CHAPTER 7: THROUGH HIS EYES
1173 Words
The first thing I felt was the cold.
Not the kind that crawled on your skin, but the kind that burrowed into your bones. I staggered, disoriented. One moment I was in the healer’s chamber with Ivara, and the next I was… here.
Snow crunched beneath my feet. The trees were skeletal, bare branches scratching at the overcast sky. The wind howled through the forest like a beast mourning its dead.
But it wasn’t my forest.
It wasn’t my body either.
My hands, his hands, were bloodied and bruised. My chest, his chest, rose and fell in uneven gasps. Rage boiled inside me, raw and primal. I tried to speak, but no sound came from my lips.
Because these weren’t my lips.
I was in Maddox’s memory.
The realisation hit me like a slap. I tried to blink it away, to wake, to move, but the memory dragged me deeper.
A boy stood before me, before him. Couldn’t have been more than twelve. Thin. Wide-eyed. Holding a knife too big for his hand.
He was trembling.
“Don’t do this,” the boy said.
Maddox, young Maddox, didn’t answer. He stepped forward, boots crunching snow, eyes like cold suns. The rage wasn’t new. It was forged, beaten into him by years of pain and silence.
“I’m not your enemy,” the boy whimpered.
But Maddox raised the blade.
“Please,”
Steel met flesh. Warmth spilt out.
The boy collapsed.
And Maddox fell to his knees beside him.
“No,” he whispered.
The body twitched once. Then went still.
I felt it, the guilt. The shame. The weight of the kill on a soul too young to carry it. But I also felt something else.
Relief.
Because the boy had been a spy.
Because Maddox had been ordered to kill.
And because he’d obeyed.
The memory splintered, fractured around me. The cold bled away, replaced by the scent of herbs and stone. I gasped, jerking upright.
My own hands again. My body.
Ivara was by the doorway, watching me with haunted eyes.
“You saw it,” she said quietly.
I swallowed. My throat burned.
“That wasn’t just a memory,” I rasped. “It was… I felt him.”
She gave a single nod. “The bond works both ways. The longer you’re tied, the more your souls brush.”
“I saw him kill a boy,” I whispered. “He didn’t want to, but he did.”
“The first kill always scars,” Ivara said. “For some, it carves deeper than others.”
I stood, legs trembling. The room felt too small, the air too thick. I needed space.
I left without another word.
The fortress buzzed faintly with movement. Warriors training. Scouts returning. Rogues sharpening weapons or sharpening grudges. But I kept to the corridors, weaving like a ghost until I found the one I was looking for.
Maddox.
He stood near the overlook, arms crossed, staring out into the storm-drenched horizon. His tunic clung to him from sweat or rain,I didn’t care. I marched straight toward him.
He sensed me coming. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know what you did.”
His head turned slightly. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The boy,” I said. “In the snow.”
His silence said enough.
“How old were you?” I asked, stepping closer. “Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Thirteen,” he replied without turning.
Gods.
“I didn’t want to see it,” I said. “I didn’t ask to see it.”
“The bond doesn’t care what you want.”
“No,” I hissed. “But you should.”
His shoulders tensed.
“I felt everything,” I said. “The rage, the grief… the relief.”
He then turned. Slowly. Eyes like cut amber.
“Then maybe you understand me better than most.”
“I don’t want to understand you!” I snapped. “I want to undo this, this tether you tied around my soul!”
“It saved your life.”
“I didn’t ask to be saved!”
For a moment, I thought he’d shout back. But he didn’t.
He just looked… tired.
Like the boy in the snow, we never really left him.
“You think I wanted to mark you?” he said. “You think I wanted this?”
“No,” I spat. “I think you wanted control. And now you’ve got it.”
He stepped closer. “You think I’m in control?” His voice was low, dangerous. “You saw the memory. You felt it. I haven’t been in control since I was thirteen.”
I faltered.
His expression was unreadable. “They made me kill that boy to prove I could lead. To prove I wouldn’t hesitate.”
“Who?” I asked, breathless.
“My father,” he said. “And the council. Before they turned on me too.”
I stared. “You were groomed for power.”
“I was forged for it,” he said bitterly. “Pain was the anvil.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
He turned back to the view, voice distant. “There are worse memories, Celina. Worse truths. If you keep pulling at them, they’ll unravel everything you thought you knew.”
I should’ve left. I should’ve turned away.
But instead I whispered, “The boy had a birthmark. Just below his left ear.”
He went still.
Then, very slowly, he looked at me.
“What did you just say?”
I hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
I hadn’t known I remembered that.
But I did.
And the look in his eyes, cold, dark, and wild, told me I’d just stepped into dangerous territory.
“I saw it,” I said, quieter now. “The mark.”
His fists clenched.
“That detail,” he said, his voice like gravel, “was never shared with anyone. Not even my generals.”
I took a step back. “It was in the memory,”
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”
Silence pulsed between us, heavy and sharp.
His breath quickened.
“You’re not just feeling the bond,” he said. “You’re inside it. Seeing things I didn’t give you access to.”
I swallowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means something’s wrong,” he said. “Or someone tampered with fate.”
Before I could speak again, Tarek’s voice rang out behind me.
“Alpha!”
We both turned.
Tarek’s face was pale. “There’s been a breach. The northern ridge.”
Maddox didn’t even glance at me again.
“Seal the gates,” he ordered. “I’ll be there in minutes.”
He was gone before I could ask anything more.
And for the first time since I crossed into Shadowland, I wasn’t just afraid of Maddox.
I was afraid of what I was becoming.
- Writer
