"The Moon Festival preparations are nearly finished," she said, settling onto the wall beside me. "Banu's been insufferable about it for days. Shadow-weaving competitions, moonsong choirs, fire-dancing?—"
"Shadow-fire," Banu corrected from across the terrace without turning around. "Infinitely more elegant than your Light Court's gaudy golden pyrotechnics."
"She has ears like a bat," Nesilhan murmured.
"I heard that too."
The Moon Festival. Tonight, Kaan had explained, the boundary between the shadow realm and the mortal world thinned, andthe entire court gathered to celebrate with magic and feasting that apparently made the Light Court's ceremonies look like children playing with candles. I'd been nervous about it — a light-bearer at a shadow festival — but Nesilhan had squeezed my hand and said,I was terrified my first year too. By the third, I was leading the moonsong.
For a moment, sitting in that garden with tea and laughter and the sound of brothers finding each other, I let myself believe in the future we were building.
That was the moment the golden raven appeared.
It materialised from nothing — a bird forged entirely of divine light, its feathers trailing sparks that hissed against the shadow-rich air. Every shadow-dweller in the garden flinched. Emir's hand went to his blade. Kaan's shadows surged around Eda and Yaman with the speed of instinct.
The raven landed on the wall beside me, and when it opened its beak, High Priest Osman's voice poured out — thin and trembling in a way I'd never heard from that unshakeable man.
"Princess Ada. Your presence is required at the Palace of Light immediately. Gün Ata, Divine Lord of Light and Love, Ruler of the Eternal Flame?—"
The voice cracked.
"Gün Ata has passed beyond the veil of light."
The words entered my ears and found no place to land. They hovered somewhere outside my body, foreign syllables that refused to arrange themselves into meaning. Because my father had been recovering. Color in his cheeks. Strength in his voice. He'd stood in his throne room two weeks ago and named Hakana Light Lord with enough divine authority to shake the walls. He'd been getting better.
"Ada." Hakan's voice, close now. When had he crossed the garden? His hands found my face, tilting it toward him, and I watched his mouth move but the sound arrived delayed, like thunder after lightning. "Ada, stay with me. Breathe."
"He was getting better."
"I know."
"He promised me." Something was cracking open inside my chest — not breaking, cracking, the way earth cracks before it swallows everything. "He said he'd fight. He said he'd be there for?—"
I couldn't finish. The wordweddingdied in my throat, along withgrandchildrenandfutureand every other beautiful, stupid thing we'd planned while his divine light was already guttering out.
The sound that left me wasn't a sob. It was something older than crying, deeper than grief — the sound a world makes when its sun goes dark.
Hakan caught me before my knees hit the stone, his arms locking around me, and I buried my face against his chest and screamed into the fabric until my throat tore.
Kaan's voice cut through the chaos — not unkind, but sharp enough to penetrate. "She travels with us. Shadow paths are faster than any portal. We'll have her home within the hour."
"Banu, Emir — you stay with the children," Nesilhan said, already moving. "Kaan and I will accompany them. I grew up in the Light Court and it will be my honor to say goodbye tothe Light God. And Ada shouldn't walk into a succession crisis without allies at her back."
"She won't," Kaan said. His shadows coiled with purpose. "Sarp — you're with us. Let's move."
* * *
The shadow paths compressed the world into darkness and speed, reality folding around us like a clenched fist, and then the Palace of Light split the darkness open and we were there.
The palace was dying. The eternal golden light that had bathed it for three millennia now flickered and guttered like a candle in the wind, casting long shadows across corridors that had never known darkness. White mourning banners draped from every tower. The divine magic woven into every stone felt thin, fraying — without Gün Ata's power sustaining it, the architecture of the Light Court itself was beginning to unravel.
Courtiers and priests lined the corridors, faces hollow with shock. This had never happened. No living being had witnessed the death of a Light God. There was no memory for this, only dusty protocol and the slow, creeping terror of a realm that had just lost its foundation.
The council was assembled in the Golden Throne Hall. The throne sat empty, its golden surface dull without divine light to feed it. Lord Serkan stood at the front, immaculate in formal mourning robes, his expression one of controlled grief and barely concealed calculation. As the most senior of the seven Light Court lords, he'd positioned himself precisely where a successor would stand. Behind him, the remaining lords had gathered — Lord Cevdet with his ancient eyes and carefulneutrality, Lord Volkan rigid with military bearing, Lady Aysel whose intelligence hid behind a vapid smile, and the others, all watching the empty throne with the particular hunger of powerful people who smell opportunity.
Every head turned when our party entered.
The reaction was immediate and visceral. The Shadow Court's ruler, walking into the Light God's throne hall on the day of his death, flanked by his wife — a light-bearer of House Lumina they all remembered. Two shadow lords in a hall of light. The whispers erupted like hissing oil.
