Page 50 of Crown of Ashes and Desire

I pushed off the woman and glanced toward the doorway, where the woman who filled my days with light stood frozen. The moment she saw me, the light had died in her eyes. Not gradually, not sputtering to darkness—but instantly, catastrophically extinguished. She’d stood frozen, her skinashen, the basket she’d been carrying—probably containing the lunch she’d planned to surprise me with—crashing to the floor.

For one terrible moment, silence had filled the space.

Then came the scream. Not of anger or even shock, but of pure, primal agony. The sound of something vital being ripped away. It had cut through me more painfully than any blade, embedding itself in my soul where I knew it would echo for eternity. I didn’t fucking expect her to feel this pain, her pain, and it was agonizing.

Her anguish mirrored my own, buried beneath my carefully constructed facade. As she stood there, shattered by my betrayal, I forced myself to look annoyed rather than devastated. It was the hardest performance of my life, but I had to see it through. For her sake. For power. For the destiny I’d never asked for but couldn’t escape.

“Hakan!”

Sarp’s voice dragged me back to the present. To the chamber beneath the palace, where darkness regained eternal, and the air tasted of fear and metal.

“What?” I snarled and blinked away memories that had no place here. What the fuck was wrong with me? She was supposed to mean nothing to me, and yet I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since the wedding. The lie tasted bitter even in my mind. If she meant nothing, I wouldn’t be standing here covered in her blood, wouldn’t have just prepared to shatter a man’s mind for daring to touch her.

“You were somewhere else,” Sarp observed, his expression carefully neutral. “And our guest is getting impatient.”

The assassin hung suspended in the center of the room, bound by shadows that pulsed with cruel power. Blood dripped from numerous shallow cuts, each methodically placed to cause maximum pain with minimal damage. His mask had beenremoved, revealing a face that might have been handsome once, before fear and pain had twisted it.

“Fuck you both,” the man gasped, blood bubbling between his lips. “The Crown of Shadow and Ashes won’t get anything from me.”

I approached slowly, letting my shadows trail around me, tasting his fear. My shadows could taste his emotional attachments—the desperate love for someone named Ayfet—but extracting specific memories required breaking down his mental defenses first. Surface emotions were easy to read; buried secrets needed coaxing through pain.

“You’ve spilled enough already,” I lied, and watched his eyes widen slightly. “I just want to confirm a few minor details.”

“I’ve said nothing!”

“Haven’t you?” I smiled, and he flinched as though I’d struck him. “You’ve told me you’re not a common assassin. Your accent, your bearing, your technique—you’re court-trained. A shadow noble’s personal killer.” I let my power brush against his skin, freezing and burning simultaneously. Part of me—the part corrupted by years of shadow magic—wanted to fucking torture him until he would beg for mercy. But as I looked at the evidence of Ada’s blood still staining my clothes, that savage impulse warred with something deeper, something that remembered what she’d once meant to me. “You’ve told me this was no random attack. My wife was the specific target.”

“I don’t?—”

My hand shot out, shadows extending from my fingertips to pierce his shoulder, driving into the joint with ruthless efficiency. His scream echoed off the stone walls.

“Interrupt me again,” I said conversationally, “and I’ll take your tongue. Not cut it out—that’s crude. I’ll dissolve it from the inside out, nerve by nerve, until you feel every cell die individually.” I withdrew the shadow-blade and left a perfectlycauterized wound that would provide no relief through blood loss. “Now, as I was saying. You came for my wife specifically. The question is…who sent you?”

The assassin spat blood onto the floor between us. “Fuck you!”

“I have a better idea.” I nodded to Sarp, who stepped forward with a small silver box. “But first, I want to show you something.”

Sarp opened the box, revealing a small black stone that pulsed with sickly energy.

“Do you know what this is?” I enjoyed the flash of recognition in the assassin’s eyes. “Yes, I see that you do. And I also know about your beloved Ayfet. She’s so beautiful.”

His eyes widened with fear. My shadows had tasted that attachment, that desperate love that made him vulnerable.

“Stay away from her,” he snarled, voice filled with fear.

“It’s a soul-trap. Ancient magic, forbidden even in the shadow realms. It can rip a soul from a living body and trap it for eternity.” I lifted the stone and watched it writhe between my fingers. “I don’t need to wait for her to die naturally.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he whispered, but doubt had crept into his voice. “Even you wouldn’t break that taboo.”

“For her?” I leaned close and let him see the truth in my eyes. “I would tear apart the fabric of reality itself. A minor taboo like soul-trapping doesn’t even register.”

The soul-trap was my ultimate weapon, but using it too soon would make him shut down completely. Fear needed to build slowly—desperation made tongues loose, but pure terror made them silent.

"Hakan," Sarp interjected with caution, sensing the dangerous shift in my mood. "Perhaps we should?—"

"Leave us," I ordered, not taking my eyes off the assassin. "Now."

"No." Sarp seldom defied me so directly, and the single word hung in the air between us.

---