Page 41 of Shadebound (Dark Fantasy #1)

We don’t fear the eyes in the dark.

We fall in love with them.

Chapter Twenty Four, Chaos

B y Wednesday evening, something vital inside me had snapped.

The morning after Varl’s lesson blurred past, then the afternoon, and then the rest. I moved through the day as if I were piloting a version of myself that ran entirely on muscle memory.

For the life of me, I didn’t know how I’d gotten to other classes or how I’d managed to keep my eyes open. I just knew I’d done it.

Everything inside me ached. My stomach twisted.

My head throbbed in a steady rhythm, like my skull had its own heartbeat now.

I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t think . The lessons had melted into one another—lectures layered with cryptic threats, weapon strategies taught with veiled menace, and a long slog of things I did not want.

When we got to dinner, the room was buzzing with movement and low conversation.

I sat beside Maya, who slid me a glance but didn’t say anything.

Zayden leant against the wall near the table, chewing without much enthusiasm.

No one looked like they wanted to be there.

We were all too tired, too stressed. Any other day and time I would have loved the macabre vibe and desolate faces.

Just not right now or when it was happening to me.

Or when I could hear my sister’s screams on repeat in my brain.

I picked at my tray without really seeing it. My brain was foggy, like someone had padded every thought in cotton.

I could barely even think of the killer. My head was dizzy, and I was sure something was off in the air. I presumed it was a lack of access to magic. There had to have been something deeply wrong with me, for me to not be able to sit there ruminating on my revenge plans.

Or the torture I would mete out to the bastard who stole my twin flame.

I didn’t even notice Alessandro storm past me, or his friends following suit. Not until Tyler walked close enough to jolt me forward with his elbow. My tray skidded, spoon clattered to the table.

“Cursed bitch,” he snapped. “Hopefully the next dead body that turns up is yours. Save us all the hassle of dealing with you.”

Something cracked. But it was not me.

I shoved back from the table so hard the legs of my chair shrieked in protest, a jagged scrape that turned a few heads.

My hands had already balled into fists, heat crawling beneath my skin as I surged upright despite knowing I could not fight with my hands.

But Tyler hadn’t even turned toward me yet.

He was too busy being jumped on by Zayden.

Zayden’s fist crashed into the side of Tyler’s face with a crack that echoed off the stone walls. His head whipped to the side, orange hair swinging, a sliver of blood blooming near his mouth. He stumbled a step, blinked, then snarled.

Zayden didn’t shift. But he clearly didn’t need to. He just launched himself at Tyler without hesitation, all muscle and fury. The table jerked as someone tried to shove between them, but somehow it only got worse.

Kalamity, and some other wolves I didn’t know the names of, jumped into the fray. Backing up their Alpha. Alessandro followed suit, his horde joining too. I barely blinked before a mass brawl took over the ground, making far too much noise on an already loud day.

Chaos erupted in the rest of the room—shouts, the scrape of chairs, the thud of things hitting the floor.

When I turned to watch Zayden, arms wrapped around my middle and dragged me back.

Hands roamed my body, yanking and grabbing with violent intent.

There was a sharp pull as someone grabbed one pocket on my combats, and I twisted, snarling, trying to get in a few swings before someone hauled the stranger away from me too.

I dropped to my knees, looking up through the manic mess.

But it wasn’t Zayden, or Draven, or anyone else from Mors that had helped me.

It was the six-foot-plus muscular form of someone who shouldn’t have been there.

Someone I had been pretending not to think about, even with the headless roses he left in my room.

He knelt beside me, ignoring the surrounding mess, and offered me a black-gloved hand. As he leant in close enough I could easily smell his familiar spicy aftershave. His free hand moved to my combats, sliding something into my pocket.

“Little monster, I thought I told you to be careful.” The voice-changing box in his black mask muffled his voice. The inky one shaped like a skull, with blacked-out eyes, that hid his entire face from me.

Like it had done since we’d met after Bells’ funeral.

The first time our... our whatever this was, began.

“I didn’t choose to start a fight.” I breathed, spine tingling, heart racing. Head full of questions about how he was here, and why. “The dragon fool started it first.”

“I wasn’t on about the fight.” He helped me to my feet, his hand lingering in my own as the world around us remained in pure chaos.

“I was on about with yourself. Your magic got the better of you yesterday. Your mind is growing dark—I could see it.” He tutted.

“Something is off with you, and you need to work out what.”

I pulled my hand out of his, frowning up at him as my necklace turned red. “My magic didn’t do anything like that. I was in complete control.”

Shouts crashed through the noise as chairs scraped, and trays clattered to the floor.

Someone’s hand clamped around my upper arm, but I wrenched away before they could drag me off.

My fist slammed forward, the impact jarring all the way up to my shoulder.

My heart slammed against my ribs, each beat pounding so forcefully it made my teeth ache.

I turned back to my... friend , eager to continue our conversation and see if I could source his help for my quest with my brother. But much to my annoyance, and admittedly some disappointment, he was already gone.

Already back to haunting the edges of the night and places that even my shadows seemed to miss.

I searched the crowd, desperate to find him. But spotting someone wearing black in a sea of all-black monsters was damn near impossible.

Then agony lanced through my wrist, searing and sudden enough to cut off my search.

The cuff had gone from a dull metal band to a brand, lighting every nerve in my arm like a matchstick dragged through skin.

My body convulsed with the jolt, a ragged breath tearing loose as I gritted my teeth against the scream rising in my throat.

All around me, bodies jerked, screams erupted.

Someone collapsed with a yelp. Another student sobbed openly, their shoulders shaking as the current ripped through them.

The second pulse came harder. It stole the strength from my knees.

My hand spasmed, and the bones in my fingers ground together.

As I was shoved by a random student flailing from the cuff zaps, I felt the pressure of something in my pocket. But not the one my friend had touched. But the one that had been grabbed at earlier on.

I quickly shoved my hand inside my pocket, eager to yank out whatever had been snagging at my fingers. Pain split across my skin as something sliced me open. I dragged my hand back and watched blood bead along the cuts. A folded note slipped free and drifted to the floor.

The edge of a razor blade glinted from where it had been taped inside.

Cruel. Clever. Whoever set it there wanted me to bleed before I even touched the words.

The thought pulled a laugh from me as I crouched to snatch the paper up, the sting in my fingers was oddly satisfying.

Even with the lightning soaring through my veins.

The handwriting was heavy, the ink pressed deep into the page.

You didn’t seem to appreciate the gift I left on your pillow. Or register my notes. So I thought we could make this more entertaining.

You’ve been sleeping and I need you awake, so let’s get that brain firing.

I have cities but no houses. I have mountains but no trees. I have water but no fish. What am I?

Write your answer and leave it at Death’s statue before the sun rises in two days. Or else someone close to you will die for your failure.

P.S Your sister looked so pretty as she died for me. But I don’t think you’d bleed the same way.

I didn’t feel the pain in my fingers. The floor beneath me might as well not have existed. Nothing registered—not the press of bodies, not the static charge still buzzing through the air. My heart just slammed into my ribs.

He was here.

He’d been here.

The note went into my pocket, and my gaze snapped up as I twisted around. The canteen was still full of students being punished. Shouting bounced off the stone walls. Someone hit the ground nearby with a grunt. I barely noticed. Barely cared.

Faces blurred past as I scanned the chaos. Snarls. Sparks. Mouths open in pained cries. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Something off. Eyes that lingered too long. A presence that didn’t belong.

Was he watching me? Waiting to see how I’d react? Laughing from somewhere just out of reach?

My head pounded. Breathing felt impossible.

The riddle clawed its way through the panic.

Cities. Mountains. Water. No houses. No trees. No fish.

I needed to solve it. I had to. Not just because it was my sole purpose for living without my twin, but because I refused to let someone best me. Refused to allow secret notes and things to have gone right over my head.

I supposed letting someone else die wasn’t an option, either. Not when I... I... not when I loved people.

Another sharp buzz of electricity jammed through my cuff.

Harsher this time. At the same moment the students yelled in more pain, Hightower’s voice cut through the room, broadcast through some hidden speaker embedded in the walls.

Her tone was flat, as if she were reading from a list she’d long since grown bored with, and I had no choice but to pause my watching.

“All those involved in inappropriate behaviour are to receive no food tomorrow and have one week added onto their training before deployment. Any lingering hostility and insubordination will result in more severe penalties. This is your only warning.”

The words dropped like stones. And the silence that followed her announcement was heavier than anything she could have ordered.

The punishment hit hard enough to make a few students go still, forks frozen halfway to their lips.

One of them even dropped their tray. I looked at all of them for signs of guilt and murderous intent, as I pressed my fingers into my knuckles until the sting from the recent hit brought a flicker of focus.

There’d be no food tomorrow. Adding to my lack of sleep. To my new stress about the stupid fucking riddle.

I wiped my split knuckles on my combats and sat down again because this was fine. I was fine. Nothing was wrong with the situation. Nothing bothered me.

It didn’t matter. I couldn’t eat anyway. My stomach was lined with knives. I just wanted the day to be over. Wanted a moment to see what my friend had left in my pocket.

Zayden’s jaw ticked when he took the free chair next to me.

Bruises littered his side, purpling already.

Maya stared down at her tray, lips pressed in a tight line.

Eris held her spoon limply, not tired, but clearly worried about a lack of meals.

None of them looked at me with blame. Their frustration was aimed elsewhere.

Alessandro wasn’t so restrained when I caught his eye on the table opposite. He signed across to me with sharp, clipped motions.

I told you not to mess with my deployment.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t have the energy. My hands ached, and I was still trembling. I was wrung out. Hollow and confused, and absolutely shattered.

Alessandro signed something else—faster, more vicious—but Zayden intercepted him with a quick, scathing reply.

The dragon’s face darkened. He leant back in his seat, signing something else under the table, something small and subtle that I couldn’t see.

Planning something, no doubt. Stewing about my perceived threat to his leaving this place. As though I wanted him here longer.

As though I wanted anything but the answer to a riddle or a face and a name.

The noise of the hall pressed in from all sides. Cutlery scraped against plates. Chairs dragged. Students suddenly laughed in the corner, as if the world hadn’t tilted sideways.

I wasn’t sure when dinner ended and how I got back to the dorm. Only that I blinked and it happened.

That night, the second round of sleep deprivation began.

The shrieking never let up. Every screech fractured something deeper, like they were peeling my mind apart with sound alone.

The distortion wasn’t just noise anymore— it had embedded itself into my spine, vibrating through nerves already raw from lack of sleep.

Someone was dragging shattered glass across bone, over and over, merciless in its infliction.

My muscles twitched with each wave, no longer obeying the demands of my brain.

I could barely hold a thought in place. Every fragment slipped through my grasp like sand through broken fingers, and I no longer knew how long I’d been lying there, listening to it all break me open from the inside out.

Maya handed me another set of earplugs without a word, to replace the ones that had vanished at sunrise. I took them. Zayden did the same when he leant against the wall beside me, fingers twitching against his thigh.

My bed didn’t feel like a place meant for rest anymore.

It had become a hard, unwelcoming surface—nothing more than a slab where I dropped my body after the torturous day, muscles cramping, skin raw from effort, thoughts gnawed to ribbons.

The screaming wasn’t background noise anymore.

It scraped through my skull, a jagged edge that cut deeper each hour it went on.

I couldn’t block it out. Couldn’t push it away.

It wormed into my bones, into the soft, dark places of my mind I tried to hide.

And I lay there, too drained to move, too stunned to sleep, waiting for the next shriek to peel another piece of me away.

I stared at the ceiling, pulse skittering. My limbs shook from exhaustion. I couldn’t cry. Couldn’t scream. I just waited, wide-eyed and silent, trapped in another endless night.

And somewhere in the mess of it, I realised something.

Mors wasn’t a school. Mors wasn’t about reform. It wasn’t as harmless and beautiful as I thought it was at first.

It was punishment.

And I had to get my brother out of here before it took him the way it was trying to take me.