Page 25 of Shadebound (Dark Fantasy #1)

She caught the expression on my face. No doubt jumping to conclusions that I hadn’t thought but were true all the same.

“Yeah, I know. What kind of seer can’t see someone coming toward her?” She gave a crooked smile, more bitter than amused. “That’s the problem. I suck at visions. It’s like I’m not actually a seer.”

Something about her made me pause. It wasn’t pity—not quite.

But there was a weight in her posture, a brittleness in the way she held herself.

Like a shard of glass already half-cracked.

I recognised it. That quiet, exhausted ache of surviving things no one saw.

Of being a ghost in your own skin. I didn’t feel sorry for her. But I understood her far too well.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Eris. Eris Morana.” She smiled. A tiny smile, but one all the same. “I know your name already. Not in a stalker way. Everyone knows who you are. We don’t really get shadebounds here. Or at all.”

“That’s convenient. Introductions are an annoying form of pleasantries I bore of.

” I looked her over properly now, slower this time.

Thin frame, jumpy posture, still trembling like she hadn’t caught up to the fact that she was safe—for now.

She looked like someone who knew how it felt to be in the way and apologised for it before anyone could ask.

And her dark, wary eyes darted around the room as if she expected something else to come flying at her.

Oh, she was a delightful thing to take under my wing. I enjoyed helping broken things get worse. But in a good way.

In a way that would mean nobody would mess with her again.

“No offence,” I cocked my head as I debated just how much I was getting myself into by inevitably offering her help, “but how did a bad seer end up at Mors Academy?”

Eris huffed out a sound that might’ve been a laugh as she tucked a lock of short hair behind her almost pointed ears. “I volunteered.”

My first thought was whether she was mentally ill.

The second was why the fuck anyone would volunteer for Mors?

She couldn’t even use her magic properly.

Her body looked like it might have bruised from a breeze.

She was skittish, visibly uncomfortable in her own skin.

Not the type they usually dragged in here kicking and screaming—let alone someone who signed up willingly.

I couldn’t help wondering just how awful her life on the outside must’ve been to make this place feel like a better option.

But I didn’t care enough to dig yet. “Fair enough.”

“What about you?” she asked. “How come you’re here?”

I smirked even though my fingers tensed on my tray. “I did lots of fun things to some bad people. But they weren’t the right bad people, so our lecherous overlords sent me here to prove a point.”

She looked like she wanted to ask more. I didn’t offer her a chance. Especially when thinking of my trial made me think of my father, and I was doing my best not to do that unless it was to do with my brother.

“Come,” I said, nodding towards where Maya had gone to sit with Zayden and some others I didn’t know. “Sit with us.”

Eris hesitated, then followed, keeping her eyes low. I walked just ahead, enough to clear a path without making a scene.

About halfway to the table, I spotted Draven. He was sitting at another table across the hall, surrounded by a few other students—kids his age, like Luna and Kalamity. He smiled when he saw me. A small wave. I lifted my chin slightly in return.

He looked alright. He looked... like he was trying.

Like he wanted to talk to them instead of me, and I understood that completely.

Even though the protective part of me itched to check in, he was doing okay.

And Silk was still there, hovering like a shadow right behind him.

That was enough for now. Even if her presence was making my head throb with effort.

I reached our table, and after nuzzling Eris into a chair, I sat beside Zayden.

He was in the middle of an animated story with two sirens with razor-cut blue hair, matching sneers, and glinting jewellery made from tiny bones.

They looked me over with interest but didn’t comment.

Though the girl checked me out and nodded like she appreciated the view.

It made up for her companion scowling in disgust when he saw me.

Zayden turned to me with a lazy grin. “Don’t worry, Heartache. Nerida only eats boys.”

The siren girl raised a brow. “For violence, sure. But I prefer women for fun.” She bared her razor-sharp teeth for a second before returning them to normal and carrying on her conversation with her friend.

I didn’t look at Zayden as he tried to make small talk again.

I was too busy stirring the sludge on my plate, watching it shift with the consistency of regret.

It didn’t taste like anything, which I was grateful for.

Better bland than actively revolting. Still, I couldn’t help wondering if I’d survive a hundred years of this—three meals a day, forever.

Would this be the thing that killed me in the end?

Not the monsters, or the curses, or the ghosts. Just... cafeteria paste.

I sighed, poking at it again. And of course, right on cue, I found myself craving chocolate cake. Moist, rich, deliciously flavoured chocolate cake. Which, obviously, I would never have again. For the next century. Typical.

“And here I thought you’d be thrilled to have breakfast with me,” Zayden said, leaning in close like proximity might sweeten the mood.

I finally looked up. “Thrilled in the way one is when stepping on a nail, sure.”

His mouth twitched. “I fucking missed you. Nobody else hates me the same way.”

I opened my mouth to hand him another insult, but a voice across the room called his name. One of his packmates. He glanced over his shoulder and groaned. “They’ve probably set something on fire. Again.”

He stood, stretching with zero urgency, then tossed me a wink I ignored entirely, and ambled off like chaos waited politely for him to arrive. Maya vanished a second later to grab another bowl of lifeless mush she apparently enjoyed.

I turned to Eris, who was hunched over beside me, quietly pulling a napkin into shreds. I enjoyed ripping things apart, but she didn’t seem entertained.

“Is something bothering you?” I asked, a little softer than usual.

She gave a quick nod, eyes still on the table. “Yeah. Just... not great with crowds.”

She looked so miserable; it tugged at something in my chest. The kind of ache that was equal parts pity and unwanted familiarity. And a little sprinkle of not knowing how to help my brother, but maybe knowing how to help her.

“My mother’s friend is a seer,” I blurted. “I know a lot about them. I could help you with your visions... if you wanted. It might make you feel a bit better about things here. Not right away, I need a few days to settle in. But after that.”

Her head snapped up, hope flickering like a flame trying to catch. “Really? You’d do that?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Might as well be haunted together in this place.”

Her laugh was small but real as I asked, “What do you already know about your magic?”

She fiddled with her spoon again before answering. “My parents and older brother were all killed just before everyone evacuated for the war. So not much. I was seven when they passed, and we spent the years before that worrying about dying.”

I stared at her for a moment. The way her shoulders hunched in, how her voice tried to sound steady and failed.

I remembered what I knew about the war in Mortavia—how it started thirteen years ago, burned too hot, and was ravaged too fast for anyone to stop it.

The ruling magic council evacuated everyone who survived barely two years in.

Which meant Eris had only spent the first five years of her life figuring out who she was.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s an awful hand to be dealt.” I leant in slightly, voice soft enough that nobody else could ever hear it. “I lost my sister last year. So I know how it feels.”

She gave a small sympathetic shrug. Both of us, two sides of the same coin, neither feeling the need to say just how much we hated it.

“What about you?” she asked. “What happened to your sister?”

“She was murdered,” my jaw tensed. “The Salem serial killer made her his last victim.”

With how big a deal the bastard was in the magical community, I felt no need to explain who he was.

Eris’s black eyes softened. “I’m sorry she died the way she did. That serial killer really is horrid, isn’t he?”

“Don’t be,” I said, lifting my spoon and stirring the porridge slowly, not bothering to give it any taste at all.

“The bastard probably writes bad poetry and thinks he’s misunderstood.

I’d hate to give them any form of thought again.

” The poetry made me think of the book in my nightstand and I felt like the owner would have understood me.

He wrote more darkness than jest in the lines between stanzas.

Eris didn’t answer. Her expression flickered. She tilted her head slightly, brow furrowed, like she was studying me. “I figured you’d want to think about the killer,” she said. “What with him being here too.”

I didn’t move at first. Her words didn’t quite register until they did, like each one had to be dragged through something thick. I looked at her properly then, blinking once. She didn’t seem to notice my sudden shift. She went on like it was nothing, telling me what she knew.

Four students were dead. One of them just last night if the rumour mill was true. All of them found the same way. If the cycle held—if it was really him again—there would be thirteen in total.

Thirteen victims before he disappeared without a trace.

I sat there and listened to her talk about the bodies, despite the ringing in my ears and the fog in my brain. I wasn’t breathing right. Everything inside me pulled inward, like I was bracing for something I couldn’t name.

For a moment, I didn’t know what to think.

I didn’t trust it. Not just because I didn’t believe her—but because I did.

Zayden and Maya had been acting strangely that morning.

And now it made sense. They had known . They’d kept it from me.

Which meant they believed it. They believed he was here.

And if they did, maybe they were right. Maybe this was real.

Maybe the bastard who killed Bells was walking these halls, breathing this air, leaving more bodies behind.

My hands had curled without me meaning to. I didn’t speak right away. I couldn’t . There was too much crawling under my skin. Grief. Anger. Something colder than both.

The monster and pain I thought I’d buried—or shoved down deep enough inside me that it could not escape—came instantly rushing to the surface.

So much so that despite the cuff digging into my arm, the table shook.

The ceiling groaned. And the candlelight on the walls flickered as my connection to the shadows begged to burst forth.

Begged me to obliterate this building and everyone inside of it just in case we killed Bells’ murderer.

“Tell me everything.” I looked back at Eris, hands trembling, with one undeniable need that changed all my plans of coasting and dying at Mors once Draven left.

I wasn’t going to die. Or coast. Or do anything like that at all.

I was going to get revenge again. For real this time.

Even if I had to kill everyone else in sight.