All Chapters of SoulBound: Chosen by Darkness: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

8 Phantom Heat Nori woke to warmth. Not the real kind—the kind that comes from blankets and bodies and shared breath. This was thinner. Stranger. A ghost of heat that bloomed behind her sternum and vanished before she could lean into it. She lay still on the narrow cot, staring up at a ceiling ribbed with old beams and flaking paint. The air smelled faintly of dust and candle wax. Somewhere nearby, someone murmured softly. The sanctuary breathed around her in low, human sounds—footsteps, the creak of wood, the hush of voices meant not to carry. The bond pulsed again. Warm. Then gone. Nori’s breath caught. She pressed her palm to her chest as if she could hold the sensation there, anchor it before it slipped away. The ache that followed was different from the hollow numbness of the fracture. This hurt was sharper, more alive. Heat without touch. Presence without presence. She rolled onto her side and curled inward, forehead pressing into the thin pillow. For a mome

10 Eyes in the Dark Nori woke with the certainty of being watched. Not the vague unease of a bad dream, not the anxious echo of memory. This was precise. A pressure behind her eyes, a cold tightness along her spine, the sensation of attention resting on her skin like breath she couldn’t hear. She lay still on the narrow cot, counting her breaths the way Rafael had taught her. In. Hold. Out. Let the noise pass you by. The sanctuary was quiet. Candlelight hummed in glass jars along the walls. The old beams overhead creaked as the building settled into the early hours. No footsteps. No voices. No sound of anyone near her door. The bond answered the sense of being seen with cold. Not heat this time. Not the phantom warmth that came when Tharien moved somewhere in the city. This was different—an inversion, a tightening that felt like the bond being pressed flat, dimmed. Nori swallowed and pressed her palm to her sternum. Cold meant attention. She swung her legs over the

12 The Almost-Touch Nori felt him before she saw him. The bond warmed behind her sternum—real warmth this time, not the phantom heat that flickered and died. This was steadier, heavier, like gravity changing direction. Her breath caught. She stopped walking in the narrow side street behind the sanctuary, groceries forgotten in her hand. Close, the bond whispered without words. Too close. She turned slowly, heart climbing into her throat. Across the street, half-hidden by the reflection in a darkened shop window, Tharien stood in the shadow of an awning. Rain threaded down his hood. His shoulders were tense, posture coiled like he’d stopped mid-step. For a heartbeat, the world went quiet. The city’s noise receded into a dull hush. The pressure of being watched thinned as proximity steadied the fracture between them. The bond stopped burning and settled into something dangerously close to peace. Tharien lifted his head. Their eyes met. The bond surged—heat and gro

14 — Kolden’s Hollow Nori learned the sanctuary’s quiet had layers. There was the ordinary quiet—candlelight, soft footfalls, voices kept low out of habit and respect. The quiet of people who knew how to live without being noticed. And then there was the other quiet. The kind that settled inside the body when something essential had been removed. Nori woke to that second kind first. Not because the room was silent. It wasn’t. The building breathed around her—wood creaking, a distant kettle, someone’s muted cough. But behind her sternum, where warmth used to live like a steady hand, there was a thin, unfamiliar hush. A blankness that didn’t feel like peace. Then—heat. It bloomed fast, bright as a match struck in the dark. Not a full flame. Not the grounding weight she remembered from Tharien’s presence. This was a ghost of it. Phantom warmth that flared and vanished before she could lean into it. Nori pressed her palm to her chest as if she could hold the sensation there. Gon

16 — The Lie Grows Teeth Tharien learned the city’s language by the way it tried to speak her name. It wasn’t always direct. Sometimes it was a laugh from a passing couple, the shape of the sound close enough to make the bond behind his sternum twitch. Sometimes it was a flyer pasted crooked on a brick wall—WELLNESS CHECKS TONIGHT—printed in rounded letters that made mercy look like a service you could schedule. Every resonance trap was an invitation. He stopped taking them. Tharien moved through the seams of the city instead—service corridors that smelled like old water, stairwells with dead cameras, alleys narrow enough to make sound feel too large. He kept his head down and his breath slow. The bond answered with a tight, controlled ache. Cold meant pressure. Heat meant proximity—hope. He learned to starve the heat without killing it. A name slipped from a stranger’s mouth behind him, soft and careless. The bond twitched. Tharien didn’t turn. He kept walking until the ache s