Page 74 of Crown of Storm and Silence
That conversation about children—the way Kaan's face had changed when understanding crashed into him, the shadows that had exploded around him like a physical manifestation of terror. But now, with the fragment restored, I can feel there was more beneath his reaction than simple rejection. The horror in his eyes hadn't been directed at me or the possibility of our child.
It had been directed inward, at something I still can't reach.
My hand moves instinctively to my belly, where our impossible child rests safely despite everything we've endured. The healers assure me the connection is fully restored, that no lasting damage was done, but I can still feel the echo of those serpentine violations in my most intimate places. The memorymakes me shudder, wrapping my arms around myself as if I can somehow shield us both from what's already passed.
But underneath the trauma, underneath the violation and terror, something else gnaws at me with relentless persistence. The fragments of memory that have returned don't tell the complete story. They're pieces of a puzzle that's missing its center, leaving me grasping at shadows of understanding that slip away whenever I try to examine them too closely.
I didn't run just because he didn't want the baby. There's more—something darker, more complex that my broken mind refuses to surrender.
The frustration builds until I want to scream. I need answers, not self-destruction.
Which brings me here, to the medical wing, where my dearest friend lies suspended between life and death because she tried to save me.
When the healers told me she lived, I almost didn't believe them. I had been so sure she had died on that blood-stained, cold floor.
The chamber where they're keeping Banu is smaller than mine; its healing crystals dimmed to barely perceptible glows. She looks impossibly fragile against the dark stone, her silver hair spread like spun moonlight across the pillow. Both wings are carefully splinted, the gossamer membranes torn but slowly regenerating under the healers' careful attention.
"How is she?" I ask the attending healer, a middle-aged woman whose weathered hands speak of decades spent mending broken things.
"Stable," she replies, checking the delicate monitoring enchantments that surround Banu's still form. "The blood loss was severe, and fairy physiology is... delicate. We're maintaining her in a healing trance while her body recovers, but it will take time."
I settle into the chair beside her bed, taking her small hand in mine. Her skin is cool but not cold, her pulse fluttering like a bird's wing beneath my fingertips. The guilt crashes over me in waves—she came for me, knowing it meant her death, and now she pays the price for my weakness.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, my voice barely audible in the quiet chamber. "I'm so sorry, Banu. You saved me, and I don't even remember why we were friends. I can't remember what you meant to me."
Her hand lies still in mine, offering no comfort, no forgiveness for the gaps in my memory that feel like betrayals of their own. The golden warmth that usually lives beneath my skin responds to my distress, beginning to flow through our joined hands without conscious direction.
"No," the healer says sharply, moving toward us with obvious alarm. "You must not channel healing energy into her. The magical resonance could disrupt the stasis we're maintaining. Too much energy, even healing energy, could overwhelm her system."
I pull my hands back reluctantly, the golden light fading as I force my power to stillness. "I just wanted to help her."
"She needs rest more than healing right now," the woman says gently. "Her body is doing the work—we're simply providing the optimal conditions for recovery. But you should go. Your emotional state is affecting the ambient magical fields."
The dismissal stings, but I understand the necessity. My presence here, charged with guilt and desperate worry, could indeed interfere with the delicate balance they're maintaining to keep her alive. I press a gentle kiss to Banu's forehead, breathing in the familiar scent of starlight and summer rain that always seems to cling to her skin.
"Get better," I murmur against her temple. "I need you to help me remember who we were to each other."
The corridor outside her chamber stretches before me, all obsidian and shadow that seems to writhe with its own malevolent life. The Shadow Court is beautiful in its way—stark, elegant, designed to showcase power rather than comfort—but it feels alien to me. Like wearing clothes that belong to someone else, familiar yet wrong.
I'm so lost in thought that I don't notice him until shadows coalesce into solid form directly in my path. Kaan materializes from darkness itself, his tall frame blocking the corridor ahead, and my first instinct is to step backward, to put distance between us.
He looks haunted. That's the only word that fits the devastation written across his aristocratic features. The sharp edges of his face seem dulled by exhaustion, while his dark eyes hold depths that speak of witnessing things that will follow him into eternity. His clothes are different—clean, obviously changed from the blood-soaked garments he wore the last time I saw him—but there's something about his posture that suggests the violence still clings to him like a second skin.
"How is she?" he asks, his voice rough with disuse.
"Alive," I manage, fighting the urge to look away from the intensity of his gaze. "The healers say she'll recover, but it will take time."
He nods, shadows coiling restlessly around his feet like pets sensing their master's agitation. "Good. She saved you when I couldn't. I owe her a debt that can never be repaid."
The way he says it, with such raw self-loathing, makes my chest tight with unwanted sympathy. But I force myself to remain distant, to remember that there are still truths he's keeping from me, still pieces of our story that remain locked away.
"Where have you been?" The question emerges harder than I intended.
"Ensuring justice," he replies with dark satisfaction. "The creatures who dared to touch you have been... educated about the consequences of such presumption."
Something in his tone makes me shiver, though whether from fear or recognition, I can't say. There's a quality to his voice that wasn't there before, something that suggests the violence he speaks of was far more extensive than simple execution.
"How many?" I ask quietly.
