Page 64 of Shadebound
The torches ahead flickered. Shadows bent toward her. She didn’t even blink as she squeezed my hand before letting it go so she could enter the fourth door that led us outside.
Whatever waited for her inside that room, I didn’t think it stood a chance of damaging her.
I was just mildly concerned that it was because she was already too damaged.
Field Journal — Entry #743 - Classified
Shadebound are not heartless, though we often look it. Our silence is mistaken for coldness. Our stillness, for apathy. But we feel everything—too much, too deeply, too long. We carry memories like ghosts. Every sorrow clings to the ribs. Every wound becomes a shadow that never quite leaves.
To force a shadebound to sit inside their pain—to call it out, expose it, demand that they feel—is a cruelty few understand. Because we do feel. We just don’t always come back from it. Sadness sinks us. Loneliness hollows us out. And the more we ache, the easier it is to let the shadows take the wheel. To blur at the edges. To vanish into the quiet of ourselves.
The worst shadebound in history weren’t born monsters. They weren’t consumed by hatred or hunger or power. They fell because they were left alone in their sorrow. Because no one reached for them when it mattered most.
This magic doesn’t need rage to destroy us.
Grief will do just fine.
Chapter Nineteen, Memories Made Of Madness
The East Grove beach stretched into a bleak expanse of black sand, cold wind dragging sea salt across the beachin stinging bursts. Jagged cliffs loomed above, casting long shadows beneath the heavy afternoon sky. The endless black sea churned beyond, slamming into the rocks on shore with violent rhythm. This wasn’t a classroom. It was a punishment. The kind designed to strip away comfort, one freezing breath at a time.
It seemed I was the only person who enjoyed our location. I couldn’t fathom why the rest of the class looked so miserable and bored. To me, the outside and the icy breeze were far more fun than the stuffy claustrophobia inside the halls of Mors.
I stood near the edge of a loose circle that had formed in a shallow dip in the sand. The wind clawed at my braid, and the salty air left my lips dry. Zayden stepped beside me, his voice low enough to almost be stolen by the breeze.
“Sometimes Professor Varl puts people in the cave over there,” he said, nodding toward the cliffs. “Only if you misbehave or don’t do what he wants. Hightower does the same.”
I followed his gaze. A hollow yawned open in the rock face—low and wide, like a mouth. Chisel marks scarred the stone, and faded runes curled around the arch. The entrance was a black void, untouched by light.
It was rather pretty. I wanted to go inside and see just what it looked like in the depths.
Zayden stepped closer to me, as though he could sense my thoughts. “Varl locks you in there. It’s... not good. Trust me.”
He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. The way he said it made it worse than anything he could explain. Besides, I had more important things to worry about right now.
Like the lesson onfeelings, I was being forced to endure.
I already hated this. I would’ve preferred every bone in my body shattered and left to set wrong than be dragged through it. Physical pain was something I understood, even if I didn’t want it to occur again. Now that I knew I would feel pain for real, without my shadows. But this was psychological excavation. Aforced dive through the filth of memory. It made my skin crawl and my chest tighten, and I hated it more than I could articulate.
The instructor stepped into the circle. His expression could’ve curdled milk. He looked like someone who’d banned smiling decades ago and never regretted it. With his skin pale in that way people got when they lived near cold, dead things. Dark brown hair streaked with copper was tied back at the nape of his neck. His coat was buttoned to his throat, every edge rigid.
“For those who haven’t had the pleasure,” he said, voice cutting clean through the wind, “I am Professor Varl. I teach Psychological Conditioning. And I am a spirit witch, trained in trauma forging and emotional resilience theory.”
A few students shifted their weight. Most didn’t react at all. I stayed still, watching him, waiting for the part where he forced me to feel emotions I pretended didn’t exist.
Spirit witches didn’t conjure fire or bend the elements. Their magic worked through emotional resonance. They forced you to relive your worst memories, not as visions, but as full-body experiences. Their power infiltrated your nervous system. You lived what you experienced before—the exact temperature, the tightness in your lungs, the burn behind your eyes. Every sound and smell returned with razor precision. The pain wasn’t symbolic. It was literal.
They peeled your thoughts open like they were layers of skin and shoved you into the moment you never wanted to see again.
“This class does not exist to soothe you,” Varl said. “The plague that tore through Mortavia infected grief, consumed trauma, and forced those who touched it to live in the darkest parts of their mind. And the only way to prevent it happening to soldiers, or to prepare them for it, is to force them to exist in their emotions. To force you to exist in yourpain.”
His gaze swept across the circle, assessing. When it landed on me, the confirmation that I was going to have a miserable few hours settled in my gut.
“As we have someone new, we’ll begin with her. Step forward, Miss Draconis.”
Of course. Public spectacle. Always a favourite pastime.
I stepped into the centre. The wind pushed harder against me. Sand whipped at my face. I didn’t fight it. Fighting would only draw it out.
