Page 73 of Crown of Light and Ashes
"Do not," he interrupts, his voice rising. "Do not blame magic for this. You are supposed to be killing him, Nesi, not fucking him."
The crude word from my usually gentle brother's lips shocks me. "You do not understand what it is like," I say, my voice hardening. "The bond changes things. It makes me feel—"
"Feel what? Lust for our mother's killer? Devotion to the monster who murdered your lover in front of you?" His eyes, so like my own, blaze with righteous anger. "Have you forgotten what he is? What he's done?"
The accusation cuts deeper than any knife. "I live with the memory every day," I reply, fighting to keep my voice steady. "Every time I close my eyes, I see Aslan being torn apart. I see Mother's body. I haven't forgotten anything."
"Then why?" he demands, his voice cracking with emotion. "Why are you giving yourself to him? Why are court servants whispering about how the Shadow Lady melts at her lord's touch? Why did I have to hear from a kitchen maid that my sister—my sister who swore vengeance—is now warming the bed of the very monster she was meant to destroy?"
Something inside me snaps. "I am the only reason you're alive right now," I snarl, stepping into his space. "You would be bleeding out on the floor if not for me, so be careful, little brother."
He flinches as if I've struck him, his face draining of color. Fora moment, he looks exactly as he did when we were children and I'd gone too far in our games—hurt and bewildered by my sudden cruelty.
Remorse floods me immediately. This is Zoran—my sweet, scholarly brother who's never raised his voice to me before today. The brother I sacrificed everything to protect.
"I didn't mean—" I begin, reaching for him.
He steps back, beyond my reach. "Yes, you did," he says quietly. "And that is what terrifies me. He is changing you, Nesi. You are becoming something I do not recognize." Tears glimmer in his eyes. "Where is my sister? The one who held me when I had nightmares? The one who taught me to face my fears?"
"I am still me," I insist, though doubt creeps in at the edges of my certainty. Am I still me? After what I have done, what I have felt, who I have become in Kaan's arms?
"Are you?" Zoran shakes his head sadly. "The sister I know would not threaten me. She would not defend a monster like Kaan. She would not betray everything she stands for because of—what? A few nights of passion?"
I tried to fight this, I think desperately, the words I can't speak aloud burning in my throat. I tried to resist the pull between us. I even attempted to make a sleeping potion—something to give me an advantage, a way to complete my mission. But it failed. Everything I tried failed, and somewhere along the way, the lines blurred until I could no longer tell where the blood bond ended and my own feelings began.
"It is not like that," I argue, but my voice lacks conviction even to my own ears.
"Then what is it like?" he challenges, anger flaring again. "Explain it to me, because from where I am standing, it looks like you have forgotten everything he has done. Mother. Aslan. Countless others."
"I haven't forgotten anything," I snap, anger flaring again. "Butthis situation is more complicated than you can possibly understand. The blood bond can't be broken. If I kill him, I'll suffer too."
"So you have just given up?" His disbelief is palpable. "Decided to embrace your new role as his willing consort instead?"
"I'm doing what I have to do to survive!"
"No," he says, his voice dropping to a cold whisper that hurts more than his shouting. "You are doing what you want to do. And that is what breaks my heart."
He turns to leave, and panic surges through me. "Zoran, wait—"
"I cannot watch you become this," he says over his shoulder. "I will not be complicit in whatever you are becoming." He hesitates, then adds the final blow: "Mother would be ashamed to see what you have allowed yourself to become."
The words strike hard. I stagger back, a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob escaping my lips. Of all the weapons he could have chosen, invoking our mother is the most devastating.
"You do not mean that," I whisper, but he is already walking away, his back straight with righteous indignation.
Something inside me shatters. The brother who has been my constant support, my only real family, walking away because I have become something he cannot recognize. Something he cannot accept.
I want to run after him, to explain, to make him understand. But what would I say? That sometimes, when Kaan touches me, I forget to hate him? That in the darkness of night, wrapped in his shadows, I find a perverse freedom I have never known before? That the bond between us feels less like a prison and more like a revelation with each passing day?
The truth is too complicated, too shameful to articulate even to myself.
Rage and grief tangle inside me, a toxic blend that makes me want to scream, to break something, to hurt someone as badly asI'm hurting now. I find myself moving blindly through the corridors, vision blurred with unshed tears, my body vibrating with emotions I can barely contain.
I pass a delicate vase—some priceless Shadow Court artifact—and before I can think, my hand lashes out, sending it crashing to the floor. The sound of shattering porcelain brings a moment of savage satisfaction that evaporates almost instantly. I don't stop. My feet carry me faster through the winding hallways of the palace, away from the observatory, away from Kaan and Ayla, away from where Zoran's words still linger in the air like poison.
Everyone is against me—Kaan with his deliberate provocations and sudden withdrawal, Ayla with her blatant seduction attempts, my brother with his self-righteous judgment. Even Banu vanished when I needed her most.
My fist connects with the wall as I pass, the pain barely registering through the emotional storm. Blood smears across the polished stone, but I keep moving, my breath coming in ragged gasps that border on sobs.
