"But you told me he was my father." The words came out harder than I intended. "You looked me in the eye. That was a choice."
"Yes." No deflection. No excuse. "I told you because I thought it would keep you safe. If you believed Milan was your father, you'd never go looking for the truth. You'd never say Erlik's name, never draw his attention." Her voice cracked. "And because I wanted it to be true. Every day for two hundred years, I wanted it so badly that sometimes I almost believed it myself."
I thought of Milan. Teaching me to hold a sword. Gripping the back of my neck — brief, firm, fatherly. Bringing snacks from the northern road. Looking at me with steady, uncomplicated pridewhile I called him father and he let me, knowing every time that the word was built on a lie.
"It was his idea," my mother said quietly.
"Yes. It was his idea." Her voice was barely a whisper now. "He said it would be kinder. That a boy should know his father's name, even if the name wasn't quite right. He said —" She stopped. Pressed her hand to her mouth. When she lowered it, her composure was back, thin as glass but holding. "He said he'd rather you loved him as a father and never knew the truth than feared a name you couldn't escape."
Something vast and terrible and desperately sad opened up inside my chest. Milan had chosen this. Had walked into the lie willingly, had let me love him as a father while knowing he wasn't, had borne the weight of that deception for two hundred years not because he was weak or cowardly but because he loved me enough to carry it.
And Erlik. The shadow god. The monster who beat my mother and kept women as playthings and ruled a hell of ash and screaming dark.
My father.
My real father.
"He spoke of a brother," Elif said, quieter now, reading my silence. "His firstborn, from centuries before me. Kaan. Erlik talked about him with this strange mix of pride and rage — said the boy had been his greatest achievement and his greatest disappointment. Kaan had power, real power, but he'd rejected his father. Cut all ties, disappeared into the mortal realms, wanted nothing to do with Kara Cehennem."
The shadows on my hands pulsed. A brother. Somewhere out there, a brother who had been strong enough to walk away from a god.
"I thought of Kaan often during those months," my mother said. "If one son could escape, could reject what Erlik wanted him to be —" She met my eyes. "Then so could mine."
A knock at the door.
My shadows flared, but a familiar voice came through the wood before I could react.
"It's Milan. Let me in before someone sees me lurking."
My mother's eyes found mine. A question in them — *are you ready?*
I didn't know. But I nodded.
She crossed to the door and opened it. Milan stepped through, his pale gray eyes taking in the scene — the packed bags, my bloodstained hands, the darkness still wreathing my fingers. His gaze moved to my face and stayed there, reading whatever he found.
He knew. I could see it immediately. No confusion, no alarm. Just steady calm. He'd been bracing for this moment for two hundred years. He didn't ask what happened. He already understood.
"She told you," he said quietly. Not a question.
"She told me."
The silence between us was unlike any we'd shared. Every sparring match, every meal, every hand on the back of my neck — all of it still there, still real, but reframed now. The man who'dtaught me everything standing in a doorway, waiting to find out if the boy he'd raised would still look at him the same way.
I wanted to be angry. Part of me was — a hot, bright thread of fury at two hundred years of deception, at every time Milan had let me call him father while knowing the word was a lie.
But the rest of me looked at this man — dusty from the road, gray at the temples, that crooked smile nowhere in sight for once — and saw the truth that had always been there underneath the fiction. He hadn't stayed because of obligation or guilt. He'd stayed because he loved me.
"I felt it from three streets away," Milan said, closing the door behind him. His voice was steady but his eyes kept returning to my face — not checking the shadows but checking me. Whether I was still in there. "Half the district probably felt it. Whatever happened tonight, you've announced yourself to anyone with the senses to listen."
"Shadow Guards attacked us," I said. "Ada and me, in the Border Forest. I killed them."
"I know." Milan moved to the table, examining the packed bags with a critical eye. "Word is already spreading. Twelve bodies torn apart by shadow magic, and Gün Ata's daughter at the center of it." He looked at me. "You're a shadow wielder of extraordinary power. To the Shadow Court, you're either a threat or an opportunity. To the Light Court —" He paused. "You're leverage. Gün Ata could have you killed, but that risks making you a martyr and losing Ada. Far more useful to keep you close. Bind you to the Light Court through his daughter. Make you his weapon instead of a weapon aimed at him."
"And Serkan?"
"The more immediate problem. Gün Ata is not getting any younger and there are rumours he is ill. Serkan has been filling the vacuum." Milan glanced toward the window. "The decree could come as early as morning. Any shadow-wielder found within Light Court borders — no trial, no defense."
My mother made a sharp sound. Milan didn't look at her.
