I had counted the hours by drips of water falling from cracks in the stone, by the scratching of rats in the dark. Time fractured, slipping into jagged pieces. But once the shadows began to answer me, to shape themselves not as tormentors but as tools, the silence became something else entirely.
It became a teacher.
Chains rattled each time I moved. My wrists bore iron cuffs, but the shadows slipped through them as though the metal didn't exist. They curled around me, whispering, shifting, brushing against my throat, my shoulders, the back of my hands. The whispers weren't always words — sometimes just pressure, sometimes just a shiver in my bones — but slowly, steadily, I learned to guide them.
I knelt in the center of the cell, breathing hard, palms out. The shadows slithered across the floor like spilled ink, pooling, stretching, writhing into crude shapes: a dagger, a chain, a claw. They quivered, unstable, dissolving back into smoke. I cursed and tried again.
"Hold," I whispered, though whether to them or to myself, I couldn't tell.
This time, the shadows shaped into something sharper. A blade of night rose from my palm, trembling but real, its edge rippling like oil on water. My breath hitched. I swung it once, and it sliced the air with a hiss.
Then it shattered, melting back into black mist.
The effort left me shuddering, skin slick with cold sweat. The shadows whispered against my ears, dozens of voices overlapping, some coaxing, some mocking.
Stronger. Faster. Bleed for us and we will bleed for you.
I pressed my palms to the stone floor until they stung.
If Marcus knew I was practicing, he'd use it against me. If Kaylan knew, she'd find a way to twist it into a weapon for herself. If Lucian knew… gods, I didn't even want to imagine.
But I couldn't stop.
Every night, I pushed further.
At first, it was small things: smothering the light of the torches outside the bars, cloaking myself until I all but disappeared. Then blending the shadows with my own movements, stepping faster, sharper — vampiric speed enhanced by something older, darker. My body ached from each attempt, bones protesting, muscles trembling, but the more I leaned into it, the more natural it felt.
Too natural.
One night, I let the shadows fully guide me.
I closed my eyes. Let go.
And when I opened them, I was not kneeling anymore.
I was standing behind my chains. Across the cell. Breathless, heart pounding, every sense sharpened to a knife's edge. I had stepped through them.
Shadowstep — but smoother now, faster. No longer just escape, but pursuit.
The realization sent a thrill through me, mingled with fear.
Because each time I surrendered, each time I let them lead, the whispers grew louder.
And darker.
The dreams came next.
Not like ordinary nightmares — not fragmented, not shifting. These were vivid, coherent, oppressive. The shadows carried me into them as if dragging me through a veil.
I dreamed of Liam.
He was chained to the altar in the hall of judgment, blood dripping down the onyx steps. Kaylan's blade hovered over him. Marcus sat above, watching like a god waiting for worship.
I tried to run to him, but the shadows pulled me back. Not restraining — guiding.
Look closer, they hissed.
And I saw it.
Blood linking us.
Not chains, not shackles — blood. Threads of it winding from Liam's veins to mine, pulsing with a rhythm that matched my heartbeat.
Bound.
I woke screaming, the shadows still curling around my wrists, whispering:
Bound by blood. His end, your end. His breath, your breath. You cannot cut him free without cutting yourself.
I slammed my fists against the wall until skin split. I didn't want to believe it. Didn't want to hear it.
But every night, the dream returned.
Liam bleeding. The threads binding us. My shadows whispering that his death was my own.
And every day, in the silence, I trained harder.
Because if Marcus truly meant to use him as bait, if Kaylan truly meant to put a blade through his chest, then I would not sit and tremble. I would not watch.
I would tear the world apart first.
The whispers grew cleverer.
Sometimes, they spoke with my voice. Sometimes, with Liam's. Sometimes, with Marcus's.
You will fail him. You will kill him yourself. You already chose him over freedom once. Will you choose him over life?
Kill me, Aria. (Liam's voice, broken, tender.) It's the only way to survive.
You are mine already, Marcus's tone, velvet and final. Every shadow you wield is mine.
I tried to block them out. Pressed my hands to my ears. Hummed until my throat was raw. But they lived inside me. They knew every weakness.
And worse — sometimes, they weren't wrong.
One night, the whispers pressed too far.
I was mid-step, trying to blend vampiric speed with shadow-surge. The world blurred, stone cracking under my heels as I slammed against the far wall. The shadows wrapped me like wings, and for one perfect moment, I felt invincible.
Then the voice came.
Strike. Kill. Taste blood. You must practice with flesh.
My vision swam. In the dark corner of the cell, a rat squeaked.
Before I knew it, the shadows lashed forward. Spears of night skewered the rat, lifting it into the air. Its body twitched, tiny squeals breaking the silence. My heart thundered, bile rising in my throat.
The shadows purred. See how easy it is? See how good it feels?
The rat's blood spattered across the stone as it dropped, lifeless. The shadows rippled, feeding on it, writhing with hunger.
I fell to my knees. My stomach churned. My hands shook.
It had been too easy.
And gods help me… a part of me had liked it.
After that, I refused to sleep. Not fully. I kept myself moving, pacing, whispering, forcing myself to focus on control rather than surrender.
I shaped blades from shadow, longer each night, sharper, steadier. I wove chains of darkness that bound the air, tested them against the iron shackles. I practiced stepping faster, farther, until I could move from one end of the cell to the other in a blink, until my body burned from exhaustion.
But the whispers only grew louder, feeding off my desperation.
Free him. Bind him. Drink him. Save him. End him.
And always, always, the refrain:
Bound by blood.
By the time Kaylan came again, I was half-mad from it. My skin burned with bruises, my arms streaked with shadow-marks that pulsed like veins. She stood in the doorway, watching, silent, as if measuring how much of me was still mine.
She smirked, of course. "You're unraveling nicely."
I didn't answer.
Because I knew now — if I spoke, it wouldn't only be me speaking.
It would be them, too.
The shadows, coiled tight in my throat, waiting for release.