All Chapters of Shadowbound Flame: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Sierra’s POVShe drifted in a sea of smoke and warmth, darkness curling soft and strange around her body—not cold like night, not cruel like pain, but safe. Familiar. It lapped at her skin like a tide that had been waiting centuries to find her again.Something pulsed beneath her ribs. Slow. Ancient. A heartbeat that wasn’t quite hers.The shadows here were different than the ones she commanded in waking life. They weren’t jagged shields or twitching half-formed shapes. They were liquid, velvet, thick with whispers she couldn’t quite catch. Whispers that weren’t in words but in memory. A language that brushed the back of her mind like half-forgotten lullabies.“You’ve felt him, haven’t you?”The voice was a woman’s. Low. Smoky. Wrapped in love and tragedy and power that hummed like black fire.Sierra’s breath stilled. It wasn’t sound that moved through her, but something deeper—like recognition, like bone remembering bone. It stirred a place inside her

Sierra’s POVHer familiar’s presence didn’t fade after summoning.It lingered. Always.In class, in the corridors, even in the echoing silence of her dorm, she could feel it — soft as a purr, sharp as a blade. A voice under her skin that whispered when her own grew too quiet.And it whispered now.He feels it too.Sierra tightened her cloak as she crossed the lantern-lit courtyard. Students bustled everywhere, familiars fluttering and prowling like little gods, yet she felt separate. Always separate.Until she saw him.Malick.Leaning against the north colonnade, like he hadn’t been waiting, like he didn’t watch the crowd the way she did. But the moment his gaze brushed hers, she felt it again — that hook, that pull. Threads tightening across the distance.His shadow twitched toward hers, and hers — traitorous, hungry — answered.She turned sharply down a side path.But his footsteps followed.“Vale,” his voice came lo

Sierra’s POVImmediately following their escape from classThe air in the abandoned corridor was thick with dust and ghosts. Sunlight seeped weakly through high, cracked windows, cutting the gloom into thin, jagged lines across the stone floor. Sierra leaned against the wall, pulse still fluttering from too much—too much adrenaline, too much attention, too much Malick. Every breath seemed to echo in the hollow corridor, mingling with the faint scent of old ink, broken spells, and the sharp tang of shadow magic.His presence next to her was warm and maddening. Even in the dim light, she could feel him—dark curls damp from sparring, shadows clinging to him like living smoke. It made the shadow inside her twitch, alive, as though it recognized him in a way she didn’t fully understand yet.They hadn’t spoken since slipping away from the dueling hall. Just breath, shared and silent, hanging heavy between them.“Why do you keep doing that?” she asked suddenly, voi

The Crows’ POVThe moon hung high in the sky, pale and cold, but no stars dared to burn tonight. Out past the edge of the academy wards, where the trees knotted so tightly that the mist never cleared and the air tasted of iron and old magic, three shadows gathered in a circle of stone. Their laughter had long since died. Now, only power spoke.Gloria knelt first, laying a talon-shaped blade across her knees. Its hilt was carved from bone that pulsed faintly in the darkness, like a heartbeat echoing through the ground. The air grew colder around her, coiling like serpents, and her lips moved without sound. The frost crawling along her skin wasn’t entirely natural; it was the blade calling to her, the spirits whispering their obedience.Patricia stood at her right, holding a mirror shard in one hand and a pinch of crimson ash in the other. She tilted her head as though listening to a frequency no one else could perceive. Her chant was low, melodic, almost casual, but th

Malick’s POVThe smell of sulfur and burnt cinnamon clung to the vaulted classroom like a curse that wouldn’t lift. The air hung thick, weighed down by chalk dust, residual magic, and the faint tang of sweat from long hours of practice. Malick leaned over the blackened cauldron, watching the slick purple liquid churn lazily. Potioncraft had never held his attention—too precise, too reliant on patience. Today, though, it wasn’t the brew that had him distracted.It was her.Across the room, Sierra moved with deliberate calm, tucking something small and dark into the inside pocket of her robe. She thought she was subtle. A quick pour into her own cauldron beneath the table, hiding it behind a standard-strength defensive brew. But Malick had spent enough time watching her, enough time learning the rhythm of her hands, the subtle pulse of her magic. He knew when she wasn’t pretending.And this?This was ritual.It was the same potion she took in the mornings