Page 29 of Shadebound
It was more of a thought than a question. Not like I truly wanted him to answer when it didn’t matter either way.
I don’t know.He replied.I cannot die. I only watch it happen.
Did you watch me die?I’d never asked before. I’d never really felt the need to. And with me being stillborn, it wasn’t like I’d ever truly lived enough to know what life was like. Or wonder if he had been a spectre seeing it play out.
There was silence for a while. Long enough that my eyes dried up, and I presumed my question would go unanswered. But as my fingers reached into my coat pocket, stabbing the thorns into my skin again, I finally had a response.
I felt it.
Tears built in my eyes from lack of blinking, as I pushed my fingertips harder into my gifted stems.What was it like for you? To feel someone dying.
There was no wait this time before Death replied.It feels like something I pray you never experience.A pause then—it matched how you felt when your sister passed, only worse. Far, far worse because I cannot escape. I feel it every minute of every day.
My eyes shut, and I cut the conversation off without another reply. It was all I could do aside from curl up into a ball and pretend that I was fine.
That everything was fine.
Field Journal, Entry #273 — Classified
Most cages aren’t metal. They’re moments. Quiet ones. A breath too loud in the dark. The hush that comes when magic vanishes from your skin and doesn’t return. Shadebounds weren’t made for stillness. We were made to rupture, to haunt. So when silence presses in and nothing answers back, you don’t grieve the power. You grieve the self you were with it.
Chapter Ten, One’s A Party, Fiore’s A Crowd
Ifell asleep not long after dinner. I’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, watching Draven and Zayden sign in low, tired rhythm while I picked through a bowl of greyish sludge the kitchen claimed was dinner. It wasn’t good, but it was edible in its weirdness. And somehow, Draven had picked the exact flavour of sushi I liked from the sushi bar near our home. It was familiar in a way that made my stomach stop twisting. Almost comforting, despite everything.
I ate in silence. I didn’t care enough to wonder how it worked, or why my mouth was both delighted and disturbed. No, I just kept chewing, too tired to do anything else. After I finished, I told myself I would just close my eyes for a fewminutes. Just to let my head stop pounding. Just to let the food settle.
I even promised Zayden I would put some healing balm that was in the bathroom onto my fingertips when he noticed the bloodstains and prick marks with a frown.
But my limbs ached with a dull, steady weight, every muscle tense from the constant strain of earlier. My spine protested each breath, a low throb echoing through every joint. The bastard cuff still bit into my wrist, draining the last traces of magic like it was entitled to what little I had left. It didn’t just hurt—it hollowed me out. I was brittle in all the wrong places. There was a rage in my chest I couldn’t voice, not without magic to back it up. Not yet.
I would not live like this. I was not built for suffering.
At least, not toexperienceit. Bring it? Sure.
I didn’t bother changing or washing away the blood on my back. I didn’t care to pull back the covers or make myself comfortable. Didn’t care to join in when my brother lovingly made me a goblet of ournonna’ssecret recipe hot chocolate, that she’d killed four husbands to keep hidden. My limbs were heavy, my brain fogged with exhaustion. I dropped onto the bed still dressed, half-curled on top of the blankets with one arm loose over my stomach, muscles aching. Sleep claimed me the second my head touched the pillow, dragging me under without giving me time to think.
It was the first time since my sister’s funeral that my body stopped fighting itself long enough to rest—and the last time I’d be stupid enough to let my guard down in this place.
Never pass out before learning who else shares your room,I would later tell myself.Mistakes like that don’t just get you hurt. They get you haunted.
I’d meant to stay up until Maya came back. I wanted to talk to someone who didn’t lie. Someone who might actually offeranswers that weren’t cryptic or cruel. She seemed like the only one aside from Zayden who could manage that. And she was the preferable option with us actually just being friends. But the exhaustion hit faster than expected. My head had barely touched the pillow before I blinked once—and didn’t open my eyes again.
Sleep came fast. Hard.
And I woke too soon.
Only because there was a man climbing on top of me.
A man who was definitely not Zayden. Not because of his weight alone, though my wolf was lighter. It was the reaction of my sleepy shadows that confirmed it—tense, uneasy, almost screaming at me in their desperation to wake me up. They behaved like that only when something dangerous hovered too close. And they had never reacted to Zayden that way. Not once.
Theyneverworried about Zayden.
The man’s weight pressed me into the mattress before my body could process what was happening. The heaviness was undeniable—solid muscle, unmoving force. It was easy to notice the tension in his large arms. One of his wide hands was planted beside my shoulder, anchoring him. The other held a cool blade. The edge met the skin of my throat. Not enough to cut. Just enough to warn.
I had never feared for my life in the dark before. Usually, I felt more powerful in the spaces most women clutched their keys between knuckles. I was more confident at times that women glanced around for the presence of another, or kept their headphones out to keep their ears sharp.
For most of my life, I’d experienced the night as though I were a man. And now?
