Page 48 of Shadebound (Dark Fantasy #1)

I woke slowly, warm and still for once. The blanket had twisted down around my ankles in the night, and Zayden’s mattress dipped beneath me with a kind of quiet reassurance.

His scent still clung to the pillow. For a moment, I stayed there, letting my body settle.

My muscles didn’t ache. My skin didn’t buzz with threat.

It was... peaceful. Strange, but not unwelcome.

When I reached across the space beside me, it was empty.

Zayden wasn’t there. That was unexpected.

I cracked one eye open and scanned the room.

Maya’s bed was empty too, her sheets crumpled as though she’d left in a hurry.

Maybe they’d gone together. Or maybe not.

Either way, I didn’t feel like getting up to chase them down.

Most of the dorm was still asleep. Luna hadn’t moved from her corner, her arm half-slipped through the sleeve of her jumper, face buried in her single pillow.

Kalamity was sprawled across his back with one arm flung over his face, snoring with the dramatic flair of someone doing it on purpose.

Draven, curled up closest to the wall, was just a lump of dark hair and blanket.

The dragons were gone—still hiding in the infirmary, probably pretending to be more worried about their leader than they were.

The thought made me smirk. Alessandro deserved worse.

I sat up and stretched, slow and stiff. The cuff on my wrist stayed quiet. No pain or static. No alarms or alerts or commands blaring through the walls. For the first time in days, Mors wasn’t watching me.

I celebrated with a goblet full of my nonna’s hot chocolate. The only bitterness to it, that I didn’t have any cream to squirt on top.

My boots were still beside the bed. So was my case, tucked neat against the footboard.

I crossed the cold floor and crouched to unzip it, running my hand over the worn leather before I even touched the zip.

My mother’s initials carved into the top meant something this time.

Not a lot. Just enough that I noticed. Enough that I didn’t want to look away straight after.

I grabbed a clean shirt, and underwear. And then pocketed a handful of vials of random herbs and potions my mother had packed.

Just in case I needed something small and quick to aid me.

Then I stood again, and caught movement at the edge of my vision.

My doll sat on the pillow, propped up as though someone had positioned it deliberately—just slightly off-centre, just enough to draw the eye.

I frowned and leant closer. Same size. Same clothes, more or less.

But the hair was shorter. Not just cut—different.

Roughly cropped above the brows, the ginger curls now dull and straight.

I didn’t inspect it closely. Probably a dragon’s idea of a joke. But it still felt... odd.

I turned toward my side table to grab some hair ties—and stopped. A letter sat there. Folded neatly.

My breath stuck somewhere in my throat. I reached for it, careful without meaning to be. The handwriting was neat. Too neat. My name sat on the front, nothing else, but I knew who it would be from even before I unfolded it slightly.

Jinx.

You were supposed to answer the riddle but you didn’t. You thought you could cheat. Break the rules. Ignore the terms I so clearly laid out.

I warned you there would be consequences if you didn’t give me the answer.

So I took some of your things. You might get them back. If you behave.

P.s I suggest you go to your next class. Unless you never want to see them again.

My hands curled around the edges of the paper before I could stop myself. I didn’t hear Draven approach. Not until he tapped my arm.

I turned. His hair was a mess. His eyes, still half-asleep as he signed, Why is your doll a boy now?

I looked at the bed again. The differences hit me properly this time. The hair wasn’t just cropped. It was redder. Thinner. The clothes, too—cut differently. It was a boy. A new doll entirely. Not mine.

I didn’t answer straight away. My pulse had gone very still as my brother raised his hands.

What’s the letter say?

I handed it to him. Perhaps out of shock. Perhaps because I was still too mad about the bruises on his face. Or perhaps because I didn’t want to lie to him. I just watched as his eyes scanned each word, slower than usual. His jaw tensed at the end.

What does it mean?

I swallowed.

“The killer’s here.” I explained, head full of Death’s dark murmurs I couldn’t quite make out.

Draven stared at me. Still and silent, dark eyes swirling.

“The Salem serial killer,” I added, voice hollow. “He’s at Mors and he’s been leaving me notes and now... now this.”

As I reached for the letter in his hand, something slipped out from underneath and fluttered to the mattress.

Not paper.

A Polaroid.

I grabbed it before Draven could, heart already buckling in my chest.

Maya.

Pale. Unconscious. Her limbs were bound at the wrists and ankles with something that looked like cloth but bent and gleamed like wire. Her head lolled against a stone wall that looked too smooth, too dark. Her mouth was open.

I flipped the photo. No writing. Another one slid loose.

Zayden.

His face was streaked with blood. A fresh bruise bloomed across his jaw.

His wrists were nailed to a wooden beam—rusty iron stakes jammed straight through the joints.

He’d clearly fought. His body was tense even in stillness.

His head was turned to the side, teeth bared, eyes half-lidded but still furious.

In the bottom corner of the frame, a gloved hand was visible—like the photographer had wanted me to see just how close they’d gotten. How untouchable they thought they were.

I didn’t want to see another.

My fingers betrayed me anyway.

The last Polaroid landed in my lap.

Eris.

She was slumped sideways, her braid unravelled, one cheek pressed against the leg of a broken statue. Her hand was bent beneath her at a strange angle, like it had been twisted the wrong way and left that way for too long. There was blood on her shirt. Not fresh.

She looked small. And still. Far too still.

I made a sound. Just something thin and sharp that dragged up from my throat and didn’t make it all the way out.

Draven stared at me. His face had gone white with confusion. I didn’t let him see the photos. He didn’t need to—not yet. So I shoved them into my combats pocket with shaking fingers and the letter.

My breath was clawing up too fast. I turned, grabbed my boots, and staggered toward the door.

“Come on,” I turned to Draven. “Now. We’re going.”

He signed something but I was half delirious as I flung the door open.

And ran straight into a wall of bodies.

Veyr. Tyler. Viktor. Saphira.

And front and centre like some overgrown gargoyle carved out of rage and ego: Alessandro.

He was bigger than usual. Or maybe just broader.

He stood with his arms folded tight across his chest, his shoulders squared like he’d been waiting for this moment.

A thick leather patch covered his right eye, strapped diagonally across his face like a makeshift muzzle.

The other eye—the one I hadn’t stabbed—was glaring down at me with molten fury, like he hadn’t stopped replaying what I did every second since.

He just stood there like a mountain, one made of fury and salt and some broken thing I couldn’t name.

I didn’t stop walking as the door swung shut behind me.

“Move,” I said, flatly.

He didn’t.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. Tyler exhaled behind him, sharply like he was hoping I’d give him an excuse. Saphira stood off to the side, her eyes bright with amusement, like she’d tuned into a particularly juicy episode of whatever show the dragons watched instead of therapy.

I hovered a breath from Alessandro’s chest. Close enough to smell whatever expensive soap he used and the underlying copper tang of healing magic. My fingers were already twitching. The magic under my skin was boiling for an outlet, clawing at the inside of my ribs like it had teeth.

“Get. Out. Of. My. Way,” I said, slower this time.

He didn’t budge.

“You really want to try me right now?” I added. “Because I swear on every fucker in this godsdamned school, I am five seconds from blowing a hole through this corridor.”

“You stabbed me,” he said, low and cold and far too calm.

I stared up at him. “And?”

He tilted his head slightly. “In the eye.”

“Yeah. That happens when people break my shit.” I snapped. “You thought I wouldn’t hit back? Are you really that foolish, Fiore?”

The air around us thickened. Tyler’s mouth twitched into something mean. Viktor leant just slightly forward, like he was considering whether this was worth jumping into. Veyr didn’t even blink.

“You cost me the selection chance to Mortavia,” Alessandro breathed. “It’ll take a month for my eye to heal fully. A full month . And by then, the selection window’s closed, so I’ll have to wait months for another chance.”

I shrugged, entirely unrepentant as my foot tapped against the ground. Irritated with the delay to rescue plan. “Should’ve thought of that before you tried to play the big bad dragon and fucked around with me.”

His nostrils flared. “I tried to play nice.”

“No, you tried to play dominant. Not the same thing.”

“I gave you a warning.” He snarled, smoke curling from his nose.

“And I ignored it. Because I don’t answer to you.”

“You should’ve,” he said.

His voice was razor-sharp now. That tight kind of low that usually came right before someone snapped. His hands were still folded, but I could see the tension building in the way his shoulders flexed. The way the corner of his jaw twitched with every heartbeat.

Behind him, Saphira leant against the wall, her dark braid catching the torchlight. “Maybe we let her go,” she murmured, not sounding at all like she meant it. “She looks like she’s in a rush. Probably has someone else to stab.”

I didn’t look away from Alessandro.

“I am in a rush,” I said, voice flat. “Three people are missing. People who matter, unlike you. So unless you’re planning to chain me to the wall and have another tantrum, I suggest you move.”

His good eye flicked over me as he tilted his head. “Who’s missing?”

“None of your business.” I narrowed my eyes. “Get out of my way.”

A long pause stretched between us. One of those taut, dangerous silences that buzzed with the threat of violence. I thought—for a split second—he might do the smart thing. Let me pass. Walk away.

But Alessandro had never been accused of doing the smart thing.

For one heartbeat, everything was still. Then he shifted his weight. A brutal wave of heat and pressure crashed into my chest like a battering ram.

I flew backward.

My spine hit stone. The ceiling spun. The walls blurred and I didn’t even get a sound out before the magic ripped through me like a storm front. My body crumpled to the floor. Everything blinked white.

The last thing I saw was Alessandro’s face—expressionless. Cold.

Then darkness swallowed me whole.

Not when we like to consume it. Devour it.

But we cannot taste another’s inner monster without consequence...

I often wonder what will happen to the girl when I feast on her darkness.

I wonder if it will kill her again.