Shadowbound

Shadowbound: Episode 1

Nine.

Nine heavy, iron locks stand between daylight and the darkest depths of this place. I have visited the dungeons before, always escorted, never allowed to commune with the prisoners chained to the walls. Tonight is different. Worth the defiance. The court ruled that no one was permitted to see you, but I had to. I needed to. So much so that I made a vicious threat of exposure to the Head Guardsman. Every dirty deed and disgusting proposition he throws around in the shadows, dragged out into the light. The truth unleashed upon an innocent and loving wife, a chasm so deep he could never climb out of it. He offered gold, silks, even his blade.

All I wanted was my path clear and those nine locks open.

Now, no guards stand between you and me.

I cannot lie. It frightens me how easy it was.

Still, I have to be careful. My path may be clear, but luck, fate, and chance are playing this twisted game too, and I would be a fool to rule them out.

The first thing I notice is the air changing as I descend, thick and stale, pressing close in my chest. Suffocating. A pressure builds in my ears with each spiralling step. This dungeon, your confinement, was built to drink every ounce of magic. To strip and contain it from one's very core, so that criminals as dangerous as you may never know peace until the court decides otherwise.

I do not fear meeting you. You pose no risk to me. So why do I feel this way?

My curiosity begs to see the face of the man they mean to chain to me. A woman ought to know the beast tasked with protecting her.

Damion Harrowe.

Even your name speaks to the monster you are.

Now I stand at your cell, the dark and twisted mark burning viciously along my wrist as it climbs my arm. A wretched blight no healer, priest, nor physician could name, let alone cure. Peering through the metal bars, I catch a glimpse of you, masked entirely in shadow. I cannot make out your form or your face, but I know you are chained like a tamed animal. Your head does not lift, though I am certain you have heard my footsteps approach.

Damion: It took you long enough.

The voice comes from a corner the torch cannot reach. Low, unhurried, almost bored. My whole body closes around it before my mind can catch up. Every muscle tensing at once. The breath catches high in my throat and stays there.

Vivianne: We have never met. You could not have been expecting me.

Damion: If you say so.

A low sound, almost a laugh, that I feel more than hear.

Vivianne: I am the Crown's Seer–

Damion: –I know what you are. I can feel it from here.

A pause. Silence. Air like concrete, setting quick within my lungs.

Clink.

Your chains shift somewhere in the black.

Damion: Come closer. It's not as if I can escape, even if you open that door.

I pause, my breath hitching. Deep down I want to leave, to abandon my curiosity at once because your voice has already disarmed me, and you have not so much as looked at me. But I have come too far to turn back now. And so I make myself approach.

One pace, then another.

Just into the light's embrace.

And now, I finally see you.

A man, stripped to the waist, both wrists bound, heavy chains pooling on the stone. If I let my eyes linger too long I might mistake what I feel for sympathy, but you are a monster, and every line of you is built to take life, not spare it. Another woman might swoon to find you kneeling. I am not so easily moved. What holds me is what tangles around you. Black lines, fine as ink drawn beneath the skin, climbing your throat, spreading over your chest and shoulder, rooting into you. Drinking you slowly from the inside.

I know those lines.

My own are clawing up the underside of my skin as we speak.

There is a scent in the cold down here, beneath the damp and iron. Something I know yet cannot place. My mind reaches for it and closes on nothing.

It unsettles me as much as you do.

Damion: You are staring.

Vivianne: I'm deciding whether you were worth the walk down.

Damion: Mm. And here I thought you were looking at the marks. Everyone always looks at the chains. But I see where your eyes linger.

Something moves at the corner of your mouth that is not quite a smile.

Damion: Forgive me, Seer. It's hard to make a good first impression on one's knees.

I reach for the voice I use in court, flat and level.

Vivianne: They tell me you are to take me North, to Cairnlight Sanctuary. That if you keep me safe, your reward is your freedom.

Damion: Freedom, as a reward? They say it like I have never worn the word before. It is only ever a longer chain.

You scoff.

Damion: Did you only come here to plan our journey together? Surely that could have waited until morning.

Your head tilts, and I feel your attention move over me the way a delicate hand might. Slow, and sweeping.

Vivianne: I told you. I am here to decide.

Damion: Decide whether the kingdom's monster will turn on you the moment his chains come off? Whether he matches the gossip?

Vivianne: Both.

Damion: Tell me, Seer. What did you give up, to stand here and decide?

A pause. Only now do you truly look at me.

Damion: Hm. Makes me wonder which one of us should really be in chains.

Vivianne: And yet you are the one wearing them.

Damion: For now.

The heat climbs my neck before I can stop it. I hate that you can see through me. A bead of sweat gathers at my temple, absurd in this cold, but I do not lift a hand to it.

I will not give you that.

Vivianne: You are here because of what you are. It is a mercy they are keeping you alive.

Damion: Hm. That much may be true. However, I know you are not supposed to be here.

The walls carry every word down here, Seer. So, what is my silence worth to you? They're giving me my freedom. There's nothing left you could buy me with. Who is really imprisoned, here?

Vivianne: How dare you. I hold the eyes of Kings, I command within the court, and I serve my kingdom loyally. You do not get to threaten me.

Damion: The eyes hold you. Kings don't want you, Seer, they want what you can see. And when the sight goes dark for good, and it is going dark, they'll put you in the ground as quick as they put me in this cell. That is why they are so desperate you reach–

The words are out before I choose them, and I do not know why I give them to you, of every soul alive.

Vivianne: –My business at the sanctuary does not concern you, beast. You are transport and protection. You are expendable. You take me there, and you leave with your life. Which is more than I would have granted you, given the choice.

I hear your almost-laugh again. Blunt, and mocking.

Damion: And tell me, what would you have granted me, given the choice.

Your eyes focus on me with an intensity that turns my stomach.

Vivianne: You have killed countless. If it were up to me, you would rot down here.

Damion: And your kingdom hasn't? If it were up to you, we both know the choices you would make.

Damion: Still. You did not come nine floors to insult me, and you did not come to count my chains. You came because I am the one person in this kingdom who can show you the truth.

Vivianne: The truth. Spoken like every man who has ever wanted something from me.

Damion: I want nothing from you. It is a long road to your sanctuary, Seer. A thousand miles, and an even greater dark between here and there. Time enough for a great many truths.

Vivianne: I have survived longer roads on my own and I am not interested in these truths.

Damion: Of that, I have no doubt. You are rather impressive.

Vivianne: I am not here to impress you. I am here to reach the sanctuary, and be free of you the moment I do.

Damion: Of course. Though I do wonder, how much you know of your… ailment.

Vivianne: I know enough to know it will be cured. Yours has clearly plagued your mind.

Damion: I could show you–

Vivianne: –Enough. I have seen what I need. On the road, you keep three paces ahead of me. You do not speak unless I speak first. You do not, under any circumstance, put a hand on me.

Damion: With talk like that, it almost seems you're frightened of me.

Vivianne: I am careful of you.

Damion: Careful or not, Seer, I know what truly frightens you.

Vivianne: How could you poss–

Damion: You're frightened of what's under that sleeve. What it's turning you into.

I open my mouth to put you back where you belong, my grip tightening on my wrist, every knuckle turning white. And that is when I hear it. Above me, behind me, coming down. Iron boots on stone. More than one man.

Everything in me turns sour. My window has closed. If they find the Crown's Seer alone in the dark with you, there is no title high enough in the kingdom to keep my head on my shoulders.

Vivianne: I– This did not happen. I was never here.

I breathe and gather my skirts, aiming for the door.

Damion: It is already forgotten.

Then, just as I reach the arch of it, you speak again.

Damion: Are the nightmares still troubling you, Vivianne?

I stop.

I do not turn, nor do I dare to breathe. The boots come down towards me from above, and behind me, you lurk in the shadows for your answer.

Between the two, I stand perfectly still, with a cold and total clarity.

I never told you my name.

And I have never told anyone about the nightmares.