Page 11 of Crown of Storm and Silence
And suddenly, impossibly, something in my chest stirs. Not the bond—that remains as severed as ever. But something else entirely, something new and inexplicable and achingly familiar.
The shadows around me don't just calm—they begin to sing.
Not audibly, because I haven't completely lost my grip on reality despite popular opinion. But they pulse with recognition, with something that feels almost like joy mixed with desperate hunger. They're drawn in the direction of that distant village like metal filings to a lodestone.
For the first time in months, I don't have to fight to control them. They want to go somewhere specific, and that somewhere is calling to them with a voice I can't hear but somehow recognize.
They want to go home.
"My lord?" Emir's voice seems to come from very far away. "What is it?"
I continue staring through the darkness toward whatever waits for me in Yildizkaya. Deep in my chest, in the place where the bond used to live, something entirely new begins to unfurl its wings.
Not recognition. Not memory. But possibility wrapped in shadows and tied with a golden ribbon.
"We leave at first light," I say quietly, my voice strange even to my own ears. "Something calls to me from that direction, and I find myself desperately curious about what it might be."
Because if I'm wrong—if this is just another phantom, another cruel joke played by hope and my inexhaustible capacity for self-delusion—then Yildizkaya will burn like all the others.
But if I'm right...
If I'm right, then perhaps the shadows know something I don't. Perhaps they've been trying to lead me somewhere all along, and I've been too busy drowning in my own spectacular misery to listen.
4
The Protector
Nesilhan
The first screamcuts through the morning air like a blade through silk, sharp and terrifying. I drop the herb bundle I've been sorting, my hands moving instinctively to protect my belly as another cry echoes from the village center.
"Bandits!" someone shouts, the word carrying across the cobblestones with the weight of a nightmare made real. "They're at the market!"
My blood turns to ice. Through the cottage window, I can see villagers running in all directions, mothers clutching children, merchants abandoning their stalls, the elderly struggling to keep pace with younger legs. The peaceful morning has transformed into chaos in the span of a heartbeat.
"Stay inside," Mira commands, already moving toward the door with surprising speed for her age. Her healer's bag is in her hands before I can blink, and there's something in her expression that speaks of experience with violence, of knowledge hard-won through years I can't imagine.
But I can't stay inside. Something deep in my chest pulls me toward the danger, toward the sound of steel clashing against steel that now rings through the air like a deadly song. My feet move without conscious thought, carrying me to the door despite Mira's protests.
"Elif, no?—"
"I have to see," I say, though I don't understand why the certainty burns through me so fiercely. "Something is calling me out there."
And something is. The sensation crawls under my skin like living things, not just pain and fear, but something else, something that draws me toward the chaos with inexplicable urgency.
I push past Mira's reaching hands and step into the street, immediately overwhelmed by the chaos surrounding me. A group of mounted men, dirty, scarred, with the look of wolves who've learned to walk upright—weave through the village streets like a plague made flesh. They carry crude weapons and wear mismatched armor, but there's nothing amateur about the way they move. These aren't desperate peasants turned to banditry by hard times. These are predators who've made violence their profession.
One of them rides down an elderly man trying to flee, his horse's hooves missing the fallen figure by inches as he laughs with genuine delight. Another has cornered young Sara, the baker's daughter, against the side of her father's shop, his leering grin visible even from this distance.
My hands begin to warm without conscious thought, golden light flickering between my fingers like captured sunlight. The power calls to me, begging to be used, but there are no wounded within reach, only violence and chaos spreading through the square. Before I can decide what to do with this growing energy,a figure moves past me with fluid grace—Sinan, the merchant who has been staying in our stable for the past week.
Except he doesn't move like a merchant anymore.
The transformation is startling and complete. Gone is the gentle, slightly awkward traveler who thanked me so earnestly for allowing him lodging. In his place stands someone who moves like water given deadly purpose, like violence refined into art. A sword appears in his hand as if summoned by will alone, not the practical blade of a trader, but something elegant and perfectly balanced that catches the morning light with lethal beauty.
The bandit threatening Sara turns just in time to see death approaching in the form of bronze hair and storm-gray eyes. Sinan's blade takes him across the throat in a movement so quick and clean it seems almost gentle, dropping the man from his saddle without so much as a final cry. Sara scrambles away, sobbing with relief, as Sinan wheels to face the next threat.
I watch, transfixed, as he cuts through the bandits. Each cut is exact, and it speaks of years of training, decades of experience. This isn't the desperate flailing of a civilian defending his temporary home. This is artistry applied to violence, and it's both beautiful and terrifying to witness.
