ShadowBound: The Need For Power

Eventually, Nyxie opened her eyes and looked toward Liam.

Then she stuck her tongue out at him.

It was quick, childish, and unmistakably deliberate.

Mabel chuckled again. "Liam, you need to learn to show some affection to your shadows, or they may soon grow to hate you."

"My other shadows are not attention-seeking like Nyxie," Liam said. "She is acting like a spoiled child."

Nyxie lifted her head sharply, letting out a scandalized little bark.

Mabel glanced down at her with clear amusement. "What do you expect from someone who knows her worth?"

Nyxie’s reaction was immediate. She straightened in Mabel’s arms, chest puffing out, wings lifting slightly in agreement. A proud little trill rolled from her throat, and she gave a firm nod as if Mabel had spoken a sacred truth too long denied.

Mabel nodded back at her. "Exactly."

Liam looked at both of them.

His skeptical expression deepened. "If she knows her worth, then she should do the things asked of her."

Mabel’s hand paused against Nyxie’s scales.

Nyxie’s head turned toward him.

The room’s playful ease shifted slightly, not enough to become tense, but enough for the words to land. Liam leaned back in his chair, arms resting loosely near the desk, though his gaze remained fixed on Nyxie.

"You failed to report a single thing to me today," he said. "No sense link. No impressions. No warning. No useful habits. No route changes. No conversations. Nothing. For someone supposedly aware of her own value, that is a poor way to prove reliability."

Nyxie’s eyes narrowed.

Liam continued without softening. "If you were unable to observe, that should have been communicated. If nothing useful happened, that should have been communicated. If you simply decided not to do it because you were bored, then that means your intelligence is less reliable than I thought."

Nyxie’s pupils sharpened slightly.

Mabel looked between them, her amusement fading into interest. She did not interrupt. Liam’s tone was not cruel, but it was critical in the clean, direct way he used when something mattered. To another creature, especially one less bonded to him, the words might have sounded dismissive.

But Nyxie was not simply another creature. She understood enough of him to know that his irritation came from expectation, and expectation meant he believed she could do better.

Nyxie gave a small huff through her nose.

Then she pushed herself out of Mabel’s arms and climbed down to perch properly on Mabel’s thighs instead. Her claws settled against the fabric with careful precision, wings folding tightly against her sides. She lifted her head toward Liam, looking far less like a spoiled child now and far more like a small dark predator preparing to prove a point.

Liam watched her. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Before he could finish the question, Nyxie’s pupils constricted.

The bond snapped open.

Pain flashed through Liam’s head so sharply that his body went still.

It was not like the normal sensory sync. That usually came as a second layer of perception, uncomfortable if unexpected, but manageable. This was different.

A sudden wave of pressure surged through his mind, and his pupils dilated as if darkness had flooded behind his eyes. His fingers tightened against the edge of the desk, and for a breath, the room vanished beneath a rush of images.

Marren Voss.

He saw her face first, not as a single still picture, but as a moving presence repeated through days. Marren walking through the Fire Magic wing with documents held tight to her chest. Marren lowering her head politely to Professor Vale. Marren entering the aide records office before morning light had fully reached the corridors. Marren placing sealed folders into narrow slots marked by class type and instructor name.

Marren eating alone in the side hall used by staff. Marren speaking quietly with another aide whose name Liam had not bothered learning. Marren touching her left sleeve when receiving orders from a professor. Marren slowing near the old storage corridor. Marren avoiding direct eye contact with one instructor but not another.

Then more.

The memories came without the clean selection Nyxie had usually provided through sense-linking. They poured in raw, layered, and too complete. He saw useful things, useless things, and things he absolutely should not have seen.

Marren changing clothes behind a screen in the aides’ quarters, her expression tired and unaware. Another aide washing her face in a basin. A staff member cursing softly while adjusting a torn undershirt. Marren rubbing her temples alone in a small room, shoulders sagging before she straightened herself and returned to work.

Two aides whispering about a professor’s temper. A sealed red-wax case being passed from Professor Vale to Marren’s hands. A black ledger with three names Liam recognized and several he did not. A corridor. A desk. A door. A hand trembling. A laugh. A yawn. A half-finished cup of tea. The smell of ink, old paper, soap, metal polish, cold stone, and the faint scent of fire-aspected herbs from Professor Vale’s office.

The memories were Nyxie’s.

Liam knew that almost immediately.

They were not impressions created for him. They were not controlled visions shaped through the bond. They carried Nyxie’s perspective, low to the ground when she lingered in shadows beneath desks, stretched and distorted when Marren moved through corridors, sharpened whenever someone’s footsteps came too close.

The sense of time was strange, less like a human recollection and more like instinct sorted by importance, movement, scent, and emotional charge. Nyxie had remembered everything from the first day he instructed her to observe Marren, but she had stored it in a way that was not entirely human.

And now she had dumped it into his mind at once.

Mabel saw Liam’s reaction immediately.

His shoulders had gone tense. His gaze had fixed on nothing. His breathing remained controlled, but there was a discomfort in his face that appeared and vanished quickly, too quickly for most people to catch. Mabel caught it anyway. Her posture shifted atop the wardrobe, one hand moving toward Nyxie while the other steadied against the wood beneath her.

"Liam," she said, calm but carrying a clear thread of concern.

Nyxie remained perched on her lap, chest lifted proudly.

After a moment, Liam blinked.

The room returned fully.

He raised a hand and rubbed two fingers against his temple, his expression tightening faintly as the last pressure receded. The memories did not vanish. That was the problem. They settled inside his mind with unpleasant clarity, far more solid than ordinary sensory impressions. He could still recall everything involving Marren and unfortunately, the included several things he had no wish to keep in any corner of his thoughts.

"I’m fine," he said.

Mabel did not look convinced. "What happened?"

"My head was flooded with memories."

Mabel’s brows drew slightly beneath her mask. "Memories?"

Liam lowered his hand. "Nyxie’s memories."

That made Mabel look down at the small dragon on her lap.

Nyxie looked back up at her with unmistakable pride. Her tail curled around herself, and she gave one satisfied little chirp, as if to say that she had not failed to report anything. She had simply been gathering everything, and Liam had been rude enough to complain before appreciating her effort.

Mabel stared at her.

Then she looked at Liam again. "How is that possible?"

"I don’t know."

"You have never done that before?"

"No," Liam said. "I never considered it possible."

Mabel’s attention returned to Nyxie, but now the amusement was gone from her expression. In its place came something sharper and more thoughtful. She studied the little shadow dragon with the quiet focus of a Royal Corps operative recognizing the emergence of a skill far more useful than it first appeared.

Memory transfer.

Not merely shared sight or sound. Not a temporary link of senses. A direct sharing of stored observation from a shadow creature to its master.

The value of that was absurd.

If Liam could send Nyxie into a shadow, allow her to observe independently, then receive entire collections of memory afterward, he could gather information with far less risk than almost any conventional spy. He would not have to maintain an active link the entire time. He would not have to be physically present. He would not even need to know when something important was happening as long as Nyxie remembered it and transferred it later.

A normal familiar might report through trained signals, behavior, or limited emotional impressions. Nyxie had just given Liam direct recollection.

With refinement, that could make him an exceptional agent.

No. More than exceptional.

Terrifying.

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