Page 73 of Shadebound
The blanket on the bed next to mine shifted. I turned my head and saw Luna sitting upright, blood trailing from one nostril in a metallic silver line. It caught the light like spilt mercury, not red like it should’ve been. Her hand trembled as she wiped it away, but she didn’t say anything—just slid off the bed and walked to the bathroom.
She left the door open. I didn’t know whether it was an invitation or if she just forgot. Her back was to me as she leant over the sink, the water spitting faintly. I watched the rise and fall of her shoulders, the slow-motion collapse of someone trying not to fall apart.
I got off the floor and followed, careful not to attract too much attention from nosy eyes or my sister. My feet were silent. Everything about me was.
Luna glanced up in the mirror as I hovered in the doorway, her hands cupped under the stream, now pink with silver threads. I signed to ask if she was okay. If she needed anything. But she shook her head, then signed,I’m fine.
She wasn’t.
I knew what was killing her. Knew that she was dying.
Silvermourn poisoning had taken root in her soul.
She’d been poisoned with silver until now she was rotting from a curse that clung to the veins like frostbite. The others in her pack thought it was new. Recently, before she signed up to join Mors. A tragic twist before she entered a tragic place.
But I knew it had been almost three years.
She told me that last night over dinner, like she was reciting the weather. She’d smiled as she said it. Said she wasn’t worried. Said she’d die any day now and that worrying wouldn’t change it.
It had unnerved me, how calm she was.
She hadn’t said it for pity. Not once had she asked for that. She said it as if it was a fact—like a season, or a storm rolling in. She’d twirled her spoon through her food and talked about her death like it was already scheduled on a calendar somewhere.
I knew a lot about Silvermourn. More than I should, considering my age. My uncle—my mother’s sister’s husband—had died from it, and I remembered everything. The way he looked. How he’d shaken and got sick so fast. The way his tanned skin turned dull, and his magic peeled itself away like old wallpaper until he couldn’t shift. I’d read everything I could after he’d shifted into his wolf, searching for patterns. Maybe a cure so my aunt Estelle would stop crying so much.
Nothing had helped. Felix had changed before the winter started. His human-like body had shuddered to a stop, and before the night was done, he was gone.
The wolf inside him took over. That was the one part a lot of people didn’t know.
Silvermourn killed the shifter. Slowly, deadly, quietly. And when they took their last human breath, the wolf awoke again.
Onlythe wolf awoke.
My aunt had tried to kill herself before his funeral. Not able to live another moment without her fated mate. Not able to survive knowing the man she loved was there, in beast form, unaware of who she was.Whathe was.
That he had died, but a reminder of him was still living.
Estelle had been in a hospital in the two years since then. She’d not been able to live alone. Not been able to function, even a little.
But Luna... Luna was different. It wasn’t just that she was surviving longer than she should. It washow. Silvermourn didn’t linger like this. It devoured and broke down the shifter until there was nothing left but evil.
It didn’t wait three years; it took thirteen months.
And yet she was still here. Still dying, yes—but slowly. Beautifully. Terrifyingly.
I watched her now under the flickering yellow light of the bathroom, her skin pale and ghosted, like moonlight trapped in a dying body. She turned off the tap and leant forward, pressing her palms to the sink. Her shoulders were shaking.
When she glanced up at me, I signed and asked if the noise was making it worse.
She nodded.
Her hands lifted shakily off the sink.The screams, she signed.They make everything flare.
Her hands trembled even as they spoke, the movements slight but heavy with effort. There was a gentleness to her, even in pain. Even with blood on her face and death coiled just beneath her skin.
Then she looked at me, head tilted, brows drawn. Can you feel it? The noise?
I pressed my hand against the tile wall beside me and nodded. The chill of it seeped into my skin. Beneath the stone, I could feel something—not sound exactly, but vibration. Pressure. A deep, pulsing throb that moved like breath through bone. I could feel it now—vibrations thrumming through the stone, steady and cruel to those who could hear it.
