He looked at her for a long moment. Then his gaze moved past her. To me. And the wounded look was replaced by something sharper. Hungrier.
"And you must be my wayward son. Hakan, isn't it? I have to say, you're taller than I expected. Must be your mother's side."
"His name," my mother said, "is the only thing of yours he carries. And he doesn't want that either."
Erlik looked at her. Really looked — a slow, thorough appraisal that moved from her face to her feet and back again, and his expression did something I didn't want to see. Appreciation. Not of a memory. Of what was standing in front of him right now.
"Two centuries," he said. "And you're still the most striking woman in any room you walk into. The Light Court breeds beauty like cattle but you were always something else. Something that had nothing to do with bloodlines." His mouth curved. "I gave you silk and jewels and a throne beside mine. You wore them well."
"I burned them when I left."
"I know. I found the ashes." Something moved behind his eyes. "I kept them."
My mother's jaw tightened. She said nothing. There was nothing to say to a man who kept the ashes of your burned dresses fortwo hundred years and saw no contradiction between that and breaking a woman's bones.
I stepped between them.
"I'm not your son."
"Biology disagrees, I'm afraid. You have my shoulders and my temper. You're welcome for both." His eyes narrowed with something that might have been approval. "Twelve men torn apart by shadow magic in the Border Forest in Gün Ata territory. I felt it all the way here — that beautiful eruption of power after two centuries of suppression. Magnificent work, really. Messy, but magnificent."
"I was protecting someone."
"I know." He said it easily. No pretense. "I sent them."
The words landed in the pit of my stomach.
"I was tired of waiting. Two hundred years is patient, even for me. I needed to know if the power was there or if your mother's suppression had killed it entirely." He tilted his head. "It hadn't. Clearly."
"They tried to —" I stopped. Locked it down. Talking about what they did meant talking about who they did it to. I nearly gave Ada away.
Erlik noticed the shutdown. His eyes sharpened.
"Tried to what?" Softly. The softness of a predator that's spotted movement.
"Doesn't matter. They're dead."
"Yes, they are. Spectacularly dead. Which tells me everything I need to know about what they threatened." He smiled. "Or rather, who."
I said nothing. Thought nothing.
"Wise. Keep your secrets. For now." He studied me. "Though I can smell light magic on your shadows — a woman from the Light Court."
He laughed — a genuine, startled bark.
"Unbelievable. Another one. My first son falls for a light-bearer and throws away his throne. Now my second does the same thing." He looked at the ceiling as if appealing to some higher authority. "Is this a curse? Is there a prophecy I missed? Do my sons see a woman who glows and lose every functioning brain cell simultaneously?"
My mother's voice came from behind me, quiet and sharp: "You fell for one too."
Erlik's mouth opened. Closed. For the first time since he'd materialized from the darkness, the God of the Underworld had nothing to say.
It lasted about two seconds.
"That," he said, "is entirely different."
"How?"
"Because I'm me." He straightened his robes with the dignity of a man who had just walked into a wall and was pretending it was a door. "The rules don't apply."
