He's right. I hate that he's right.
"Talk," I command. "Now. Tell us everything, or I let Kaan have his fun and we figure it out ourselves."
Yasar takes a careful breath, his eyes flickering between all of us. "The binding needs time to complete the transfer. Years, probably. Maybe decades. But Erlik is impatient. He wants to accelerate the process."
"How?" Elçin demands, blade still ready.
"By flooding the binding with emotion. With connection. With..." He looks at me, and something in his expression makes my stomach drop. "With intimacy. The more I'm in your life, the more you trust me, the more the binding grows. Every moment of connection strengthens it. Every shared experience, every time you let me close—it all feeds the siphon."
The horror of it settles over me like a shroud. The binding wasn't just controlling me. It was seducing me. Turning natural human connection into a weapon against myself.
"So all of it," I say slowly. "Every moment you've spent being understanding. Every time you've helped. Every?—"
"Was designed to make you trust me," he finishes. "Yes."
"You bastard." Kaan's voice is ice. "You utter bastard."
"I didn't want this!" Yasar's composure finally shatters completely. "Do you think I enjoy being a parasite? Do you think I take pleasure in feeling her magic bleeding into me while she grows weaker?" He laughs, bitter and broken. "Erlik bound us together and gave me a choice—drain her willingly and quickly, or fight it and let the process draw out painfully for decades. Either way, I become the thing he wants to create. Either way, she loses her magic. The only difference is how long it takes and how much everyone suffers."
"So you chose quick," I breathe. "You chose to speed up the process. To play the helpful ally and feed the binding faster."
"I chose survival," he corrects. "Because I am selfish. Because I am weak. Because when faced with eternal imprisonment inthe Veil or becoming Erlik's weapon, I chose the latter." His hands clench into fists. "I know what that makes me. But don't pretend you wouldn't have done the same."
The cave falls silent except for Banu's labored breathing and the distant sound of water dripping somewhere deeper in the earth.
"You could have told me," I say finally. "You should have told me."
"And you would have done what?" Yasar asks. "Accepted it? Worked with me to find a solution? Or would you have done exactly what you're doing now—looked at me like I'm a monster to be destroyed?"
He's not wrong. Which makes everything worse.
"Elçin." I turn to my cousin, who's been watching this exchange with a warrior's assessment in her eyes. "You've been researching. You said you found something about the binding."
She nods slowly, sheathing her blade but keeping her hand near the hilt. "I've been studying binding magic for months. Ever since this started." Her gaze shifts to Yasar, calculating. "I suspected something was wrong with the energy flow. The binding was too efficient, too elegant. Erlik's work is usually brute force and malice. This was refined. Purposeful."
"Can you break it?" Kaan asks bluntly.
"Maybe. But not safely." Elçin moves to her pack, pulling out a leather journal covered in notes. "Breaking a siphon binding like this is like cutting out a parasitic vine that's grown through vital organs. You can kill the vine, but you might kill the host too."
"So we're back to impossible choices," I observe. "Let the binding continue draining me until there's nothing left, or break it and possibly die in the process."
"There might be a third option," Elçin says carefully. "If we could reverse the flow. Force the stolen magic back throughthe binding and into you, while simultaneously severing the connection?—"
"That would kill him," I interrupt, looking at Yasar. "Wouldn't it? All that twilight magic flooding back at once through a breaking binding. It would tear him apart."
Yasar meets my eyes, and for the first time, I see genuine calculation there. Not fear—evaluation. "It might. Or it might just hurt unimaginably and leave me powerless." His jaw tightens. "Neither outcome particularly appeals to me."
"Then why tell us?" The question escapes before I can stop it.
"Because keeping it secret serves no purpose now that Banu's revealed the truth," he says, voice steady despite the blade at his throat and the shadows coiling with killing intent. "And because I'm a survivor, Nesilhan. I always have been. If there's even a chance I can come out of this alive and free of Erlik's control, I'll take it." His gaze holds mine without flinching. "Kill me if you want. But you'll lose the only person who understands how this binding actually works. The only one who might be able to help you break it without dying in the process."
But Kaan is looking at me, waiting. Because this isn't his choice to make. It's mine.
I study Yasar—really look at him for the first time since this nightmare started. Past the careful mask, past the hunger and the calculation. What I see is someone who's chosen survival over morality at every turn. Someone who's made deliberate, calculated choices to save himself, no matter the cost to others.
He's not a victim. He's a collaborator. And the binding gives him the perfect excuse.
"No," I decide. "We're not killing you. Not yet."
