Page 71 of Crown of Storm and Silence
The memory shifts,becomes something darker, more terrible. Three months later, when Altan's curse had begun its work, transforming our joy into a nightmare.
The same observatory, but changed. The crystal dome is cracked from my uncontrolled outbursts of shadow magic, letting in the perpetual twilight that now seems ominous rather than beautiful. I've been searching for her for hours—she's taken to disappearing for long stretches, hiding from the pain that grows worse each day.
"Isil?" I call out, my voice echoing in the empty space. "Sevgilim, where are you?"
I find her silhouetted against the same window where she told me about our child, but her posture speaks of agony rather than wonder. Her shoulders shake with silent sobs, her hands pressed against the glass as if she's trying to escape into the void beyond.
"Isil," I say softly, approaching slowly. Something about her stillness terrifies me. "What's wrong? Is it the baby?"
She doesn't respond, doesn't turn around. Just continues staring out at the stars with desperate intensity.
"Talk to me," I plead, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "Whatever it is, we'll face it together. We?—"
She turns then, and the sight destroys me completely.
Her beautiful face is ravaged with claw marks—deep gouges that run from her temples to her jaw, still weeping dark blood that speaks of magic turned malevolent. Her eyes, once bright with love and laughter, now hold a wildness that makes my soul recoil in horror.
"I can't make it stop," she sobs, fresh tears mixing with the blood streaming down her face. "The darkness... It's eating everything. Every thought, every memory. I tried to claw it out, tried to?—"
"Oh gods," I whisper, pulling her into my arms as she collapses against me. "What have you done to yourself?"
"It whispers," she gasps, her nails digging into my chest as she clings to me. "Your brother's curse, it whispers such terrible things. About our baby, about what it will become. About how the darkness will consume them just like it's consuming me."
Rage explodes through me—not at her, never at her, but at my brother who did this to the woman I love. My shadows writhe around us both, responding to emotions too powerful to contain.
"Listen to me," I say fiercely, cupping her ravaged face in my hands. "Whatever the curse is telling you, it's lying. Our child will be perfect, beautiful, everything good about both of us."
"But what if it's not?" she weeps. "What if the darkness takes them? What if I give birth to something that destroys everything it touches?"
The words she speaks are Altan's poison, I know that. But seeing her like this—broken, terrified, marked by her own desperate attempts to escape the horror growing inside her—makes me want to tear apart reality itself.
"I'll find a way to stop this," I swear, my voice rough with desperate determination. "I'll break the curse, save you both. I don't care what it costs."
But even as I speak the words, I can feel her fading. Not dying, but disappearing into the nightmare Altan has crafted specifically for her. Each day, she becomes less herself and more a vessel for suffering designed to destroy us both.
The memory fades as Emir's steady presence grounds me. He finds me collapsed in the medical wing's corridor after twenty minutes of reliving the worst moments of my existence—shadows pouring from my skin in response to memories of Isil's suffering have caused structural damage that will take days to repair. Without question, he guides me from that devastated corridor to the forest's edge where Mikail waits. During our journey here, the surviving Obur scatter after their nest's destruction, but Mikail's ancient senses can track them across realms if necessary.
Emir's voice cuts through the last vestiges of memory like a blade, snapping me fully back to the present. “We've been tracking the scattered Obur for three hours now, following Mikail's guidance through the blood-soaked forest. This is the fourth location we've investigated—the previous three had been abandoned, their occupants fled deeper into the wilderness.”
"How long have I been lost in the past?" I ask, my voice hoarse.
"Twenty minutes," he says carefully. "But we're here now. The trail will grow cold if we delay."
I look around and see we're standing at the forest's edge, where twisted trees cast shadows that seem to reach toward me with hungry recognition.
"We need to go," I say, pushing away from the tree I'd been leaning against. "Justice calls."
"The Obur?" Emir asks, falling into step beside me as we move deeper into the devastated woodland.
"Will suffer in ways that redefine the concept of creative justice," I reply with dark satisfaction. "I'm going to introduce them to artistic applications of agony they never imagined possible."
Emir opens a portal with practiced efficiency, the shadows tearing apart to reveal the blood-soaked forest where Mikail waits. We step through the dimensional rift, and I immediately catch the scent of death that clings to everything—not just from recent violence, but from the very air around me, as if my presence is slowly killing the forest itself. Mikail had gone ahead earlier to track the fleeing Obur while I lost myself in memory, and now his pale form is outlined against the twisted trees, crimson eyes gleaming with satisfaction at whatever trail he's discovered.
"The hungry children fled northwest," Mikail reports, his crimson eyes gleaming with anticipation. "They carry the scent of violation and innocent blood. Delicious seasoning for the hunt."
"How poetic," I say pleasantly, darkness coiling around my feet as we begin moving through the devastated woodland. "Tell me, Mikail, what exactly do you think I should do to creatures who dared to touch my pregnant wife?"
His laugh carries the sound of breaking glass. "Such delightful possibilities. Will you flay them slowly, or perhaps demonstrate the sublime poetry of prolonged dismemberment?"
