ShadowBound: The Need For Power

By the time Liam reached his dorm room, the announcement inside Beacon Hall had already begun rearranging itself in his mind.

He closed the door behind him and stood still for a moment, one hand resting against the handle while the room settled around him in familiar silence. The warmth inside helped remove the edge of the cold clinging to his coat, but it did nothing for the irritation that had followed him from Beacon Hall all the way across the academy grounds.

The Bastion Assessment itself was one problem. Fourteen days inside Eldervale, a fortified settlement to secure, a command structure to build, supplies to manage, and a Warden the academy was serious enough to warn them not to engage. That alone would have been enough to occupy most students’ thoughts for the rest of the evening.

But Liam was not thinking only about Eldervale.

He was thinking about Chris.

More specifically, he was thinking about the moment during Lucia’s explanation when he had connected with Nyxie to see how Chris was taking in the announcement. Liam had done it almost out of habit, partly because Chris was one of the three people under watch and partly because the announcement itself was the kind of thing that could reveal more through reaction than words.

Most of the second-years had been visibly taken aback by the duration, then unsettled by the mission-like nature of the assessment. Even those trying to remain composed had shown something. A tightened jaw. A widened eye. A shift in posture. A whisper to someone nearby. The sudden stillness that came when a student realized a future problem had become real.

Chris had not looked like that.

Through Nyxie’s low, hidden perspective, Liam had seen Chris seated near Logan and Lucian with a faint smugness resting on his face. Not loud. Not theatrical. Nothing that would have drawn attention from the stage. But it had been there all the same, a subtle smile belonging to someone who did not feel surprised by what he was hearing.

When Lucia announced the assessment would last fourteen days, Chris did not react like someone absorbing the information for the first time. When she named Eldervale, explained Veyrhold, spoke about securing the abandoned settlement and building command structure, Chris did not stiffen, murmur, or glance around for reassurance.

He looked as though each piece confirmed something already given to him.

At first, Liam had considered the possibility that Chris was simply being Chris. Arrogance had a way of making people look prepared even when they were not. Chris was a prince, proud, polished, and practiced enough to keep his face composed in public. Maybe he had decided to act confident because he wanted others to see him that way. Maybe he had known that second-years would look toward ranked students and influential figures during the announcement, and he had chosen to wear certainty like armor.

That explanation barely lasted.

The longer Lucia spoke, the more Chris’s expression changed in the wrong direction. Not shock hidden beneath pride. Not forced composure. Reassurance. Certainty. Confidence sharpening as the details unfolded exactly how he seemed to expect. By the time Lucia explained that the students could choose their commander and vice commander before deployment, Chris had carried the expression of someone whose advantage had just been validated in front of everyone.

Liam removed his coat slowly and set it over the back of his chair.

The cold fabric scraped unpleasantly against his hand before he let it go. He placed the Eldervale guide he had retrieved from void storage onto his desk, then set his other materials beside it with more precision than necessary. The room remained quiet except for the faint movement of fabric as he began unfastening his uniform shirt.

’He knew,’ Liam thought.

There was no other conclusion that made sense to him.

Chris had known how the practical assessment would be structured before Lucia announced it. Maybe not every single detail, but enough. The duration. The full-year cooperation. The mission nature of it. Possibly Veyrhold, Eldervale, and the leadership arrangement too. He had not been reacting to new information. He had been confirming old information.

There was, of course, the possibility that Liam was reading too much into an expression. Chris might simply have processed the announcement calmly, just as Liam himself often did. Most people misread Liam because they expected emotional reactions that never came. It was possible Chris had done something similar, wearing confidence because confidence was part of how he operated.

Liam did not believe that.

Not for even a second.

He pulled his uniform shirt free and folded it over the chair with his coat, leaving himself in dark pants and a tank top. His body still held a faint chill from outside, so he let fire-aligned Myst move quietly through him, heating him from the inside. His eyes remained fixed on the desk, but his mind continued working through the pieces.

If Chris had known, then someone informed him.

That someone had to be well-informed. The list opened too widely at first. A third-year who had experienced the Bastion Assessment before, assuming the academy had used the same structure. An instructor who had access to exam planning. Someone higher within administration. A student council figure. A staff member who handled documents. Being the Tempest prince gave Chris options. He could bribe, promise favor, trade influence, appeal to old loyalties, or exploit someone who wanted royal attention badly enough to risk sharing information.

That was assuming Chris had become desperate enough to see Sheila fail.

Liam’s expression darkened faintly.

He had.

That much was becoming clearer by the day.

Chris had gone quiet over the past two months, but quiet did not mean growth. It could mean restraint, patience, or preparation. If he had spent that time gathering information on Sheila’s position among the second-years and acquiring advance knowledge of the practical assessment, then he was not simply sulking in the shadow of his lowered rank. He was building something.

The irritation beneath Liam’s skin began to rise again.

Now there were potentially two people helping Chris.

One person close enough to Sheila to provide details about her movements, conversations, growing leadership, and work with Isolde. Another person informed enough about the Bastion Assessment to brief Chris before the announcement. Finding the first would help Liam understand how to handle Chris during the assessment or before it began. Finding the second could be even more useful. If someone connected to the academy had given Chris confidential examination information in advance, then that was not simply student politics anymore. That was misconduct.

Exposing that person would not be leverage in the usual sense.

It would be a blade.

If Liam found them, he could force the matter into the academy’s hands and let the authorities deal with Chris and whoever had fed him privileged information. That would remove the problem cleanly, or at least make it difficult for Chris to keep playing the same game. It was not that Liam cared about academic fairness. He cared about not having to waste fourteen days in Eldervale dealing with a Tempest prince’s wounded pride disguised as strategy.

He reached for the towel hanging near the washroom door, then stopped before entering.

A new possibility entered his mind.

What if it was not two people?

What if one person was helping Chris with both?

If that were true, the person would need two things: knowledge of the practical assessment and closeness to Sheila.

The first pointed toward a third-year, instructor, or administrator. The second narrowed it. No instructor was close to Sheila in that personal, visible way, at least not openly enough to gather the smaller details Lucian described. No administrator had reason to spend enough time around her daily movements unless through student council duties. A third-year, however, could fit the first requirement if they had experienced the Bastion Assessment before.

And only one third-year had recently become close enough to Sheila to matter.

Isolde Thorne.

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