Page 104 of Crown of Ashes and Desire

"Only a little bit," she replied, her smile transforming her entire face into something radiant and strangely familiar. "I met him at the market." She pointed directly at me. "He was so grumpy, but he scared away the mean fruit man."

Four pairs of eyes turned to me with varying degrees of surprise. I shifted uncomfortably under their collective gaze.

"We…encountered each other," I admitted, again irritated. "The merchant was manhandling her. I intervened."

"You said you'd make him scream and pull his bones out like flower petals," the child corrected helpfully, and butchered my exact phrasing but captured the essence.

Ada pinched the bridge of her nose, appearing amused but also pained. "Kiraz, what have we said about wandering off alone?" she asked gently.

The child—Kiraz was her name, not the "Little Light" nickname she'd mentioned—put on an expression of exaggerated innocence that wouldn't have fooled a blind man. Kiraz, I realized, meant cherry in our language. She was named after a fruit.

"Should I only do it for 'portant things?" she answered, her dark eyes glimmering with mischief.

"That you should never do it," Ada corrected. "Especially now."

I stared between them, noticing subtle similarities in their mannerisms, yet something else nagged at me. "Who is this child serpent?" I asked Ada, my curiosity genuinely piqued.

"She's my niece," Ada replied, though something in her tone struck me as carefully measured.

"Kiraz," Nadine said in a tone of weary resignation. "I thought we agreed you'd help sort the vervain this morning."

"I was just checking if Uncle Sarp was better," Kiraz replied, not sounding particularly apologetic.

"And stealing fruit, apparently," Nadine said, and gave me an appraising look. "I see you've met our…guest. Kiraz, this is Hakan—the shadow lord."

"Hakan got shadows under his skin," Kiraz announced to the room at large. "Like mine, but bigger."

An uncomfortable silence fell. I stared at the child, my jaw clenching. Shadows under her skin? No. That wasn't possible. I refused to entertain the implications.

"Kiraz has an active imagination," Nadine said. "And a tendency to compare her light magic to other powers she observes."

"I wasn't 'magining it," Kiraz protested, and held out her small palm.

Despite her earlier claim about having both abilities, I was still unprepared for what I saw—tiny flickers of both light and darkness danced across her skin, controlled with surprising precision for one so young.

"See? Shadows and light. Just like the shadow lord's, only smaller."

I stared at her palm, genuine shock coursing through me. She had mentioned having both abilities, but seeing actual shadow magic—my magic—manifesting in a light realm child was impossible by every law of magical inheritance I knew. I stared at Ada, whose face had gone carefully blank and slightly pale, then to Nadine, whose expression was equally guarded.

Only Sarp seemed unsurprised, watching the exchange with the air of someone who already knew the punchline to a joke no one else had heard. Something tugged at the edges of my awareness—a possibility I wasn't yet ready to consider. What the fuck was going on in here?

"You should keep an eye on her. She's completely wild," I said to Ada, and tried to recover from my shock. "Uncouth and undisciplined. I found her picking pockets and insulting grown men twice her size."

"Imagine that," Ada replied with a strange smile. "A child who doesn't respect arbitrary authority and stands up to people many times her size. How completely unexpected and not at all familiar."

Sarp made a choking sound that might have suppressed laughter. Even Melo's lips twitched suspiciously.

"I'm not wild," Kiraz informed me with dignity. "I'm spirited. Mama says there's a difference."

"Indeed," I replied. "The difference being that 'spirited' sounds more palatable than 'one step away from feral.'"

Instead of being offended, Kiraz giggled as if I'd said something delightful. "You're funny when you try to be scary."

"Kiraz, the herbs," Nadine, her tone of voice firm. "Now, please."

"I want to check on Uncle Sarp, he needs more healing."

"Mm-hmm," Nadine replied, sounding skeptical. "And the missing sweet buns from the kitchen?"

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