"No."
"Hakan—"
"She does not need to know that her cousin called her a shadow court whore. She does not need that poison in her mind." I turned away. "I need to stay away from her, so I want her to hate me. Let her think I am a monster who destroys men for sport. It is easier that way."
"Easier for whom?"
I did not answer.
Because the truth was, I did not know anymore.
Three hours later, Ada found me in the market square. She accused me. Condemned me. Told me she hated me with a passion that made my blood sing and my walls tremble.
"The feeling is entirely mutual, princess," I told her.
And walked away with lies on my tongue and her voice in my ears and the absolute certainty that I would burn the entire world to ash before I let anyone speak of her that way again.
Even if it meant she would never know why.
CHAPTER 3
GROWING IN THE SHADOW
Ada
The servant they brought into Advanced Light Magic was younger than me.
That was the first thing I noticed—not the chains on her wrists, not the iron collar around her throat stamped with the Academy's seal, not the way she trembled so violently that her bare feet stuttered against the marble floor like a bird caught in a net. I noticed her age. She could not have been more than sixteen. A child with the sharp cheekbones and olive complexion common in the border villages, her dark hair cropped close to her scalp the way they cut it for all the plisk servants. No adornment. No shoes. Just the thin gray shift they dressed the shadow-tainted in, so the light could reach every inch of skin.
Instructor Selim smiled when the guards deposited her in the center of the lecture theater.
"Today," he said, rolling up the sleeves of his white robe with the control of a butcher preparing for the first cut of the morning, "we study detection."
Forty-three students sat in the tiered stone benches that rose around the demonstration floor like the inside of a jaw. I was in the fourth row, between Naz—who was already taking notes—and Lord Ediz's youngest son, who had his boots propped on the bench in front of him and was examining his fingernails with studied boredom. The air smelled of chalk and the faint mineral tang that accompanied concentrated light magic, and through the tall arched windows, I could see the spires of the Palace of Light burning white against a cloudless sky.
A beautiful day. The kind of day that made the Light Court look exactly like the paradise the priests promised it was.
The girl's eyes swept the benches. She was looking for someone—anyone—who might intervene. Her gaze landed on me and stayed.
I looked away.
"As you know," Selim continued, circling the girl the way a cat circles a trapped mouse, "standard purification identifies shadow-taint through blood testing and aura measurement. Effective, but slow. Imprecise. A determined half-blood can suppress their shadow essence for years—decades, even—passing every test we administer." He paused for effect. "Until now."
He raised his right hand, and light gathered at his fingertips—not the warm gold of healing magic or the soft amber of illumination, but something hotter. Whiter. The kind of light that had no warmth in it at all, that existed only to expose.
"The principle is simple. Shadow magic, no matter how deeply buried, reacts to concentrated divine light the way oil reacts to water. Force enough light into a body, and whatever darknesshides within will be driven to the surface." He flexed his fingers, and the light intensified until it hurt to look at. "The subject cannot suppress it. Cannot hide it. Cannot pretend it does not exist."
The girl made a sound. Small. Wet. The sound of someone who understands exactly what is about to happen to them and knows that no one in the room will stop it.
"Please," she whispered.
Selim did not acknowledge that she had spoken.
He pressed his palm to her sternum.
The light wentintoher.
I had watched purification ceremonies since childhood—had sat through Yara's cleansing with my hands knotted in my lap and my face arranged in the serene mask expected of me. I thought I understood what light magic did to shadow-tainted bodies.
