ShadowBound: The Need For Power

After Liam’s encounter with Chris in the cafeteria, the rest of the day passed with surprising smoothness.

No one else approached him with unwanted conversation. Chris did not make a second attempt at provocation, at least not where Liam could see or hear it, and if the students who had witnessed the cafeteria exchange were spreading their own versions of it, they were doing so far enough away that Liam did not have to care.

He returned to his study, finished reviewing another section of the Eldervale guide, and let the day collapse into the kind of quiet routine he preferred when the academy was not actively creating problems for him.

The weekend ended the same way.

Not peacefully, exactly, because peace was apparently too generous a thing to expect inside Dark Knight Academy during examination season, but steadily. Students studied until their eyes reddened, trained until their bodies protested, reread notes they already knew, and asked questions they should have asked weeks earlier.

The second-years remained consumed by the Bastion Assessment, but Theory week had finally come close enough to seize everyone by the throat. No matter how important Eldervale was, they still had to survive the papers before they ever reached the realm.

By the time the new week began, the entire academy had settled into final preparation.

Breakfast that morning was louder than usual, but not with ordinary energy. It was the brittle noise of students trying to outrun nerves. First-years spoke too quickly about whatever their foundational exams would involve. Third-years looked more controlled, though some of them carried the hollow-eyed exhaustion of people who had studied through the night and were now surviving on pride, caffeine, and resentment.

The second-years sat between both extremes, old enough to understand the academy would not be merciful and young enough to still hope it might be slightly less cruel than expected.

It would not be.

After breakfast, each year was assigned to a separate grand hall for the first paper of Theory week: Core Myst. It was the one paper shared across all class tracks, and therefore the one the academy treated with the most weight. Combat styles, affinities, weapons, and specializations could differ, but Core Myst was the foundation beneath all of them.

If a student did not understand Myst flow, core stability, channel pressure, resonance, backlash, density, conversion, and depletion, then every advanced class built on top of that ignorance became more dangerous than useful.

Half an hour after breakfast, the second-years were seated in their assigned hall.

The room was wide, high-ceilinged, and severe in its arrangement. Long lines of individual desks stretched across the polished floor, each separated by enough space to make whispering impractical and copying nearly impossible. The academy crest hung behind the front platform, dark and imposing beneath the tall windows.

Lamps burned evenly along the walls despite the morning light, and soft warding circles had already been etched temporarily into the floor between seating sections. Each chair had a student’s name placed on it in clean, glowing script, which meant no one had been allowed to sit near friends unless the academy had chosen to amuse itself with coincidence.

Most had not been that lucky.

Sheila sat several rows away from Ariana. Asher was placed near the back left side, far enough from anyone familiar that his irritation was visible even from a distance. Charlotte, to the quiet disappointment of several boys, had been seated near the front where she could be watched easily. Maxwell was placed two rows behind Liam but too far to speak without being obvious. Dylan, by some act of either fate or punishment, had been seated near the center of the hall, where his inability to remain quiet was now everyone’s problem.

Liam sat near the right side, his desk clear, his posture relaxed, and his expression detached. He had brought nothing because the academy allowed nothing. No notes, no bags, no personal writing tools, no charms, no rings, no storage items left accessible. Students had been checked at the entrance by warding stones that pulsed around each person as they entered.

Liam had passed through without issue, though one of the stones had lingered a moment longer around him, likely confused by the nature of his dark magic and whatever sat inside his shadow. Since no alarm followed, he ignored it.

Around him, students filled the last few minutes however they could.

Some sat with eyes closed, breathing slowly as if entering meditation before war. Others stared at the front of the hall with the stiff expressions of people trying not to panic. A few muttered formulas under their breath, not loudly enough to count as conversation but desperately enough to be embarrassing.

One girl repeatedly flexed her fingers as if already imagining writing cramps. Another student had both hands pressed over his face while whispering, "Myst density follows channel tolerance, Myst density follows channel tolerance," like a prayer.

Dylan was talking.

Of course he was.

"I am just saying," Dylan complained, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded, "if they already brought us here, checked us, separated us, and made us sit like prisoners waiting for execution, then they should bring the papers already. What is the delay? Do they need to season the questions? Are the papers shy? Is Core Myst still getting dressed?"

A nearby student slowly turned to stare at him.

Another looked as if they regretted being born within hearing range.

From two rows behind Liam, Maxwell lowered his face into one hand. "Dylan."

Dylan turned slightly. "What?"

"Please stop."

"I am expressing the mood of the hall."

"You are creating one."

"Exactly. Leadership."

Asher, far from them but still unfortunately able to hear, snapped, "If you call that leadership again, I will burn the word out of the air."

Dylan twisted in his seat enough to grin at him. "See? Even Asher is participating. This is community."

"This is suffering," someone muttered from the row in front of Dylan.

Charlotte, seated near the front, glanced back over her shoulder with a smile that carried more entertainment than sympathy. "Let him talk. If he empties his head now, perhaps there will be room for answers."

Dylan placed a hand over his chest. "Charlotte, from anyone else, that would wound me."

"From me?"

"It still wounds me, but attractively."

A few students groaned.

Liam stared forward, his expression unchanged.

’How does he function?’ he thought.

Ariana, seated several rows away near the left side, looked like she was trying very hard not to smile and even harder not to be anxious. She had a habit of clasping her hands when nervous, and she was doing it now, thumbs pressed together while her eyes drifted toward the front platform and then to the empty desk surface before her.

Sheila, farther back, sat composed and straight, though Liam could see from the faint tension in her shoulders that her calm required effort. Edith was placed across the hall from her, equally still, reading the room with quiet focus rather than panic.

The second-years were not in their usual clusters anymore.

That was likely the point.

The academy did not want comfort bleeding into the first paper. It wanted isolation, attention, and the reminder that even if they were preparing to function as one year in Eldervale, some tests still had to be faced alone.

Dylan opened his mouth again.

Before he could continue, the doors at the front of the hall opened.

The room quieted immediately.

Mystica Moonstone entered first.

The effect was instant and almost irritatingly predictable. The tall mage moved with that graceful, unhurried confidence that made every entrance seem intentional, her long dark hair falling down her back and her purple eyes carrying their usual playful glint. She wore a nightshade-black gown beneath a fitted academy outer robe, the fabric elegant without looking ceremonial.

Even in an examination hall filled with anxious students, she seemed less like an invigilator and more like someone arriving to enjoy a performance that might go terribly wrong.

Beside her walked a male professor several students recognized from the Water Magic classes. He was middle-aged, composed, with deep blue robes marked by silver thread around the cuffs and collar. His hair was neatly tied at the back, and his expression suggested he took the morning far more seriously than Mystica appeared to. A few water-affinity students straightened immediately when they saw him, though their respect mixed with the same nervousness everyone else carried.

The hall went silent.

Partly out of respect.

Partly because Mystica had that effect.

And in Dylan’s case, because his mouth had forgotten how to work.

He stared.

Completely.

The complaint about the papers died on his tongue. His posture shifted from restless irritation to reverent attention so quickly that Maxwell, who had been trying to look composed, slowly turned to look at him in disbelief.

Dylan did not notice.

It had been stars knew how long since he had last been in Lady Mystica’s presence properly, and apparently that was enough for his entire soul to remember why he had once sworn loyalty to her beauty with the seriousness of a knight before a sacred blade. His eyes followed her as she crossed the hall, and for once, no joke came immediately. He looked captured. Defeated. Inspired in the worst possible way.

He was not the only one.

A few other boys suffered their own quieter versions of the same condition. One student near the front sat straighter than he had all morning. Another tried to fix his hair and stopped only when Charlotte turned and looked at him with open amusement. Even the Water Magic professor beside Mystica seemed slightly too aware of her presence, his eyes drifting toward her once before he corrected himself and faced the students with professional severity.

Mystica noticed all of it.

Of course she did.

Her mouth curved into the faintest smirk as she reached the front platform. She said nothing at first, letting the silence settle, letting the students remember themselves, and perhaps enjoying the effect more than she should have. But then again, Mystica knew perfectly well what she did to half the boys in the academy, and not just the students. Professors and instructors were not immune simply because they carried titles.

Liam looked away.

He did not have the patience for any of it.

Mystica’s gaze swept the hall and, as expected, lingered briefly on him.

Liam chose to stare at the blank surface of his desk.

Her smirk sharpened.

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