All Chapters of Shadow bound: The beast within : Chapter 81
- Chapter 90
182 chapters
Chapter Eighty-One: The Whisper Beneath the River
The dream came quietly at first, like the memory of a song half remembered.I was standing in water, knee-deep, the river shining like black glass beneath the moon. The air was heavy, thick with mist. I couldn’t see the far shore, only the faint ripples moving toward me. Then came the sound—soft, like a sigh carried through the current.When I looked down, the water no longer reflected the stars. It reflected eyes. Countless eyes staring up at me, waiting.I woke before they blinked.The room was dark, lit only by the faint glow of the dying hearth. My skin was damp with sweat, and my heart beat faster than it should have. For a long time I lay still, listening. The night outside was quiet, too quiet.The window was open. I could hear the river beyond the walls, its voice low and restless. It had never sounded like that before.I sat up and wrapped a shawl around my shoulders. The air was cool, and the scent of rain drifted in. I crossed to the window and looked out. The city slept peaceful
Chapter Eighty-Two: The Sound of Forgotten Names
The night had a strange weight. Even the air in Eldara seemed to rest differently, as if the wind itself were listening. I sat by the window long after the candles had died, staring at the slow bend of the river below. Its surface gleamed like a sheet of dark glass, moonlight trembling across it. The water whispered, not in words I could understand, but in sounds that felt familiar in my bones.Sleep had abandoned me hours ago. My dream had been full of shadows and light, of faces I could almost recognize. One of them had spoken a name. Not mine, not Luca’s, yet it stayed inside me as if it belonged to a piece of my heart I had forgotten. When I woke, the sound of the river filled the silence left behind by that dream.Across the room the last flame of the candle gave a soft hiss and folded in on itself. The smoke curled upward and vanished. I rubbed my arms against the chill, thinking of the world we had built after the storm, a fragile peace that still felt borrowed. The war was over,
Chapter Eighty-Three: The Space Between Shadows
The nights were growing longer again. The moon had hidden behind the clouds for three days now, and every time the wind whispered through the trees, it carried with it a sound that wasn’t quite human. We had moved deeper into the ridge to find shelter, but safety felt like an illusion no one truly believed in anymore.I sat near the entrance of the cave, watching the fire burn low. The others were scattered across the small space, their exhaustion filling the silence. Mira was asleep against the wall, her blade still clutched in her hand. Leo kept watch near the far side, eyes half-closed but never truly resting. And then there was Luca—silent, withdrawn, his shadow stretching long across the stone floor.He hadn’t said much since the night we escaped the ruins. When he spoke, it was only to give orders or to check the perimeter. Yet even when he said nothing, I could feel him. The air always seemed to shift when he was near. It wasn’t fear anymore. It was something deeper, something I
Chapter Eighty-Four: The Edge of Shadows
The night was colder than usual. The air hummed with a strange stillness, the kind that comes before a storm that does not belong to the world of men. Luca stood at the edge of the cliffs, his cloak fluttering in the wind, his gaze fixed on the dark sea below. Each wave that crashed against the rocks echoed like a memory he could not silence.Behind him, the ruins of the fortress still burned faintly. The sky above carried the scent of ashes, and the ground trembled with the restless breath of the realm that had begun to bleed into their world. He could feel it now—the pull of the shadow realm, whispering through his veins, calling his name like an old lover.He closed his eyes and tried to hear Grace’s voice instead, the soft lilt that once steadied the storm inside him. But even her memory trembled beneath the noise of the darkness.A step sounded behind him. Leo.“You’ve been standing here since dawn,” Leo said, his voice quiet, carrying both worry and exhaustion. “The soldiers are ask
Chapter Eighty-Five: The Call Beneath the Silence
The first thing I felt was the cold. It wasn’t the kind that touches skin; it was deeper, inside the bones, like the echo of something that had once burned but was now only ash. My breath came out in a whisper, thin and trembling, and when I opened my eyes, the world was blurred by light.For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming. The forest around me shimmered faintly, as though caught between two realms. The trees bent toward the ground, heavy with mist, and the air hummed with something familiar. Then I heard it—a voice, faint but undeniable.Luca.My heart stuttered. I turned sharply, my pulse quickening. The sound came from nowhere and everywhere, like the wind had learned to speak his name.“Luca,” I whispered back, though I wasn’t sure if I spoke to him or to the memory of him.Mira’s voice cut through the silence. “Grace.”I turned toward her. She was kneeling a few feet away, her face pale, her hands still glowing faintly from the last spell she had cast. Leo stood beside her, h
Chapter Eighty-Six: The Taste of Light and Shadow
At first, I thought I was still dreaming. The air felt too heavy to be real, and the silence around me pulsed like a heartbeat. My body ached in ways that didn’t belong to flesh alone. There was a low hum beneath my skin, the echo of a world that had refused to let me go.Then I heard it—her voice.Grace.Soft, trembling, impossibly real.“Luca.”I opened my eyes slowly. Light poured in, golden and strange after so long in darkness. For a moment, I didn’t understand where I was. The scent of pine and damp earth replaced the cold ash of the shadow realm. The air was alive again.She was kneeling beside me, her hand clutching mine as though it was the only thing holding her upright. Her eyes were red from tears, but they still carried that same quiet strength that had always drawn me to her.“You came back,” she whispered.I wanted to answer, but my voice caught. It took effort just to breathe. My chest felt like it was full of smoke, my heart pounding too slowly.Mira’s voice drifted from somew
Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Mirror’s Lament
The night had gone silent, heavy as stone. The last fires on the ridge had died, leaving only the cold shimmer of the broken mirror and the low hum of the wind passing through what remained of the old chapel walls. Grace stood beside Lucas, her palms trembling, her breath uneven as if the air itself carried shards of memory that could cut her open if she breathed too deeply.He hadn’t spoken in hours. The glow that once pulsed beneath his skin had dimmed to something fragile and uncertain, like a candle flickering in the rain. His eyes, dark and haunted, stayed fixed on the shattered mirror at their feet.Every shard caught a reflection that didn’t belong to this world. Sometimes it was her face. Sometimes his own. And sometimes… someone else’s. The image shifted with the rhythm of his heartbeat, as though the mirror remembered what he could not bear to.Grace reached out, her fingers brushing his sleeve. “Lucas,” she whispered, “it’s over. The mirror is gone. You can let her rest now.”H
Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Weight of Light
The wind carried the scent of wet earth that morning. A soft fog draped itself across the forest, curling between the branches like it belonged to another time. Grace stood by the stream behind the outpost, her bare feet sinking into the damp soil, her fingers pressed against the pulse at her throat.She hadn’t slept since the mirror broke.Not truly. Sleep came in fragments now, scattered between moments where she could no longer tell what was hers and what wasn’t. When she closed her eyes, she heard a voice that was not her own. When she breathed, her light flickered beneath her skin, answering a call she didn’t make.And always, somewhere beneath it all, there was her.Valeria.Grace felt it again—that faint flutter beneath her ribs, as if another heartbeat had taken root beside hers. It didn’t hurt, not in the way wounds hurt. It was quieter than that. Like a hand pressed against her soul, too gentle to break but too firm to ignore.She crouched near the stream, cupping the water in her
Chapter Eighty-Nine: Beneath the Skin of Shadows
The nights were no longer silent. Even when the wind was still, even when the waves slept against the cliffside, I could hear her voice. Sometimes it was faint, a sigh that drifted between the curtains. Other times, it came like a whisper from inside my chest, her name echoing through me until I forgot where I ended and the shadows began.Valeria.It wasn’t possible—yet everything about her refusal to stay dead defied possibility. The fire should have consumed her, and the curse should have shattered with the mirror, but some part of her lingered. I could feel it. Every time Grace touched me, every time I looked into her eyes, I felt Valeria’s presence like frost beneath my skin.Grace didn’t speak of it anymore, though I saw the way her gaze lingered on me when she thought I wasn’t watching. The fear wasn’t of me—it was for me. She knew what I carried. She saw it every time my hands trembled, every time the mirror flickered when I passed.Tonight, I stood alone on the balcony, the ocean
Chapter Ninety: The Breath Between Us
The house had gone silent again. The kind of silence that hums at the edges of sound, heavy and alive, waiting for something to break it. The mirror was gone, yet its echo lingered. The air still smelled faintly of ash and roses.I hadn’t let go of Luca since the shards fell. We sat on the floor of the room where the mirror used to hang, our backs against the wall, my fingers tangled in his. He hadn’t spoken since that whisper. His body was warm, but there was something distant in his eyes, something that frightened me more than any ghost could.He looked like a man listening to a song only he could hear.When morning came, I tried to believe the light would make it all fade. It didn’t. The sunlight spilled through the windows like a lie, glinting on the broken glass that still littered the floor. Each fragment caught a piece of reflection, but when I looked closer, I swore I saw her. Valeria. A face half-formed, a shadow that smiled and disappeared.I gathered the shards carefully, one b