ShadowBound: The Need For Power

Chris’s smile vanished for half a second before he forced it back. "Careful, Hunter. That mouth of yours is going to make people think you are protective."

"I am eating."

"You keep saying very little, but you still have not denied that Sheila relies on you privately."

"Because your assumptions are still not my responsibility."

Chris leaned forward slightly. "If she depends on you, then the year deserves to know. If the princess needs a dark mage standing behind the curtain to keep her steady, perhaps she is not fit to command the second-years."

Liam looked at him, calm and cold.

He understood exactly what Chris was doing. He also understood the source of Chris’s confidence, which made the entire performance even more irritating. Chris thought he was using information. He did not understand that he was being used by someone better at this than he was. Isolde had given him enough to aim him, and his pride had filled the rest with arrogance. He was not a strategist in this moment. He was a sharpened object thrown by another hand.

And because Liam knew that, he restrained himself.

If he exposed that he knew about Isolde now, the advantage died. Chris would realize something was wrong. Isolde would adjust. Sheila’s test would change shape before she had a chance to face it properly. Beyond that, there was Queen Lucy to consider. Liam had no affection for Chris, but Chris was still her son. Humiliating him publicly or breaking him in the cafeteria would drag more politics into Liam’s life, and he was trying very hard not to let the day become even worse than it already was.

So Liam finished his meal.

Quietly.

That annoyed Chris more than any answer could have.

The silence stretched long enough that the students nearby began looking less certain. Chris kept speaking, tossing out polished lines about command, pressure, hidden weakness, and the difference between popularity and capability, but Liam gave none of it the weight Chris wanted. He ate. He drank water. He wiped his mouth with a napkin. He behaved as if Chris’s words were no more important than the distant scrape of a chair across the cafeteria.

Eventually, Liam set his utensils down and rose.

Chris looked up at him. "Leaving already?"

"Yes."

"Did I ruin your appetite?"

"No."

"Then perhaps I struck something true."

Liam picked up his tray. "You struck the air repeatedly. It survived."

A faint ripple moved through the nearby students again.

Chris’s hand moved before thought could restrain it.

As Liam stepped past the table, Chris reached out and grabbed his forearm.

The cafeteria went colder.

Not physically. Not at first. But the atmosphere changed so sharply that even the students who did not understand Liam well felt it. A line had been crossed. Words were one thing. Public jabs were one thing. Sitting at his table uninvited was already dangerous enough. But touching him, stopping him, gripping his arm in front of others as if he had the right to hold Liam Hunter in place, made the space around them tighten with immediate danger.

Liam stopped.

Slowly, his gaze moved down to Chris’s hand on his forearm.

Chris stood from his seat, keeping his grip for a moment longer than was wise. He leaned in just enough that his next words would not carry to the students nearby.

"Tell your princess," Chris said quietly, voice low and cruel, "that if she needs you to hold her spine together before Eldervale, she should not be asking anyone to follow her."

Liam’s eyes lifted.

The cold in them was immediate.

For a brief moment, several answers lined up behind his teeth. Puppet. Borrowed courage. Isolde’s pet prince. The student president is aiming you like a dull spear and you are proud of the direction. He could have said any of it. He could have leaned close and ruined Chris’s confidence with a single sentence.

He could have told him that his little advantage was already known, that his private meetings were not private, that his attempt at reclaiming command had been built from information handed to him by someone who saw him as pressure, not a partner.

He almost did.

Then he stopped himself.

Not here.

Not now.

Not for Chris.

Liam looked at Chris’s hand again.

When he spoke, his voice was quiet enough that only Chris and perhaps the closest students could hear it clearly, but the seriousness in it moved farther than the words.

"Do not touch me again."

Chris’s grip loosened slightly.

Liam’s gaze returned to his. "This is the only warning you will get."

No one moved.

Chris stared at him, the smugness gone now, replaced by something that tried to be defiance but had to fight its way through instinct first. He was a prince. He was proud. He had been trained, praised, obeyed, and surrounded by people who treated his presence like authority. But in that moment, with Liam’s red eyes fixed on him and the entire cafeteria holding its breath, even Chris felt the danger beneath the calm.

It was not anger.

Anger could be matched.

This was decision waiting for permission.

Liam pulled his arm free.

Chris did not stop him.

Liam turned and walked away, carrying his tray to the return area before heading for the cafeteria doors with the same measured calm he had entered with. He did not look back. He did not raise his voice. He did not give Chris another line to twist for the students around him. He simply left.

But his thoughts did not stay calm.

’He knows more than I thought,’ Liam realized.

Sheila coming to him privately days ago should not have been something Chris knew. Not from public observation. Not from ordinary student gossip. If Chris was making that implication, then he had either guessed dangerously well or Isolde knew enough to feed him the shape of it.

And if Isolde knew that much, it likely meant Sheila had been too trusting with her. Perhaps she had mentioned feeling uncertain. Perhaps she had spoken of Liam’s advice. Perhaps she had confided more than she realized while accepting Isolde’s guidance as student president.

That annoyed Liam more than Chris grabbing his arm.

’How naive can you be?’ he thought, irritation sharpening as he stepped into the hallway.

The thought was harsh, and he knew it, but the situation made it difficult to soften. He had warned Sheila not to trust blindly, but the damage might have already begun. If Isolde had been gathering information through guidance sessions, then Sheila had been giving Chris weapons without ever placing them in his hands directly.

For a moment, Liam questioned whether leaving this to Sheila was the correct choice.

Then he kept walking.

No.

He had already decided.

Sheila needed to face this. She needed to understand the consequences of misplaced trust, not simply be rescued from them after the fact. If Liam intervened every time the problem grew sharper, then nothing would change. He would be the hidden solution again, and Sheila would enter Eldervale with a command structure that looked intact only because he had been stitching its wounds in the dark.

He chose his current peace.

For now, the matter remained hers.

Inside the cafeteria, Chris remained standing beside the table, his hand lowered at his side.

The students around him watched the doors Liam had left through. No one spoke immediately. Even Logan, who usually filled silence with misplaced aggression, stayed quiet. The moment had not gone the way Chris intended. He had drawn attention to Liam, implied weakness around Sheila, and tried to force a reaction. But Liam had not given him one. Worse, when Chris crossed the line and touched him, the entire room had felt the danger shift against Chris, not Liam.

Chris sat back down slowly.

He forced a scoff, making his expression return to something close to confidence. "As expected," he said, voice controlled. "He runs when the conversation stops favoring him."

The words sounded weaker than they should have.

Some of the students nodded, but not all of them. A few looked unconvinced. One glanced at Chris’s hand before quickly looking away. Logan immediately began muttering agreement, but even his loyalty had an edge of forced energy to it now.

Chris kept his face steady.

Inside, anger burned hotter than he allowed anyone to see.

Liam Hunter had ignored him. Dismissed him. Warned him in front of others as if Chris were the one who had overstepped. And somehow, without giving a proper answer, Liam had made the moment feel less like Chris exposing weakness and more like Chris pressing against something he did not fully understand.

That was unacceptable.

Chris’s fingers curled under the table.

’You will pay for that attitude,’ he thought, staring toward the cafeteria doors.

That much, he promised.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!