "You shouldn't go alone."
"I won't be long."
For a moment, I see the argument forming in her eyes—the instinct to protect—but she swallows it and nods. "We'll meet you there."
