ShadowBound: The Need For Power

By the time Liam reached the second-year dormitory building, the cold had crawled under his coat enough times to make his mood worse than it had been when he left Isolde’s door.

The building stood ahead of him with warm light spilling through its tall windows, the entrance lamps glowing against the darkening academy grounds. Compared to the rigid black stone of the academic wings, the dormitory building carried a more lived-in atmosphere.

Students passed in and out through the main doors, some still in uniform, others already changed into casual clothes for dinner, training, or whatever pointless gathering they felt required their presence. A few lingered near the entrance with scarves wrapped around their necks, complaining about the wind while making no effort to actually go inside. Their breath fogged faintly in front of them whenever they laughed.

Liam ignored them and pushed through the doors.

The difference in temperature met him at once. The inside of the dormitory was not truly warm, not enough to make him consider the air pleasant, but it was far more tolerable than the late-autumn cold outside.

The main lounge near the entrance held several heating stones set into the walls, their dull orange glow keeping the interior comfortable enough for students who did not possess fire magic and therefore had no choice but to suffer normally.

Liam had already been using his flames inwardly during the walk, drawing a careful thread of heat through his body to keep the worst of the chill from settling into his bones. It helped, but it did not make the cold any less offensive.

Inside, students moved through the lounge with the loose disorder that came after classes ended. Some sat across the low couches near the entrance, their bags dropped at their feet as they talked over the day’s lessons. Others leaned against tables with mugs of something warm in hand, reviewing notes while pretending not to listen to nearby conversations.

A group of second-years crossed toward the stairwell in casual clothes, likely heading back out despite the weather, which Liam considered proof that stupidity remained alive and well. Another pair came down the stairs laughing, one of them still pulling on a jacket as if he had only just realized the outside world had become miserable.

Several students looked at Liam as he entered.

Some glances were quick and cautious. Others lingered a little longer before looking away. A few students gave the slight nods that had become common over the past two months, acknowledgments that were not quite friendly but no longer hostile either.

Liam did not respond to most of them. His mind was fixed on reaching his room, removing his coat, and not dealing with any more unnecessary conversations for at least several minutes.

He crossed the lounge without slowing, passed the first stairwell, and made his way toward the second-year residential corridor. The warmth of the building made the irritation in his body loosen slightly, though the memory of the outside air remained like a personal insult.

He climbed the stairs to his floor and turned down the hall, where the noise from below softened into muffled voices and occasional doors opening and closing.

He was a few steps from his room when the door directly across from his opened.

Dylan stepped out.

That alone was already suspicious.

Dylan had the appearance of someone who had either important business or had convinced himself something extremely foolish counted as important business. His blond hair was slightly untidy, his uniform jacket was gone, and his sleeves were rolled up as though he had changed halfway before getting distracted by a thought only he could understand. He had a small folded paper between two fingers, a grin already forming before he even fully registered who stood in the corridor.

Then his green eyes landed on Liam’s coat, uniform, and document case.

Dylan’s grin widened.

"Hold on," Dylan said, looking him up and down with theatrical interest. "Why are you still dressed like that? Did you go training after class or something?"

Liam stopped in front of his own door. "No."

Dylan leaned one shoulder against his doorframe, now fully invested. "No? Then where were you coming from? Because unless the dorm building moved while I wasn’t looking, you took the long way back."

Liam reached into his pocket for his key. "I had something to do."

Dylan’s eyes brightened with the awful delight of someone discovering a path toward nonsense. "Something to do, he says. Very mysterious. Very suspicious. Very Liam."

He tilted his head, then gasped softly as if struck by divine revelation. "Wait. Don’t tell me. You went to see Sheila in the other dorm building before coming here, didn’t you?"

Liam did not look at him at first. He slid the key into the lock. "I didn’t."

Dylan stepped farther into the corridor, placing a hand over his chest as though wounded by the denial. "That was too fast. A man only answers that fast when he’s hiding something."

Liam turned his head slightly. "Sheila and I don’t have that kind of relationship."

Dylan froze.

Then, slowly, his grin became unbearable.

Liam already knew he had made a mistake.

"Oh?" Dylan said, voice rising with false innocence. "That kind of relationship? Interesting. Very interesting. Because I don’t remember saying you and Sheila had that kind of relationship." He pointed at Liam as if presenting evidence before a royal court. "All I said was that you went to see her. You’re the one who dragged the relationship part into it."

Liam stared at him.

Dylan stared back, delighted beyond reason.

They both knew exactly what Dylan had meant from the beginning. Dylan knew Liam knew. Liam knew Dylan knew that he knew.

The problem was that Dylan had entered the part of the conversation where logic no longer mattered because his only objective was to annoy him and declare victory from whatever wreckage remained.

Liam had no interest in feeding him more material.

He turned the key and opened his door. "I’ll see you around."

Dylan’s grin became triumphant. "That’s not a denial anymore."

Liam stepped inside. "It was the first time."

"Too late. The court has already ruled."

Liam shut the door.

Dylan’s laughter erupted from the hallway almost immediately, bright and shameless. "Another victory for Dylan Wellington!" he announced to no one in particular, though Liam heard footsteps pause farther down the hall as someone likely turned to witness whatever stupidity had taken place.

Dylan’s laughter drifted away as he began skipping down the corridor with the kind of rhythm only a person with no dignity could possess. His voice followed a moment later, singing some childish, improvised tune about Liam and princesses as he descended the stairs.

Liam locked the door behind him and stood still for half a second.

Then he muttered, "Idiot."

His room was quiet, familiar, and mercifully free of academy noise. The space was neat because he rarely allowed it to become otherwise, though it was not empty enough to feel unused. His bed sat against the far wall, covers straightened with simple efficiency. A desk stood near the window, its surface holding several stacked books, sharpened writing tools, and a few notes arranged in a way that made sense to him.

The wardrobe rested along one side of the room, tall and dark, while the training corner near the opposite wall contained a practice mat, weapon stand, and enough open space for basic movement drills.

Liam crossed the room and dropped his bag and document case near the desk with less care than usual. Then he began removing his coat, his fingers working at the fastenings while his mouth moved in low, irritated words aimed entirely at the weather.

Most of the curses were too quiet to be distinct, though the tone made their meaning clear enough. The cold had no intelligence, no motive, and no ability to understand insult, but Liam insulted it anyway.

He pulled the coat off and tossed it over the back of his chair. His uniform jacket followed, then the outer layers beneath it, leaving him in his pants and a dark tank top. The chill that had settled into him had not fully vanished despite the dormitory’s tolerable warmth, so he allowed more heat to rise from within.

Fire Myst moved through his core and channels in a controlled current, not enough to ignite anything or even glow visibly beneath his skin, but enough to warm his body from the inside outward. A faint shimmer lifted around him, and then thin curls of steam began rising from his shoulders and arms as the cold residue in his clothes and skin met the sudden increase in heat.

The room remained quiet for another second.

Then a familiar voice came from the corner above him.

"How was your day?"

Liam did not startle.

He turned his head slightly toward the wardrobe.

Mabel sat atop it as if that were a perfectly normal place for a grown woman to spend her evening. She wore her Royal Corps uniform as always, dark and fitted with its usual practical elegance, the half-mask covering the lower portion of her face. Her legs were crossed with effortless balance, one boot resting lightly over the other, and her hazel-brown eyes remained lowered toward a small book held in one hand.

She looked comfortable in a place that should not have been comfortable to sit, which said enough about her control over her own body. The sight would have unsettled most people. For Liam, it had become another part of the room.

"You ask that like you haven’t been watching me all day," Liam said.

Mabel turned a page in her book. "Watching and understanding are not the same thing."

Liam faced forward again, rubbing a hand over the side of his neck where Kaine’s cord had left a faint mark. "They’re close enough."

"No," Mabel said, still reading. "They are not. I can see what happens around you. I can see how people move, where their attention goes, when they hesitate, when they lie, when they think they are being subtle. But how something appears to me is not always how it feels to you."

Liam rolled his eyes slightly and said nothing for a moment.

Mabel’s gaze finally lifted from the book.

He could feel it on him.

"My day was like any other day," he said eventually. "Except for the cold."

Mabel chuckled softly. "That much is not news."

Liam shot her a flat look.

She lowered her eyes back to the book, though there was a faint amusement in the set of her mouth.

Inwardly, she could not help thinking again how poor his tolerance for cold truly was. She had always known fire mages tended to respond badly to cold weather. Their bodies, cores, and instincts were aligned toward heat, movement, combustion, and pressure. Cold dulled them in ways some refused to admit.

But Liam’s dislike of it seemed worse than most. It was not weakness exactly. He could function perfectly well. He had functioned through worse conditions than a late-autumn evening. But the irritation it caused him was immediate, stubborn, and almost childish in how thoroughly it offended him.

"That is good, then," she said aloud.

Liam gave her a skeptical look. "What is?"

"That your day was ordinary."

"Ordinary is debatable."

"Compared to your usual life, it is generous."

He did not argue because the statement was annoying precisely because it had some truth to it. Steam continued to curl faintly off his arms as he let the heat settle deeper into his body, easing the last of the cold from his muscles. Mabel closed the book gently around one finger to hold her place, then looked down at him with quiet curiosity.

"I am curious about something," she said. "You are free to answer or not."

"That usually means you expect an answer."

"It means I am giving you the option to pretend you have a choice."

Liam looked at her.

Mabel’s eyes warmed faintly with amusement behind the mask. "For the assignment Lady Seraphina gave you, who do you have in mind?"

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