"Nothing at all, my light." He smiled again, and it reached his eyes this time — or seemed to. "I am simply happy for you. Forboth of you." He rose, drawing me up with him. "Now go. I imagine you have news to share with your young man."
I left the throne hall floating in the air, my heart so full I thought it might burst. My father approved. My father was happy for me.
So why couldn't I shake the feeling that I'd missed something? That beneath his warmth, there had been a flicker of something else entirely?
I pushed the thought aside. It was paranoia. Years of watching the court's cruelty had made me suspicious of everything, even kindness. My father loved me. He wanted my happiness.
That was enough. It had to be enough.
The weeks that followed were the happiest of my life.
With my father's blessing, there was no need for secrecy. I could walk through the palace gardens with Hakan's hand in mine, could sit beside him at formal dinners, could let him kiss me in the corridors without fear of scandal. The court still whispered, of course — they would always whisper — but their disapproval couldn't touch us anymore.
Sarp handled his displacement with characteristic drama. I found him sprawled across a bench in the Academy courtyard one afternoon, arm thrown over his eyes in theatrical despair.
"Three years," he moaned as Hakan and I approached. "Three years I've cultivated my reputation as the Academy's most eligible heartbreaker, and you've destroyed it in a single month."
"Your reputation was destroying itself long before I came along," Hakan said dryly.
"I wept." He pressed a hand to his chest. "Actual tears, Ada. On my pillow."
I couldn't help laughing. "Maybe if you actually followed through on your flirtations instead of running away the moment anyone showed genuine interest —"
"I don't run away. I strategically withdraw." He clutched his chest. "Besides, the chase is the best part. Once they're actually caught, what's the point?"
"Emotional connection?" I suggested. "Mutual respect? The joy of building something real with another person?"
Sarp's face twisted in exaggerated horror. "Gods, you've infected her, Hakan. She's speaking in romantic platitudes. Quick, someone fetch a healer before it spreads."
Hakan pulled me against his side, pressing a kiss to my temple. "I think she's perfect."
"Of course you do. You're diseased with love. Both of you." But Sarp was smiling despite his complaints, and when he clapped Hakan on the shoulder as we passed. "Take care of her," he said to Hakan, grip tightening on his shoulder, "or I will dedicate the remainder of my very long life to making yours unliveable."
He smiled. It reached his eyes.
"I've been practicing on you for decades. You know I'm not bluffing."
We both stared as he walked away, but I also knew that not everything was sunshine and stolen kisses.
Elif's words from our dinner weeks ago still haunted me. That desperate embrace at the door when Hakan and I had left herapartment, her trembling hands gripping my arms, her whisper against my ear: "Whatever you learn about what he is — whatever happens — don't let them take his heart."
I'd asked Hakan about it afterward. He'd gone quiet, then shrugged and said his mother had always been fearful, always looking over her shoulder at shadows that weren't there. He didn't know why. She'd never told him.
But I saw the lie in his eyes. Or if not a lie, then an uncertainty — a question he'd been asking his whole life without ever finding an answer.
*Whatever you learn about what he is.* What did that mean? What was there to learn? And who were *them* — who would try to take his heart, and why did Elif speak as though it were inevitable?
The note arrived three weeks after my father's blessing.
No seal, no signature — just Hakan's handwriting, bold strokes I would recognize anywhere. *Tonight. Moonrise. Wear something you can climb in.*
I pressed the paper to my chest like the lovesick fool I'd apparently become, then burned it in the fireplace before any servant could find it.
Hakan met me at the eastern gate as the first silver of moonlight crested the palace walls. He wore dark clothes that made him look like a shadow given form — all lean muscle and dangerous grace. When he saw me in my simple dress and climbing boots, something heated flickered in his gaze.
"You followed instructions." His voice was low, intimate. "I'm impressed, princess."
"Don't call me that." I fell into step beside him. "Where are we going?"
