Page 46 of Shadebound (Dark Fantasy #1)

We were made in death’s shadow. It changed us. Left its hunger in our teeth, its cruelty in our bones. And we learned quickly that kindness won’t save you—but power might.

So we don’t pull back. We don’t break pace. We tear. We wreck. We enjoy it.

And when it’s over—when the bodies fall and the silence returns—we don’t regret a thing.

We smile.

Because monsters don’t have to explain themselves. And we stopped pretending to be human a long time ago.

Chapter Twenty Nine, Warning

T he rest of the day blurred. That was the only word for it.

Time bled together, a cruel haze of bone-deep exhaustion and endless classrooms that reeked of mildew and stale air, each one as oppressive as the last. I couldn’t keep track of what we were meant to be learning anymore—everything was a smudge in my mind.

History had been the worst kind of blur: something about the wars in Mortavia, faceless soldiers dying in mud and blood, but the words slid off me before they could sink in.

I remembered sitting there, lids heavy, blinking once, and somehow the class was over.

Like drifting through a battlefield in a fever dream.

Even Professor Varl’s lesson, with its sharp-edged mental intrusions and the parade of my ugliest memories, barely stirred me.

The images came, jagged and cruel, meant to rip me apart, but they couldn’t get any deeper than I already was.

I’d been living in that hollowed-out place too long for him to make it worse.

And I hadn’t even bothered to shower properly.

My hair clung to my neck, the strands stiff with dried sweat and crusted blood.

My skin was tight and grimy, every inch of me wearing the day like an old, unwashed shroud.

The idea of rinsing it away seemed almost foreign—like I was too far sunk into the filth and fatigue for cleanliness to matter.

I could feel the weight of it, but not enough to summon the will to move.

Caring would have taken more than I had left.

My sister’s stones were ash. I had a riddle to solve. A killer to find. And nothing else could touch me.

To make it worse, hunger clawed at my insides.

A dull, twisting ache that made the exhaustion heavier, the cold sharper, and every movement feel like wading through mire.

The lack of food sank into my limbs and mind until even my thoughts felt brittle, ready to splinter.

It was another weight on a day already built of them.

I had another note at dinner, slid into my pockets when students piled into the room. Ordering me to wake up, remember what I knew about spirit witches.

To remember what it was like to have them in my mind and why they were not as innocently useless as they looked.

Then Zayden yanked me into the corridor that led to the dorms after dinner. Hand clenching my jaw, and all at once my mind seemed to register what the fuck was going on.

What the killer had been trying to warn me off since my arrival.

“I answered your riddle.” He announced like it was no big deal. “It was map.”

I blinked at him. My brain felt cotton-stuffed and crumpled, like it had given up halfway through the day. My stomach was chewing on itself, my limbs aching like I’d been sprinting for hours instead of just surviving another Mors meal.

“What?” I croaked, head tilting.

He grinned at me. “I worked it out. I’ve been trying all day, and I figured it out. The answer’s map. ”

I shook my head, brain taking a moment to catch up with what he was saying. “What are you on about?”

“I left a response to your killer riddle,” he said, like he hadn’t just said something insane. “On Death’s statue. Like the killer asked.”

My body jolted, finally catching up to the words. I stepped back, glaring at him. “You what? ”

“I left it there,” he repeated. “I gave them the answer. You were running out of time, and I figured I could do more to help you. So I did it for you. You’re welcome.”

My heart kicked up in my chest. Blood roared in my ears, drowning out everything else.

“You left a message?” I said, louder now, angling toward him like I might physically pull the words back out of his mouth. “You actually went and left a response for them? Are you insane? ”

He just grinned harder, silver eyes wide. “I figured it out—”

“Yeah, no shit, you figured it out, but that doesn’t mean you get to just decide it’s right and go leave it somewhere. ”

His jaw flexed, smile falling a bit.

“What happens if you’re wrong?” I snapped. “What if it wasn’t map, Zayden? What if it was moonlight or maze or monarchy or some other bullshit word, and you just handed them the wrong answer?”

His silver eyes rolled, and I wanted to throttle him for his cavalier attitude. “I’m not wrong.”

“You don’t know that,” I hissed, brain fog lifting as anger took over.

“You don’t get to be this fucking reckless.

This isn’t your game. It’s mine. They picked me.

The killer didn’t say ‘let anyone help you.’ They said I have two days to answer.

Me. What the hell do you think happens if they realise it wasn’t me who left the message? ”

He didn’t respond. He just kept standing there, hand running through his messy hair, entirely unbothered.

Oh, I was going to smite him. And I wasn’t going to be gentle with it.

I could feel my hands shaking, and I swore I could feel Death’s presence in the air again. “You think they’ll just be cool with it? You think they’ll shrug and say ‘oops, wrong person, doesn’t matter’? What if they take it as a mistake? What if they punish someone anyway ?”

Still nothing. He was just confident and relaxed enough that I imagined throttling him.

“You could’ve just painted a target on yourself,” I said. “You don’t even know who they’ll come after. What if they decide to make a point?”

He kept his gaze steady as he said, “I wasn’t wrong, and I can mimic your handwriting. It’s easy. Chill out, Heartache. You’re fine.”

“God, Zayden—how the fuck do you think I’d feel if something actually happened?” My voice cracked, furious and breathless. “If they came after someone I loved because you thought you could outsmart a murderer?”

He still didn’t seem concerned. Just stood there, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm while my world spun faster.

“Or worse,” I said. “What if they came for you? What if you’re the one they decide to take as punishment for getting it wrong because you tried to play their game?”

The corridor froze, the stone pressing into the soles of my boots, the weight of everything I hadn’t said since the riddle dropped finally crushing its way out.

My head seemed lighter. Brain emptying of all fog as nothing but rage and fear took control.

Not fear for me. But for him .

“I can’t lose someone else that I love,” I spat, my voice low and shaking. “I can’t lose you. I will bring this fucking building down if you so much as have a malicious papercut, let alone someone sadistic psychopath kills you.”

His stare didn’t waver.

And then, like he’d been waiting for me to say it, he shifted our positions—grabbing my waist, backing me up until my spine hit the wall. The stone was cold, but his body was warm, close enough that I could feel the tension rippling off him.

His breath touched my cheek as he spoke.

“Say that again.”

I blinked at him. “Say what? ”

He leant in just a little more. His voice dropped, rough around the edges. “Say it. The thing you just said. You know what I’m on about.”

I swallowed, brain taking a second to catch on to what he meant.

“You heard me,” I muttered. “Don’t make me repeat it.”

He pushed me harder against the wall. “I want to hear it properly, Heartache. Say three little words in order. Just for me.”

With a clenched jaw, I let out a breath through my nose.

I waited.

Paused a bit more.

Thought a thousand things before...

“I love you,” I said. “Okay? There. I fucking love you. And if you do something reckless like that again, I’ll kill you myself before the killer gets the chance.”

His face split into the slowest goddamn smile I’d ever seen.

And then he started laughing. Not mocking. Just pure, feral joy, like he couldn’t help it. Like he’d been waiting for this exact moment, and now that it was real, it had broken something loose inside him.

“God, you’re such an idiot,” I muttered.

He wiped at one eye like he was getting misty from joy. “I’m giving you ‘til Saturday.”

My dry eyes blinked. “What the hell does that mean?”

He grinned wider. “You’ve been sleep-deprived, underfed, hallucinating, and possibly emotionally compromised. You might just be experiencing a prolonged psychotic break.”

I scoffed, hands clenching. “I’m going to stab you.”

“I’m serious,” he grinned. “If you still want to say it on Saturday—if you come to me fully fed and rested and not on the brink of collapse—then I’ll believe it.”

I gave him a dead stare. “I just said it now.”

“Yeah, but I want to see if you can say it again without threatening to kill me.”

“I will kill you.”

“Sunday,” he said smugly, stepping back, already turning away like this conversation hadn’t just destroyed my entire nervous system.

“And if you still mean it by then, I’ll make sure the whole academy knows just how much I love you too.

All night long, Heartache. Then every day after that we can pretend to be friends again if you want, so long as you stay in my bed and bounce on my—”

“Shush.” I warned as I stood there, stunned. Silently screaming.

He shot me a wink over his shoulder.

“Race you to the dorms, bestie.”

Then he jogged off, still grinning like a feral idiot.

By the time the dorm doors unlocked, I was vibrating with fury.

I stalked inside, shoving the door open harder than intended before collapsing onto the bed like I’d been dropped there. My whole body shook—not just from anger at my life, Zayden, or everything else. But from the hollow, gnawing weakness that had been building all day.