Page 27 of Crown of Storm and Silence
"Elif," she says, and my name on her lips sounds both familiar and strange. "We need to talk."
Banu has gone completely still, her earlier anger replaced by something that might be recognition. "Elçin?" she breathes.
The woman—Elçin—glances at Banu with what might be amusement. "Hello, little shadow. Still causing trouble, I see."
"You know each other?" I ask, looking between them.
"We've met," Elçin says diplomatically. "Though it's been…some time.”
Sinan has stepped slightly in front of me, his protective instincts clearly triggered by this new arrival. "Who are you? What do you want?"
Elçin’s gray eyes fix on him with the kind of attention a hawk might give a particularly interesting mouse. I am Elçin of the Northern Reaches. And what I want is a private conversation with the woman you've all been fighting over like children squabbling over a toy."
The casual dismissal in her tone makes Sinan bristle. "She's not?—"
"A toy? No, she's certainly not." Elçin’s smile is sharp and beautiful and somehow terrifying. "She's far more dangerous than that. Which is exactly why she and I need to talk."
She turns those storm-gray eyes on me, and I feel something shift in the air between us. Power recognizes power, and whatever magic flows through this woman, it's vast and ancient and barely contained.
"Your little village drama is charming," she continues, "but there are larger forces at work here. Forces that won't be impressed by noble intentions or protective instincts or centuries-old friendships."
"What kind of forces?" I ask, though part of me isn't sure I want to know.
Her smile widens, showing teeth that are just a little too sharp to be entirely human. "The kind that are coming for you, whether you remember who you are or not. The kind that will burn this peaceful little village to ash if it means getting to you."
Behind her, I can see more villagers gathering, drawn by curiosity and the unmistakable aura of power that surrounds this woman. Children peek out from behind their mothers' skirts, while the men fingered weapons they probably haven't had cause to use in years.
"The kind," Elçin says, her voice dropping to something low and dangerous, "that Kaan has been holding back through sheer force of will. But even he can't protect you forever if you don't remember who you're supposed to be."
The cottage falls silent except for the sound of my own heartbeat thundering in my ears. Outside, storm clouds are gathering on the horizon, as if the very sky is responding to the tension crackling through the air.
"So," Elçin says, settling herself gracefully on the edge of the table like she owns the place. "Shall we discuss why the fate of two realms might just depend on a woman who thinks she's a simple village healer named Elif?"
10
The Shadow's Tactic
Kaan
Three daysof lurking in bushes like a demented gargoyle with romantic aspirations have confirmed that I've hit rock bottom and started digging. I am the Shadow Lord of the realm, terror of kingdoms, and I'm currently hiding behind a particularly judgmental-looking shrub like some heartbroken village idiot. If my enemies could see me now, they'd die laughing, which would save me the trouble of murdering them, so perhaps there's a silver lining to this humiliation.
She moves through her stolen life, spreading light like she's made of concentrated sunshine and delusions of safety. My shadows pace around me like disappointed house cats, clearly questioning their life choices in choosing such a pathetic master.
"My lord," Emir ventures carefully from beside the command tent, his voice carrying that special tone reserved for approaching dangerous wildlife, "perhaps we should consider?—"
"If you're about to suggest I give up and return to the Shadow Court like a reasonable person," I interrupt without looking athim, "I feel obligated to remind you that reason abandoned me somewhere around the time I discovered my wife erased her own mind rather than face the prospect of bearing my child."
The words burn on my tongue, but they're the truth. Nesilhan—Elif, whatever name she's chosen to hide behind—would rather live as a stranger to herself than remember what it meant to love me. The knowledge sits in my chest, making each breath an exercise in controlled agony.
Five months of destruction. Five months of painting villages in blood and ash, tearing through the realm in search of a ghost. I told myself it was grief, rage, the natural response of a creature denied what belonged to him.
Without the balance of Nesilhan's light magic and her essence tempering the darkness, the shadow poison has come back in full force. For a century, I absorbed this poison trying to save Isil. Now, with the bond broken, I have no barrier left against it. Now I have been slowly transforming into the very monster she fled from.
I've been turning into my father all along, and I was too consumed by loss to notice.
"I'm going down there," I announce, already reshaping my appearance with shadow-work. "Alone."
"My lord, that seems... inadvisable," Emir says with the diplomatic skill of someone who's spent centuries learning to say 'absolutely fucking insane' in more polite terms.
