Page 26 of Panther in the Shadows
"The weather turned faster than anyone predicted. One minute we were hauling nets, the next minute waves were swamping the deck. Dad tried to get us to shore, but something caught the rudder. We lost steering."
She closes her eyes. "The boat capsized. Water everywhere. Cold. So cold it burned. Dad was shouting for us to hold on, but the waves kept pulling us under. I saw Elspeth go down. Saw her reach for the surface and not make it. So I reached for my power. For the magic Gran had been teaching me. For the sea that should have answered my call."
"But it didn't."
"No. It ignored me. Swallowed my father and my sister while I floated there, helpless. Too weak to command what should have been mine." She opens her eyes, and they're dry. No tears. Just emptiness that cuts deeper than grief. "The fishermen pulled me out hours later. Found the boat wreckage the next day. The bodies were never recovered."
Her voice stays flat. Clinical. Like she's reciting someone else's tragedy.
"You were thirteen," I say quietly. "A child. Your magic was barely developed. You couldn't have saved them."
"But I should have." Scraped from somewhere deeper than her chest. "Gran had been training me since I was ten. I knew how to call the waves. Knew how to command the tides. I'd done it in controlled situations. But when it mattered, when lives depended on it, my power meant nothing."
"So you hid it." Understanding slots into place. "Spent years pretending your magic didn't exist because using it means remembering you couldn't use it when it counted."
She nods. Once. Sharp. Final.
"And now someone has taken that failure and weaponized it." Rage builds in my chest. Cold and controlled, but potent. "Bound your sister's spirit. Kept her aware and suffering for years. Fed on her terror until it curdled into rage. At you. At the ocean. At everything. Then pulled her up like a puppet to hurt you again."
"Yes."
The word carries more weight than any confession. More truth than any explanation. And suddenly, this isn't about murders or ritual magic or someone trying to frame me for those deaths. This is about trauma weaponized. About guilt shaped into a blade. About someone who looked at a thirteen-year-old girl's worst moment and decided to build an army from her failures.
"We're going to find whoever did this." I lean forward, catching her gaze and holding it. "Not for the brotherhood's politics or territorial disputes. Not even because it's happening on my island. We're going to find them because they took your sister's death and turned it into torture. Because they've been feeding on her suffering for years. Because they're using your trauma as a weapon."
"And then?"
"Then we end them." Simple. Final. The way my panther handles threats. "Permanently."
She studies me for long seconds. Looking for lies or empty promises, probably. Finding neither.
"Why do you care? You barely know me."
"Because you spent all the years carrying guilt that wasn't yours to carry." I stand, ignoring the pull in my shoulder. "Because even after all that, you're still trying to protect people. And because nobody should have to face their sister's corpse being used as a weapon."
I move toward my room, pausing at the threshold. "And because someone needs to pay for what they've done to you and to Elspeth. I'm good at making people pay."
She says my name differently this time. Softer. "Thank you. For saving me at the tidal pools. For this." She gestures to the space around us. "For listening."
"Get some rest. Tomorrow we start hunting whoever's responsible. But right now, you're safe. The wards won't let anything through. Not corrupted spirits. Not necromancers. Nothing."
She nods and rises. Moves toward her room with exhaustion dragging at every step. Pauses at her door. "Will you be able to sleep?"
"Eventually." Lie. But a kind one. "You?"
"I doubt it."
Honest. I respect that. "Door stays unlocked on my end. If you need anything, you call me."
"I will."
She disappears into her room. The door closes. The lock engages. And I'm left standing in my headquarters, shoulder throbbing from the corrupted magic, knowing that sleep won't find either of us easily.
My panther stirs beneath my skin. Not with threat or hunger for the hunt. Something else. Something that recognizes the strength in her despite the trauma. The way she didn't break when her sister's corpse tried to drown her. The way she tended my wounds even though her hands were shaking. The fierce determination that sent her to those tidal pools alone.
I want her.
The admission sits heavy in my chest. Not just desire, though there's plenty of that. Something deeper. More complicated. The kind of want that comes from recognizing an equal. Someone who survives when survival shouldn't be possible. Someone who carries impossible weight and keeps moving forward anyway.
