Chapter 7 The Shadow #2
I tried to shake off the distraction and cleared my throat. “I see they found a dress that fits you,” I said, aiming for casual indifference, though the strain in my voice was obvious even to me.
Vivian’s lips curled into a mocking smile. “Yes, your personal assistant felt me up and down until she got every single measurement from my body. I bet you’re jealous she had her hands on me, aren’t you?”
The fuck? I almost dropped my glass. Where the hell had that sass come from? The last time I saw her, she looked like she’d been crying for an hour straight and had nothing to say to me. Now, she was trying to provoke me? Unacceptable.
My eyes narrowed, and I leaned forward, letting the shadows creep in around the room, darkening the corners.
“I’d shut that fucking beautiful mouth of yours before it gets closed for you,” I said in a low, deadly tone.
“Don’t forget who you’re sitting across from, little girl.
Your life is in my hands. If you won’t be compliant, I’ll kill you and find some whore to fulfill my marital duties. You are absolutely replaceable.”
Even as I said the words, I knew they weren’t true, but maybe if I said them enough I would eventually believe them.
Her unblinking gaze remained locked on mine.
But I caught the slight twitch in her left eye.
Fear. It was subtle, but it was there. She was trying so hard to play her game, to appear unbreakable, but I knew I had gotten through to her.
Perfect. Let her think she could play with fire. In the end, she’d only burn herself.
The tension hung thick between us, the silence only broken as my staff served our meal. Neither of us spoke. We ate in strained, angry silence, the sound of her knife slicing through her steak the only acknowledgment of my existence.
I watched her every bite, every movement. She kept her eyes on her plate, ignoring me as if I were nothing more than a shadow in the room.
Just as I was about to say something to cut through the suffocating quiet, the dining room door swung open. One of my guards stepped in, his face pale, his posture stiff with urgency.
I shot him a murderous glare. “What the fuck do you want?”
The guard hesitated, clearly unsure whether to speak or turn and run. He cleared his throat, bowing his head slightly. “Apologies, boss, but there’s a situation that requires your attention.”
My fist clenched around the handle of my knife. I was so close to slamming it into the table. “Can’t you see I’m fucking eating?”
The guard swallowed hard, eyes darting nervously between me and Vivian. “I understand, boss, but there’s been a breach in security. Someone tried to break into the estate.”
The rage that had been simmering beneath my skin erupted.
I shoved my chair back with enough force to send it skidding across the marble.
“A breach? On my estate?” Heads would roll for this.
“I’ll disembowel whoever dared set foot on my land without my permission.
What do people think this is? A fucking amusement park? ”
I turned to leave, my jacket billowing behind me. As I stormed toward the exit, I shot one last glance at Vivian. She was staring at me, wide-eyed, genuine fear on her face.
The timing couldn’t have been any more perfect. She would see what happened when people crossed me.
I didn’t spare her another look as I strode out of the dining hall, shadows trailing in my wake. Whoever had dared breach my domain would soon wish they had never been born.
The doorbell rang, an ominous, echoing chime that vibrated through the fortress like a warning.
I froze mid-stride. For a moment, I thought I’d imagined it.
I hadn’t heard that sound in decades. No one in their right mind would dare to use it.
My estate had an energy of unapproachability that was carefully cultivated.
Pushing the heavy curtain aside just enough to peer through, I immediately regretted looking. The motherfucking magistrates.
Eldric stood in the center, his sharp, calculating gaze fixed squarely on the door, as if daring me to ignore them.
To his right, Caladorn looked almost amused, his arms loosely crossed, the faint glimmer of gold in his amber eyes betraying his enjoyment of the moment.
Vaelen, on Eldric’s left, was eerily still, his ethereal features so unnervingly perfect they seemed almost unreal in the pale light.
I clenched my jaw.
Fuck.
Straightening my jacket, I moved toward the door, pushing down the surge of irritation threatening to boil over. There was no denying the magistrate. They held power no one in The Below could challenge, not even me.
The past slid back into me like a blade—slick, familiar, and always just under the skin. I pressed at my temples, willing the memory back down into the dark, but it rose anyway, oily and cloying like the scent of Lorde Thorne’s favorite cologne.
I’d been seventeen the first time they came.
The manor had gone quiet in that unnatural way that precedes storms or death.
I was halfway down the staircase, shirt sleeves damp against my wrists, the linen stuck to split flesh where the cuffs had rubbed raw.
My fingers ached from the latest lesson.
The manacles my father used had been tighter that day. Less correction, more punishment.
My father’s voice was already echoing across the marble foyer, thunderous and triumphant. Lorde Thorne never needed a script. Arrogance poured from him like old wine—bitter and constant.
They arrived without ceremony. No guard. No insignia.
Three of them: Eldric, draped in shadows and trimmed in gold; Caladorn, fox-eyed and unreadable; and Vaelen, the quiet one with the haunted stare. They didn’t look like judges. They looked like consequences.
Eldric’s voice was velvet. “We’ve come to evaluate the legacy of House Gallanti. We have heard interesting things about the boy.”
Not the heir. Not the son. The legacy. Cold. Vague. Purposefully dehumanizing.
My father’s chuckle came from the top of the stairs, descending with all the regality of a man who thought he belonged in their ranks. “Legacy,” he repeated, as if the word tasted foul on his tongue. “Then you’ve come too late. All that remains is disappointment.”
I didn’t flinch. I’d long learned the art of stillness. My shadows curled close at my heels, recoiling not from the magistrates, but from the look in my father’s eyes.
Anticipation.
Not for my elevation.
For my sale.
Eldric turned to me without emotion. “This is your son?”
“He is the blood of my blood,” my father replied. “Though I often wonder how that could be true.”
The shadows under my skin pulsed.
They saw the bruises on my neck. The stiffness in my knee from being forced to kneel for hours in a warded circle. They saw the welts at my collar, the barely healed ring around my wrist. They saw everything.
And they turned away.
Caladorn’s eyes narrowed, assessing me like one might inspect a flawed gem. “We have no need for disobedience,” he said. “But potential? That is always of interest.”
“He is unstable,” my father snapped. “The shadow within him answers to no law—not even mine.”
I kept my eyes on the floor, clenching my jaw so hard that my molars ached. Every word stung less than the silence. The silence meant agreement. The silence meant consent.
Then Vaelen spoke, quiet as dust. “Yet you want to sell him to us.”
That made my father pause.
It made me lift my gaze.
He recovered quickly, of course. Lord Thorne never let weakness linger. “Sell is a crude word. I offer cooperation if the price is right, but as ineffectual as he is, something is to be said for blood. Alliance. My legacy—my name—still commands value.”
Eldric raised a single hand. “And we trust that House Gallanti still understands discretion. Which is why this conversation must occur without the ears of obsolete children.”
Obsolete.
I’d been called many things—useless, errant, corrupted—but never obsolete.
My father turned to me, not with an order, but a dismissal. A flick of his hand, like I was nothing more than a wisp of smoke he could wave away.
So I left.
Because that’s what I’d been trained to do.
That night, I stood outside the study door, one hand pressed flat against the wood. The wards hummed under my touch—silent, ancient magic designed to keep boys like me on the outside of power.
I couldn’t hear the words inside. But I didn’t need to. I knew what was being bartered.
My magic. My future. My leash.
I remember thinking—just once—that maybe they’ll take me. Maybe they’ll pull me from this house of rot and turn me into something sharp and terrible and free.
But they didn’t.
They left before dawn, robes trailing, silence intact. Not a single glance was spared in my direction as they vanished through the gate.
I wasn’t chosen.
I was cataloged.
The lesson burned into me deeper than any brand: the magistrate don’t rescue. They collect.
When I opened the door, Eldric’s frosted eyes swept over me, unblinking. “Ah, Shadow,” he said smoothly. “We trust this is a convenient time?”
“As convenient as it can be,” I replied with a polite nod, masking my unease. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“May we come in?” Vaelen said. There was a dangerous undertone in his voice, like a dagger sheathed in silk.
I hesitated for the briefest moment. Refusing them would be suicidal. “Of course. This way.”
Now, years later, the front door creaked wide again, and Eldric stepped through like no time had passed at all. He looked the same.
Which made it worse.
“We won’t take much of your time.” His voice was still like honey over poison.
I straightened, uncoiling like a blade being unsheathed. I was taller now. Older. No longer manacled. No longer obedient.
But that obsolete boy still lived beneath my skin.
I smiled without warmth and gestured for them to follow me. “Then don’t waste it.”