Page 111 of Crown of Ashes and Desire

"She has all the guidance she needs," Nadine said, turning away in clear dismissal. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have other patients to attend to."

She left the room, her stiff posture betraying her agitation. I remained, mulling over our exchange. Her defensiveness only confirmed my suspicions that Kiraz's parentage was far from ordinary.

The pieces refused to align neatly. Nadine's fierce protection. Sarp's obvious deflection. Everyone's tension when I showed interest in the child. And most telling—Kiraz's shadows that danced with mine like long-lost kin.

A dark suspicion formed. What if Kiraz was somehow related to me through my father? What if Erlik had sired a child with my Ada during one of his many power plays? It would explain the secrecy, the protective instincts of the villagers, even Ada's involvement in hiding her.

The thought twisted my gut. If my father had forced himself on Ada, if Kiraz was born of such violation… I would make sure my father would never see the light of day, I would destroy him. I had witnessed his cruelty firsthand, and had been its target often enough, but even for him, such an act would be a new depth of depravity.

But no—that didn't align with Kiraz's age or with Nadine's claim that the father had chosen absence. My father neverabandoned potential assets, only destroyed those that failed to serve his purpose.

Unless…

Memory flashed—those two missing years, bound by my father's spell. A void where recollection should be. An icy fear crept through me. What if the connection I felt with Kiraz was more direct? What if during those blank years…?

"Fuck, calm down. Ada would have shared this, she wouldn't let Erlik touch her," I muttered, shadows writhing around me in response to my agitation. If my father had manipulated me to that extent, had used me as an unwitting pawn in some elaborate scheme involving the light realm…

No. Even he had limits. And surely I would remember something so significant, spell or no spell.

Yet a memory surfaced—fragmented, elusive. Ada's face, years younger, illuminated by firelight. Her whispered words I couldn't quite grasp: something about "our future" and "worth fighting for."

When dusk approached, I made my way back toward the village center, determined to speak with Ada directly, to cut through the web of evasions and half-truths. I'd had enough of secrets and shadows—at least those that weren't my own.

As I neared the healing cottage, I found Sarp sitting on the front porch, pale but alert, keeping watch over the village approaches. His eyes were scanning the forest edge with the vigilance of a man who'd survived too many ambushes to ever feel truly safe.

Before I could approach him, a commotion erupted from the western forest. Shouting. The crash of underbrush. Then a figure burst into the clearing—Melo in her human form, bloodied and disheveled, clothes torn, a wound seeping at her side.

"Ambush!" she gasped, staggering forward. "Western meadow—Midas's generals?—"

Cold dread seized my heart. "Ada? Kiraz?"

"Gold weapons," she managed, collapsing to her knees. "They were waiting—I tried to warn them—they used gold dust—" She gestured to the shimmering particles clinging to her wounds and clothing, a substance I recognized from ancient shadow texts as one of the few materials that could neutralize shapeshifter magic. "Couldn't transform—couldn't get back in time?—"

Sarp pushed himself up from his chair, alarm overriding his pain. "How many?"

"At least fifteen," Melo rasped. "Elite gold guard. All wielding weapons like Midas's—they've somehow replicated his gold magic."

My shadows erupted around me in a violent storm. In that moment, all questions of parentage and secrets fell away before a single, consuming truth: they had taken what was mine to protect.

The revelation slammed into me, cold and merciless. All the deflections, the evasions, the efforts to keep me occupied in the village—they hadn't been hiding Kiraz's parentage from me.

They had been hiding her from someone else.

Someone who had found her anyway.

Hakan

The trail of Midas's corrupted magic led us northeast, toward the ancient border between shadow and light realms. I moved with single-minded fury, my shadows extending ahead like hunting hounds, searching for any traceof Ada and Kiraz. Behind me, Sarp and Melo struggled to keep pace, both still weakened from their earlier injuries.

"They're heading for the Twilight Pass," Sarp called, his voice tight with pain. "The old gateway between realms."

I knew the place—a narrow corridor of stone where the boundaries between shadow and light had worn thin over millennia. Neither fully one realm nor the other, it was a place of unstable magic and shifting loyalties. The perfect place for Midas to make his escape with captives in tow.

"Hakan, slow down," Melo urged, her human form limping slightly from the wound in her side. "We need to conserve strength for the actual fight."

I ignored her, pushing forward with greater speed. Every moment wasted was another moment Ada and Kiraz remained in Midas's hands. The thought of that small child—with her impossible shadow magic and fearless eyes—in the clutches of a madman drove me forward with a primal urgency I couldn't explain.

The trail grew fresher as night deepened. They were slowed by prisoners, by the need to maintain the gold-forged bindings that suppressed Ada's light magic. We were gaining on them.

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