ShadowBound: The Need For Power

For a few seconds, the hall stayed completely still. The briefing had not been long in the way lectures could be long, but it had changed the feeling of everything. The Bastion Assessment no longer sat in the students’ minds as a dramatic two-week mission inside another realm. It had become sharper, more practical, and much less forgiving. Scattered arrival zones. Veyrhold not safe. Command Log. Communication failure. Delayed extraction. Observers who would let them suffer consequences. The Warden. Time difference. Deployment before dawn.

The second-years were quiet under the weight of it.

Then Mystica Moonstone rose from her seat.

The atmosphere shifted immediately, not becoming light exactly, but loosening just enough to allow the room to breathe. She moved to the pulpit with her usual elegant ease, her dark hair flowing down her back and her purple eyes glittering with an amusement that somehow managed to coexist with seriousness. When she reached the pulpit, she rested one hand lightly against it and looked out at the students.

"My, my," she said. "Some of you look as though Headmaster Thion personally handed you a death sentence with your breakfast."

A few nervous laughs moved through the hall.

Dylan, recovering faster than most, placed a hand over his heart. "If Lady Mystica delivers mine, I will accept it bravely."

Professor Vale closed his eyes as if asking the stars for patience.

Mystica’s lips curved. "How noble, Mr. Wellington. And how unfortunate that death sentences are not part of today’s schedule."

"Tomorrow, then?"

"Careful," she said sweetly. "You have practical deployment in two days. Do not make me give you extra emotional preparation."

Dylan sat back, smiling as if he had been blessed.

The small exchange loosened a few more students, but Mystica’s gaze became a shade sharper before the relief could grow careless.

"Now that you have all remembered how to breathe," she said, "listen carefully. Do not waste the next two days pretending panic is preparation. Running around in circles, arguing over rumors, rereading the same sentence thirty times without understanding it, and dramatically declaring that you are doomed are not useful tactics. Rest matters. Planning matters. Reviewing the field guide matters. Speaking with your command candidates matters. Knowing your own limits matters."

Her eyes moved over the hall, and for a brief second, they touched Liam’s row. Liam looked elsewhere immediately, unwilling to be dragged into whatever amusement she was trying to aim at him.

Mystica smiled anyway.

"Also," she continued, "try not to decide you are suddenly a strategist because you read one paragraph about Veyrhold’s outer wall. Confidence born two days before deployment is usually just stupidity wearing clean boots."

That earned more laughter, though several students looked personally wounded by the accuracy.

Mystica lifted one hand. Purple light gathered around her fingers, thin and graceful like threads of moonlit ink.

"As promised," she said, "your detailed Theory score reports."

She snapped her fingers.

Magic spread across the hall in a soft ripple. Above each student’s lap, a folded parchment appeared, sealed with a faint academy mark and their name written across the front. The timing was perfect. No parchment fell. No one had to reach awkwardly. Each report landed lightly against waiting hands or the edge of a seat as if placed there by invisible attendants.

The hall immediately stirred.

Students opened their reports with dread, relief, curiosity, or a strange mixture of all three. Each parchment contained the individual scores they had seen on the screen, but also instructor comments and brief academic notes. Some students smiled when they read theirs. Others looked as if the academy had found new ways to insult them in writing.

Maxwell opened his and exhaled. "Professor Adkin wrote that my combat application is improving, but my theoretical phrasing still looks like I am trying to build the answer with a hammer."

Dylan leaned over slightly. "That is poetic."

"It is insulting."

"Poetically insulting."

Asher opened his own report, read for three seconds, and scowled. "Mine says my practical instincts are strong, but my written explanations show impatience with academic structure."

Liam glanced at him. "Accurate."

Asher glared. "Say that again."

"No."

"You already did."

"Then you heard me."

Dylan unfolded his parchment with ceremony, clearing his throat as though preparing to read royal praise. His eyes moved over the page, and his grin became unbearable almost immediately.

"Oh," he said. "Oh, this is beautiful."

Maxwell looked wary. "What?"

Dylan held the parchment close to his chest. "Forgemastery comment: Exceptional structural imagination and adaptive reasoning. Alchemy comment: Strong theoretical synthesis when sufficiently focused."

"Sufficiently focused," Maxwell repeated. "That means they know you are usually useless."

"It means my brilliance is too powerful to be left unattended."

Asher muttered, "It means the academy made a mistake and is too proud to admit it."

Dylan ignored him, still glowing. "Core Myst comment: Demonstrates surprising conceptual clarity beneath informal language habits."

Liam looked at him.

Dylan smiled. "They fear my metaphors."

"They hate them," Maxwell said.

"Fear often wears hatred’s coat."

Ariana was reading her own report quietly, her smile small but unmistakably proud. Sheila glanced at her and softened, clearly pleased for her. Charlotte opened hers, scanned the comments, and laughed under her breath.

"Oh, Lady Seraphina called my interpretation ’dangerously observant but occasionally indulgent.’ I feel seen."

Sheila looked at her. "Is that praise?"

"From her? Practically a love letter."

Ariana blinked. "Charlotte."

"What? Academically."

"That somehow made it worse."

Liam opened his report without much interest, though he did read it.

The scores matched the screen. The comments were predictable enough. Professor Vale noted strong practical application and advanced compression understanding, with continued weakness in formal theoretical framing. The Knight Combat instructor praised his tactical reasoning but wrote that he had a tendency to answer with battlefield assumptions rather than full doctrinal explanation. Seraphina and Kaine’s Tactical Espionage comments were more irritating.

Observation method shows exceptional target selection, information filtering, and threat-value awareness. Public report was overcontrolled. Original report confirms superior collection capacity but raises questions regarding method dependency. Further scrutiny recommended.

Liam stared at the last line.

Then folded the parchment.

’Nosy fossils,’ he thought.

Mystica watched the students for a moment longer, letting the reports do what reports always did: comfort some, wound others, and give nearly everyone something to think about that they had not asked for. Then Lucia stepped forward again, returning to the pulpit with her clipboard in hand.

"You will have time to review your reports properly after leaving," she said. "For now, this gathering is complete. Use the next two days wisely. Speak with your instructors if necessary, confirm your approved weapons, prepare your field uniforms, and finalize your command discussions. You are dismissed."

The second-years rose slowly.

This time, the movement carried less scattered panic and more weight. Students held their score reports in hand, some folded tightly, some still open as they reread comments that had either lifted them or ruined their morning. Conversations began, but they were quieter than before. The briefing had settled too deeply for the hall to explode into noise right away.

One by one, they began leaving Beacon Hall.

Outside the great doors, the weekend morning waited bright and cold, but it no longer felt like ordinary academy weather. Deployment was in two days. Before dawn, they would gather in the Eastern Grand Hall wearing field uniforms, carrying approved weapons, and waiting to be sent into Eldervale. The Bastion Assessment was no longer something waiting comfortably in the future.

It was close enough now to touch.

And as the second-years walked out with their reports in hand, the reality of those fourteen days settled over them more heavily than ever before.

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