And if he didn't know — if that look in his eyes was something else entirely, something I was too paranoid and sleep-deprived to read correctly — then asking would be the thing that made him look closer. That made him see what I'd spent my whole life hiding.
Either way, the truth destroyed me.
So I kept walking.
I left the throne hall with his blessing and a crawling certainty that I'd missed something vital. The courtiers' shocked faces barely registered. I needed to think. Needed to be somewhere the light didn't press against my skull like a living thing.
I found Sarp in our usual spot—a wine cellar beneath the Academy that we'd claimed years ago, far from watching eyes and listening ears. He took one look at my face and poured two glasses without asking.
"Well?" He slid one across the barrel we used as a table. "Should I start planning your funeral, or...?"
"He said yes."
Sarp's hand froze halfway to his drink. "He what?"
"The Light God gave his blessing." I downed my wine in one swallow, the burn doing nothing to settle my thoughts. "He asked about my family, my mother, things he shouldn't care about. He knew we'd been meeting in secret—knew for months and said nothing. And then he just... smiled. Said he sees potential in me."
"That's..." Sarp's frown deepened. "That's not how this usually goes. You're a nobody from the borderlands. No offense."
"None taken."
"So why would he just hand over his daughter? What's the angle?"
I poured another glass. "I don't know. That's what's bothering me."
"Maybe he actually likes you." Sarp's tone made it clear how likely he found that possibility. "Or maybe Ada threatened to run off with you anyway and he's cutting his losses."
"Maybe." But I didn't believe it. The Light God's questions had been too specific, his interest too keen. He'd been looking for something in me. And whatever he'd found had made him smile.
That smile was going to haunt me.
"Look," Sarp said, leaning back, "you got what you wanted. Ada, the blessing, the whole fairy tale. Maybe don't question it so hard that you talk yourself out of being happy."
"Since when do you give sincere advice?"
"I contain multitudes." He grinned. "Also, I'm expecting to be best man at this wedding, and I can't plan my devastatinglymoving toast if you're too busy brooding to actually get married."
The weeks that followed should have been the happiest of my life.
I could walk through the palace with Ada at my side, her hand resting openly in the crook of my arm. I could kiss her in the gardens without checking for witnesses first. Courtiers who had sneered at me now smiled and bowed, suddenly remembering my name, suddenly eager to be associated with the Light God's future son-in-law.
It was everything I'd wanted. And every morning I woke up happier than the day before, and every night the darkness under my ribs grew louder.
The Light Court showed me its best face now that I was accepted. I attended the dawn prayers in the great temple, standing beside Ada while the priests sang hymns that made the air itself vibrate with holiness. I watched blessing ceremonies where the Light God laid hands on the sick and dying, watched them rise weeping with gratitude, watched the crowd fall to their knees in worship.
It was beautiful. Sacred. Good.
But I couldn't stop noticing things.
The half-blood servant girl who flinched when I passed her in the corridors—the same one I'd seen a dozen times, her wrists bearing the circular burns of purification rituals. She walked with her eyes fixed on the floor, never looking up, never speaking unless spoken to. When I tried to thank her for bringing wine to one of Ada's gatherings, she trembled like she expected to be struck.
The way conversations died when Ada and I entered rooms. Not the respectful hush of deference—something else. Glances exchanged too quickly, smiles that didn't reach eyes, whispers that resumed the moment we passed.
Lord Kaya's hands trembling slightly when he poured wine at formal dinners, though his voice stayed steady. How he never turned his back on the High Priests. The warning he'd given me years ago, half-forgotten until now: "The light shows everything, boy. Be careful what you let it see."
And underneath it all, my shadows stirred restlessly, coiling and uncoiling beneath my skin like they sensed something I couldn't name. They were new—weeks old, maybe less, arriving without invitation and refusing to leave. More present. As if whatever door the Light God had acknowledged was opening wider whether I wanted it to or not.
"You're brooding again." Ada caught my face between her hands, forcing me to meet her eyes. We were in her favorite corner of the Light Gardens, surrounded by flowers that glowed in the dusk. "Your jaw does that thing."