"She is. Remarkable. Lonely. Desperate. What were the other words you used? I want to make sure I'm quoting accurately."
The smile died.
"I don't know what you —"
"Pathetic, I think. And something about spreading her legs. I was behind the oak tree, Tahir. I heard every word."
He ran.
Smart, actually. He was fast — light-magic trained, athletic. He made it twenty feet before I caught him. Not with the shadows — I didn't trust them, not yet, not when I couldn't be certain what they'd do if I let them loose. I caught him the ordinary way: my hands, my body, momentum. I tackled him into the undergrowth, drove my knee into his spine, wrenched his arm behind his back.
"Get off me — do you have any idea who my father —"
I slammed his face into the dirt. Once. Hard enough to daze. Then I hauled him off the path into the deeper trees.
The rope was the rational part. I'd carried it since the exhibition — a precaution, something with no magical signature that couldn't be traced. I bound his wrists behind his back, then his ankles, then ran a length between the two and secured it to alow branch so he was kneeling with his arms wrenched upward, immobilised.
"This is — you can't — I'm Lord Tahir of House —"
"I know exactly who you are. I've been watching you for weeks. Three meetings with Serkan. Eastern colonnade, his private study, the lower gardens." I crouched in front of him. "So you're going to tell me everything. The faction. The members. The timeline. What you intend for Ada after her father dies."
"You're insane. When my father finds out —"
"Your father won't find out. Because if you tell anyone about tonight, I'll make sure the court learns Lord Tahir was conspiring to overthrow the Light God's heir. Treason, Tahir. You know the penalty."
"It's not treason. It's politics —"
"Serkan is using you. You're the bloodline he needs and the face he wants on the throne. You get Ada, he gets the council. And Ada gets what? A husband who thinks she's pathetic?"
"I was performing — for Emre's son. You know how it is —"
"You said she'd spread her legs for anyone who whispered something sweet."
"I didn't mean —"
Don't, my mother's voice whispered inside me. Walk away. You have what you need. Leave him tied, let someone find him in the morning.
I looked down at my hands. At the gloves I was still wearing in the middle of a forest in the dark.
I had no idea what I was doing.
That was the thought that moved through me, cold and clarifying. I had no idea what lived under this leather. I had no idea whether it would listen to me, whether I could stop it once I started, whether the thing I'd been testing in my room alone at midnight bore any resemblance to what would happen out here where I was furious and something had just saidshe'd spread her legsand I couldn't get the image of Ada's face out of my head — that careful, giving-nothing-away expression while Tahir's hand sat on her waist.
Let us out,something whispered.He deserves it. You heard what he said about her.
I closed my eyes. For one moment I was standing at a crossroads I could feel with absolute clarity. Behind me — quiet, hidden, safe. Elif's good son, the invisible boy who survived by never being seen.
Ahead — I didn't know. That was the honest answer. I didn't know what was ahead.
I pulled off my gloves.
The shadows came immediately, faster than they ever had when I was alone testing them, and for a horrible second I thought they were going to do it on their own — just erupt, just take over — but they stopped at my fingertips. Black tendrils curling in the night air, waiting. Asking.
I was breathing too fast. My heart was hammering. I had no idea if I could stop this once it started.
I let one thread brush Tahir's cheek.
He recoiled like I'd touched him with a brand, a sound tearing out of him that wasn't quite a scream. His eyes went enormous. "That's — shadow magic. You can't be —"
