Not my concern.
I was reaching for a fifth dummy when the door opened.
"You know," my father Milan, said, leaning against the doorframe with that easy grace that made everything look effortless, "most people cope with insomnia by drinking warmmilk. Perhaps reading a book. You've chosen violence against inanimate objects. I admire the commitment."
"When did you get back?"
"An hour ago. Rode through the night from the northern territories.” He stepped inside and surveyed the wreckage like he'd seen worse. Dark coat still dusty from the road, sword at his hip, that crooked smile already in place. "Your mother told me you haven't been home in two days. She also told me you've been, and I quote, 'impossible, reckless, and eating like a stray cat.' Her words."
"My mother exaggerates."
"Your mother has never exaggerated a day in her life and you know it." He crossed the hall and gripped the back of my neck the way he'd done since I was a boy — brief, firm, the closest thing to fatherly I'd ever known. "You need to eat. I brought borek from the northern road. It’s in my saddlebag. Don't let Sarp find it first." He moved to the weapons rack, selected a practice sword, tossed me one without warning. I caught it. "Spar with me. You look like you need to hit something that hits back."
We fell into rhythm. Attack, parry, counter. My father was better than me — always had been — but I was faster and meaner, and today I had three days of rage sharpening every blow. Our blades rang through the empty hall, the sound bouncing off stone walls where older students had carved their names and graduating years into the mortar — a tradition the Academy's priests pretended not to notice.
"Nice scar." He nodded at my jaw, deflecting a strike. "Light burn. Recent. Who'd you piss off?"
"Nobody important."
"Nobody important who happens to wield divine light magic." He ducked my swing, came up inside my reach, tapped his blade against my ribs — kill shot, gentle. "Short list, Hakan."
"Drop it, Baba."
"Was it Ada?"
I didn't answer. Drove a combination at him that was harder than any sparring match warranted. He caught every strike. The bastard was barely breathing hard.
"I'll take that as a yes." He reset his stance. "Want to tell me what happened?"
"No."
"Your mother said —"
"My mother doesn't know what she's talking about, and neither do you." I lowered my blade. "Ada and I had words. She couldn't handle it. Lost control of her magic like the overgrown child she is. That's the whole story."
"And you were close enough for her light to reach you because —"
"Because the girl doesn't understand the concept of personal space. She never has. She follows people into corridors and demands emotional conversations and then acts surprised when it doesn't go the way she planned." I returned my blade to the rack. "It's tedious."
Milan watched me with those gray eyes that never missed anything. I hated when he did that — when the warmth droppedfrom his face and he looked at me like he was reading a language I didn't know I was speaking.
He opened his mouth — probably something wise and infuriating — but the training hall door crashed open and Sarp strolled in like he owned the Academy, the grounds, and possibly the sun itself.
"Gentlemen!" He spread his arms wide, taking in the devastation. "Beautiful morning, isn't it? Birds singing, dawn breaking, Hakan destroying property worth more than my annual stipend." He counted the wrecked dummies. "Four. Impressive. Though I notice you've left the wall intact this time, which I'd call personal growth."
"Sarp." My father clasped forearms with him. "You're up early."
"Couldn't sleep. Terrible dreams. There was this enormous creature — all teeth and rage and unresolved emotional issues — stomping around a training hall at four in the morning, making the building shake.” He dropped onto a bench, stretched his legs out, and looked entirely unbothered. "Strangest thing."
"What do you want, Sarp."
"News. Two pieces." He produced an apple from somewhere — Sarp always had food, it was one of life's great mysteries — and bit into it. "You'll hate both of them, but the delivery is free."
"Fucking great."
"First — that girl from Selim's class. The one they took to the purification wing." He chewed, swallowed. His voice stayed light but his eyes didn't. "She died last night. Her name was Elif."
My mother's name. The training hall went very quiet. Outside, I could hear the distant chime of the Academy's dawn bells — theones that woke the students for morning prayers, that rang out across the courtyards where fountains sang with blessed water and gardens bloomed with flowers that never wilted, all that holy beauty hiding the rot underneath.
