"Lord Volkan, please." I stepped forward. "He had too much liquor?—"
"Go back to the palace, Princess Ada. You should not be here," he cut me off before I could finish.
"No—wait—" Ferit's bravado crumbled as guards seized his arms. "I was drunk, I didn't mean—someone set me up! Someone got me drunk, put words in my mouth—this is a conspiracy, I swear it?—"
I tried to argue, but Volkan summoned more guards and I was simply ignored. He barked that this was none of my business. My voice didn't matter, and I knew what happened to others that tried to speak against the court. I watched as they dragged Ferit away, his protests fading into the crowd.
In the ringing silence, my gaze swept the thinning crowd—and snagged on a familiar figure at its edge.
Hakan. Arms crossed, watching the scene with cold satisfaction. Beside him, Sarp shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. Almost guilty.
Everyone knew them. The scholarship students who acted like they owned the Academy's hallways, classes, and all the societies. Hakan with his sharp tongue and sharper cruelty. Sarp who softened the edges but never stopped his friend's worst impulses. Half the court girls were obsessed with them. The other half were terrified.
I used to be something else to Hakan. Before.
His green eyes found mine. Something flickered there—triumph, maybe, or challenge—before his expression shuttered and he turned away, disappearing into the crowd with Sarp at his heels.
I let him go. But I memorized the satisfaction on his face, and I carried it back to the palace like a coal against my skin.
For three hours I paced my chambers, replaying every detail. Ferit drunk before midday. Hakan watching from the edges. Sarp's guilty expression. The way it had all unfolded so neatly, so perfectly timed, as though someone had choreographed every moment.
By the time I stormed back to the market square, my grief for Ferit had calcified into fury.
I found Hakan near the central fountain, lounging against the stone rim as though he hadn't a care in the world. Sarp sat beside him, flipping through a book he clearly wasn't reading.
"Princess." He inclined his head, mocking. "Enjoying the show?"
"You." The word came out flat. I ignored the heat that rose over my skin. Unfortunately, I always felt it whenever I noticed that he was no longer a boy, but a handsome man. "You did this."
"Did what?" He pushed off from the pillar, strolling toward me. "Got your cousin drunk? Made him speak his mind?" His smilesharpened. "Ferit managed that all on his own. I just made sure the right people were listening."
"He'll be tortured. Imprisoned. Maybe executed."
"Probably." Hakan shrugged, and my anger erupted inside me. "Should've kept his mouth shut."
"You were the one that gave him the liquor," I accused. I had been at the market for an hour or so, but I was certain that Hakan had been in the tavern with Ferit.
"I had a few drinks, but no one pushed Ferit to gobble all that whiskey." Those green eyes—eyes I used to trust—held nothing but contempt. "Although it was entertaining."
Sarp stepped forward, touching Hakan's arm. "Maybe we should go?—"
Hakan shook him off. "Why? The princess has something to say." He tilted his head, studying me like I was something mildly interesting. "Go on then. Defend him. Tell me how your drunk idiot cousin didn't deserve exactly what he got."
"He spoke the truth."
The words escaped before I could stop them. Hakan's eyes flickered—surprise, maybe, quickly buried. Why did I even say it?
"Careful, princess. That's dangerously close to agreeing with a traitor."
"He was wrong to say it publicly. But he wasn'twrong." I held his gaze. "You were at the purification. You saw what they did to those children. To Yara."
Something shifted in his expression. There and gone.
"I saw a ceremony," he said flatly. "Sacred traditions of the Light Court. Nothing that concerns me."
"Nothing that—" I stepped closer, fury rising. "They whipped a fourteen-year-old girl until she couldn't scream anymore. And youwatched."
"So did you." His voice dropped, soft and vicious. "Watched and did nothing. At least I don't pretend to care."
