ShadowBound: The Need For Power

The Core Myst examination settled over the hall like a weight.

Once the bell rang, the second-years had no room left for jokes, complaints, or last-minute panic disguised as conversation. Pens moved over parchment in uneven rhythms, some steady and confident, others slow enough to suggest the student holding them was bargaining with every sentence.

The silence was not peaceful. It was dense, filled with the scratch of writing materials, the occasional turn of a page, the shift of a chair, and the quiet suffering of nearly a hundred students realizing that Core Myst theory was far less friendly when arranged into formal questions.

Some students wrote with their heads bent low, shoulders tense, eyes fixed on their papers as if looking away might cause the answers to escape. Others stared at the ceiling for a few seconds at a time, clearly trying to drag buried knowledge from the corners of their minds. One girl near the front had already rewritten the first line of her answer three times. A boy two rows from the back seemed to be silently mouthing definitions, then pausing whenever he realized the question was asking him to apply them rather than repeat them.

The exam did not simply ask what Myst flow was. It asked what happened when flow was interrupted unevenly between core and channels. It did not merely ask for definitions of resonance. It gave scenarios where resonance clashed with affinity output and demanded explanation.

The academy had not made a paper. It had made a trap with ink.

Dylan, to the surprise of several students who had expected him to collapse first, was writing.

Actually writing.

Not doodling. Not staring at Mystica with tragic devotion. Not muttering dramatic farewells to his future. His pen moved quickly, pausing only when he leaned back to think for a few seconds before diving into the next section. The sight was strange enough that a student seated diagonally behind him glanced at his paper more than once, not close enough to copy, but enough to wonder whether Dylan Wellington was producing actual answers or inventing nonsense at heroic speed.

The uncertainty itself seemed to disturb them. Dylan did not look like someone guessing wildly. He looked like someone who, unfortunately for everyone’s assumptions, knew what he was writing.

Maxwell worked more heavily, his brow furrowed as he wrote through the sections on Myst reinforcement and channel endurance. Questions tied to practical application seemed to suit him better than the more abstract ones, and whenever the paper asked about physical strain, amplification stability, or the relationship between Myst circulation and bodily output, his pen moved with more certainty. The questions requiring lengthy theoretical comparison slowed him down, but he fought through them without visibly giving up.

Ariana looked completely different from almost everyone else.

Her anxiety had vanished the moment the exam began. She wrote with quick, precise control, occasionally pausing to arrange an answer in her mind before filling the page in neat lines. Her brows furrowed at difficult sections, but not with panic. More like irritation at the question’s structure, as if she understood what it wanted and was deciding the cleanest way to give it.

When she reached a scenario involving compressed Myst density exceeding channel distribution rhythm, her pen moved so fluidly that Liam, had he seen it, would have understood exactly why her explanation in the library had made the concept finally settle for him.

Sheila wrote steadily. Her expression remained composed, though her pace changed depending on the section. She spent longer on the questions involving leadership-level Myst management, group output coordination, and emergency stabilization procedures, reading each line twice before answering. Her answers were not rushed. There was care in the way she built them, as if she was not simply trying to pass but trying to prove understanding in a way that would matter beyond the exam hall.

Asher looked offended.

That was the simplest way to describe it. His pen moved, which meant he was answering, but his face carried the expression of someone personally insulted by every paragraph that dared to be longer than necessary. He was strongest when questions involved fire output, destructive channel pressure, combat-state Myst burn, and the dangers of overdrawn reinforcement.

But when the paper asked him to compare three historical theories of core resonance adaptation, he stared at it with such open hostility that the student seated beside him quietly moved their elbow farther from his desk.

Charlotte wrote with surprising grace.

She did not rush. She leaned over her paper with one elbow angled elegantly beside it, expression unreadable except for the occasional small smirk when a question amused her. Her strengths showed in scenario interpretation and emotional-state influence on Myst control.

Anything that involved reading conditions, identifying hidden pressures, or analyzing how panic could alter channel rhythm seemed to suit her instincts. When the paper became dry and technical, her eyes narrowed slightly, but she still wrote with the confidence of someone who refused to look like she was suffering even when she was.

Liam approached the paper the best way he could.

He answered what he knew first.

Core definitions, Myst flow, channel strain, core depletion, affinity conversion, backlash triggers, and the basic relationship between density and output came without too much trouble. Ariana’s explanation helped more than he cared to admit. When the paper asked about controlled compression thresholds and whether instability came from total Myst density or the pacing difference between core current and channel distribution, Liam paused only briefly before writing a clean answer. He described the imbalance, the risk of structural collapse in spell formation, and the danger of forcing compressed Myst through channels that could not distribute at the same rhythm.

That part was fine.

Other sections were less fine.

A question on comparative resonance models made him stare at the parchment for several long seconds, his pen hovering above the page while irritation slowly built behind his eyes. The wording felt wrong. Either it was intentionally twisted, or he had missed something in the phrasing, or he simply did not know the answer as well as he thought. The possibility that it was all three annoyed him most.

He reread it.

Then reread it again.

’Is this asking for difference in resonance behavior or difference in channel reaction?’ he thought.

The question did not become more pleasant.

Liam’s jaw tightened faintly. He wrote a cautious answer, one that covered both possibilities without sounding as if he was dodging. It was not perfect. He knew that. But leaving it blank would be worse, and the academy liked punishing empty parchment more than imperfect reasoning.

When another question asked him to identify the likely cause of a hypothetical student’s backlash during combined affinity output, he felt more comfortable. Combat mistakes were easier to understand. They had consequences that made sense.

As the students wrote, Mystica and Professor Caelus moved through the hall.

They walked between the spaced desks with careful quiet, their eyes traveling over posture, parchment, hands, and the faint glow of the invigilation wards. Professor Caelus watched with stricter attention, occasionally stopping near a student who looked too restless or one who kept glancing around without reason. Mystica moved more gracefully, almost lazily, though Liam knew better than to mistake her ease for carelessness. She saw everything. Probably more than everything, if her usual habits were any indication.

At one point, she passed behind two students who had been writing too quickly, their answers spilling across the parchment with the frantic confidence of people trying to escape thought through speed. Mystica stopped between them, looking first at one paper, then the other. Her smirk remained, but her voice softened into something that made both students stiffen.

"Take your time," she said. "This paper matters more than your urge to finish before your brain understands what your hand is doing."

The student on her left froze mid-word.

Mystica leaned slightly closer, not enough to read aloud but enough to make the poor boy feel as if his entire academic future had been caught naked in public. "Core Myst is very fond of punishing students who answer the question they wish they were asked instead of the one before them."

The girl on her right slowly lifted her pen from the parchment.

"Good," Mystica said, pleasant again. "Think. Then write. In that order. Revolutionary, I know."

She moved on.

The two students looked as though they had just realized they might have spent the last twenty minutes writing decorative nonsense.

Liam noticed from the corner of his eye and returned to his own paper. Mystica was right, which somehow made it worse.

The first two and a half hours passed with brutal slowness.

By the time the academy bell rang again, several students looked as if they had been physically struck. The sound rolled through the hall, and pens paused almost in unison. Mystica stepped to the front platform and raised one hand.

"Writing materials down," she said.

Every pen stopped.

A few students looked desperate to finish one more word, but none were foolish enough to test her. Mystica waited until every hand was clear of parchment, then smiled.

"Your thirty-minute break begins now. You may use the restroom, visit the cafeteria for something light, take a short walk, clear your head, or contemplate the choices that brought you to this chair. You will not remain in the hall."

Dylan stood first.

Not quickly.

Violently.

His chair scraped back as he rose with the expression of a man freed from imprisonment but denied justice. "I am starving. I could eat a full meal, three side dishes, and possibly the table if it is seasoned."

Maxwell, rising more slowly several rows behind Liam, stared at him. "You ate breakfast."

"That was before the academy tried to harvest my soul through parchment."

"You lasted two and a half hours."

"I am a survivor."

Mystica looked at him with visible amusement. "Go survive outside, Mr. Wellington."

"With pleasure, Lady Mystica."

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