ShadowBound: The Need For Power

Orlan and the girl beside him pulled at the tendrils around the pinned student’s boot while Sheila froze the damp channel beneath them. The pinned girl cried out, but the tendrils loosened enough for her leg to slide free. Jared moved along the upper edge and reached the bleeding student just as Sheila ordered him down, supporting him without stepping into the center. Sera guided two others to the right side, making them wait between movements.

One student panicked when a Vein Crawler brushed her boot and nearly jumped straight onto bare soil.

"Stop," Sheila snapped.

The girl froze mid-motion, trembling.

"Look at me," Sheila said.

The girl looked up, eyes wide.

"Right foot to the stone. Not the soil. Slowly."

"I can’t—"

"You can. Right foot. Stone."

The girl obeyed, breathing shakily as her boot touched the stone surface.

"Good. Left foot to the root. Do not hop."

She did it.

The Vein Crawler beneath her shifted but did not strike.

One by one, Sheila pulled order out of panic. She used light to reveal movement, ice to block root gaps, and water drawn from the damp earth to slick one patch of stone so a student could slide the pinned girl away without dragging her across vibrating soil. She never flooded the hollow. She never unleashed a large spell. Every use of Myst had a purpose: reveal, slow, redirect, support. When a Crawler rose too far, she cut its approach with a thin blade of ice rather than trying to kill it outright. The goal was extraction, not victory over the hollow.

By the time the last student climbed out of the collapsed roadbed, everyone was breathing hard.

The Vein Crawlers continued shifting below, frustrated by the loss of prey but unwilling or unable to pursue far beyond the root-heavy hollow. Sheila backed away only after confirming no one remained inside. She kept her magic ready until the group had retreated to firmer ground, then released the spell slowly, allowing the glow to fade without a sudden change that might provoke another movement.

Orlan stared at her, face flushed with humiliation and relief. "I thought hitting the ground would force them out."

"It did," Sheila said. "Toward you."

He looked down.

The pinned girl, now supported between two students, whispered, "Thank you."

Sheila nodded once. "Save your breath. We still have to move."

She did not give a speech. There was no time for one, and the forest did not care for dramatic gratitude. She had the rescued group identify themselves quickly, checked the bleeding student’s wound, and confirmed the pinned girl’s leg was bruised but not broken. Their communication insignias had been overused in panic, three of them flickering weakly now with distorted residue around the runes. That annoyed Sheila, but she kept her criticism practical rather than emotional.

"No more repeated signals," she said. "Short pulses only, and only when ordered. If the distortion worsens, remove the insignia from active use and report it."

The rescued students nodded, shaken enough to listen.

Sheila led them back to her original group, moving slower now with more injured students to manage. When Dorin saw her return with eight more students, his relief was visible for only a second before he remembered to look serious.

"Report," Sheila said.

"No movement," Dorin answered quickly. "No unknown voices. Location marked twice. Everyone accounted for."

"Good."

Then she began the count.

She took every name, repeating them clearly so the group understood the new number. Ten from her original group. Eight rescued. Eighteen total. Injuries: Nima’s ankle, Yvette’s wrist, Jared’s shoulder, one bleeding side wound, one bruised leg from the root tendrils, two minor cuts, one student shaken badly enough to be watched. Supplies: one dropped ration packet, one lost chalk marker, one damaged water flask, three insignias showing unstable response after overuse. She assigned support pairs immediately.

Toln and Dorin would continue assisting Nima in rotation. Orlan, since his strength was useful and his pride needed work, would help carry the student with the bleeding side if necessary. Sera and Kel remained forward scouts, now joined by one rescued student who knew how to move quietly. Rolan shifted to rear watch with Marin. Yvette kept count because her injured wrist did not prevent her from thinking.

The rescued students listened.

That mattered more than their expressions.

They were frightened, embarrassed, and shaken by how close they had come to making the hollow worse, but they looked at Sheila differently now. Not as the princess from Crescent. Not as the girl who had answered Chris in an arena. As the person who had stood above a bad situation, read it, and pulled them out without letting panic command the rescue.

Respect did not arrive loudly. It settled in the way they stopped interrupting, the way they waited when she looked over the formation, the way Orlan no longer argued when she gave him a task.

Sheila checked one communication insignia herself, activating only the briefest pulse. Distortion answered, faint but present. She cut it off immediately.

"Still unreliable," she said. "We continue with marks and scouts. If we encounter another verified group, we merge only after count and injury checks. No one leaves formation without informing a watcher. No one follows sound without call-and-response. We move as one group now."

One of the rescued students, a pale boy with shaking hands, asked, "Should we move faster? We are farther from Veyrhold now because of us, right?"

Sheila looked at him, not unkindly, but firmly. "We are not farther because we helped you. We are larger because we helped you. There is a difference."

He went quiet.

Sheila lifted her gaze over the group. Eighteen students. Several injured. Slower than before. Stronger than before, if she handled it well.

"We will not mistake speed for survival," she said. "If we reach Veyrhold quickly but broken, scattered, and half-panicked, we bring the problem with us. We move carefully. We gather who we can. We keep count. We arrive as a group that can still function."

No one argued.

That was not victory, not exactly. But it was command becoming real.

They began moving again, the formation wider now but more structured. The scouts advanced cautiously ahead, never beyond signal range. The injured stayed near the middle. Watchers kept their eyes on roots, trees, and mist. Sheila walked close enough to the center to monitor the group but not so far back that she could not respond to the front. Each mark they left behind felt like a thin thread connecting them back through danger.

As they moved toward Veyrhold, Sheila allowed herself one brief thought of Chris.

If he had landed alone, perhaps that would slow him. But she doubted the academy, fate, or his own ambition would make things that simple. More likely, he had landed with enough people to rally and would use every step toward Veyrhold as proof that he should be standing where she stood. She could almost hear the argument already: he moved faster, gathered stronger students, reached the base first, acted without hesitation. He would use whatever shape the realm gave him.

She did not linger on him.

Her thoughts drifted, briefly and unwillingly, to Liam again.

’Where are you?’ she wondered.

The answer came almost immediately in her own mind, dry and certain enough that it might as well have been spoken in his voice. Wherever he was, he was probably already seeing problems before anyone else noticed them.

A faint breath left her.

That did not mean she could lean on him.

She remembered his warning, remembered the way he had told her not to rely on him to clear every obstacle. The thought steadied her more than comfort would have. Liam might be watching the larger board in whatever cold, infuriating way he did, but these students were in front of her. Their injuries, fear, pace, and survival were hers to handle right now.

Sheila adjusted the strap of her field bag and looked ahead through the dark trees.

"Keep the formation tight," she said, voice carrying just enough for the group to hear. "Scouts, signal before the next slope. Injured at the center. Watch your footing."

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