ShadowBound: The Need For Power

Two days had passed since Liam and Ariana kicked off their Mystsense training.

Liam picked it up fast—like scary fast. Now he could use it without closing his eyes or zoning out like some meditation junkie. He could spot the color of someone's core mid-convo or while casually walking down a hallway. His control was still a work in progress, but it was leagues better than when they started.

Ariana, though? She was leveling up like a speedrunner. Her detection range doubled—she could scan twice as many people at once, and her perception got way sharper. Reading someone's mystical level and core felt like blinking—almost effortless.

They'd just wrapped their daily Mystsense grind and were now tucked away in the academy library. Liam had his nose in a dark magic tome, scribbling notes here and there. Across from him, Ariana was fully locked in on a dimensional warping tome and a light magic one, switching between them like it was nothing.

Thanks to the academy's break, the place was a ghost town. A few students had stayed behind, but barely any came to the library. Right now, it was just the two of them and the eternally grumpy librarian.

They'd claimed a table deep in the library's heart, far from shushing range. No interruptions. Just peace and quiet.

It had been nearly two hours since they sat down and noon had already drifted by.

'My brain's kinda fried right now… Need a quick reset,' Liam thought, pushing his tome forward a little. He leaned back, resting his head, letting his eyes fall on Ariana across the table—still laser-focused, completely absorbed in her reading.

'She's still got mental fuel, huh?'

He activated Mystsense, eyes flicking subtly to her glowing green core. His expression didn't change. Just unreadable as always.

He kept watching her. Minutes passed. His gaze lingered, unfocused now, like he wasn't just seeing her, but thinking through something behind those crimson eyes.

Eventually, Ariana felt it—that quiet, unshifting stare. She looked up, finding Liam staring right at her with that same unreadable calm.

"D–Do I have something on my face?" she asked, snapping him out of whatever thought void he was floating in.

"No, you don't. I guess I zoned out while staring," he said, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger like trying to wipe the fog off his mind.

'Zoned out? While staring at me?' Ariana's thoughts spiraled. 'Wait—wait, no way. He wasn't having… those kinds of thoughts, was he?! I mean, he's a guy, sure, but seriously? Right now?!'

Her cheeks warmed.

"No. No. It's fine. I don't mind," she said quickly, waving it off even though her face told a different story.

"Cool. Thanks," Liam said, still oblivious. "By the way, I've got a question for you. I don't expect an answer, but I feel like asking anyway."

"Y–Yeah, go ahead," she nodded, trying to play it cool.

"I've been thinking… You've got a green core. I've got light green. So mystically, you're stronger than me—and definitely stronger than a lot of people," he said. "But you don't really act like it. So, is it that you're hiding it? Or… you just can't use it?"

Ariana blinked, caught off guard—not by the question itself, but by how direct it was. Liam had this way of cutting straight through people without meaning to… or maybe he did mean to. That was the thing with him. You could never tell.

She set her tome down gently. Her fingers rested on the cover, unmoving for a moment as she processed.

"I… can use it," she said quietly, eyes dipping for a second before locking back onto his. "I mean, I'm not helpless. I know spells—formulas, incantations. I've trained. It's just… complicated."

Liam didn't interrupt. He just tilted his head slightly, listening with that still, unreadable look that somehow made her talk more.

"It's not that I can't fight," she continued, voice barely above a whisper, "it's that I was taught not to. That power should be reserved. Controlled. Measured. My family—they're the type who believe that strength shown is strength wasted. That if you reveal your hand too early, you've already lost."

"Hmm," Liam murmured. "So it's a restraint thing. Strategic."

Ariana nodded, but her smile was a little sad. "Something like that… But sometimes I wonder if it's just fear too. Not just mine—but theirs. Like they're scared of what might happen if I really let go."

Liam's gaze lingered on her for a moment.

"Fear's not a weakness," he said finally. "It's just a leash. Some learn to slip it. Others get dragged."

Ariana looked at him.

"And you?" she asked softly. "Did you slip the leash?"

Liam leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

"I burned it," he said flatly.

That answer hit her like a gust. There was no fire in his tone, no pride. Just fact.

"…Of course you did," she whispered.

There was a brief silence between them for a while.

Then Liam leaned back with a stretch and mumbled, "Anyway... I'm hungry. Wanna go get something to eat?"

Ariana blinked, caught a little off guard. "Y–yeah, I'd be down… but you do realize the cafeteria's closed for the break, right?"

"I know," Liam said casually, already rising to his feet. "Which is why we're going off-campus. Grandeur's got food, doesn't it?"

"Oh. Right—yeah, it does."

"Cool. Let's head out then. You don't have to come, but… I wouldn't mind the company. I don't exactly know my way around the city yet," he added, already making his way to the door.

"W–wait up! I'm coming too!" Ariana called out, scrambling to stand.

***

Back in Zone 9, within the Tempest Palace, Queen Lucy sat high upon her throne, draped in robes of cold authority. The Supreme Court chamber echoed with mutters and sighs as lesser lords and court judges flanked her sides, their backs straight under the weight of protocol. Before them stood the source of today's disruption—a matter Queen Lucy had already stamped worthless the moment it crossed her desk.

Her fingers tapped against the armrest in thinly veiled irritation as she listened to the whines of the commonfolk brought into her presence. 'Petty. Civil. Emotional nonsense,' she thought.

Before the court stood a wife, eyes red from either grief or fury, her voice hoarse yet strong. "My husband drinks himself to ruin, comes home swinging at shadows—and me. He hasn't kissed our children goodnight in months. He spends his nights between other women's thighs, while I sleep beside his cold absence."

The man beside her—unkempt, sour-breathed, and unbothered—rolled his eyes.

Queen Lucy leaned toward one of the robed councilors beside her, her voice low. "And why, precisely, is this here? This isn't court-worthy—it's tavern gossip."

The member, a graying old man with too many rings and not enough spine, fidgeted. "Your Majesty, the local enforcers couldn't come to a resolution. The woman demanded royal intervention."

Lucy's gaze could've frozen lava. "So she cried louder than the rest and earned a slot on my time? Pathetic."

Still, she let the woman speak.

When the woman fell silent and the courtroom sat in a hush, all eyes turned to the Queen. Lucy slowly rose from her throne, her silhouette cutting a regal figure against the courtroom light.

"This," she said, voice calm and cold, "should never have reached my court. A matter of marriage? Of faithlessness and domestic rot? This should've been dealt with in the dirt where it festered."

She turned her eyes on the husband, who flinched only slightly under the weight of her gaze.

"But since it has been brought to me… there will be no back and forth. No teary pleas. Only justice."

Her voice sharpened.

"If a man cannot keep his manhood between his trousers, and if he uses it not to honor his wife but to shame her, then that manhood is no longer a gift. It is a weapon. And weapons, if misused… are to be removed."

The court sat in stunned silence.

Queen Lucy turned away, already done with them. "Strip him of title, of privilege. Let him be made an example."

And just like that, the trial was over.

High above the courtroom, tucked behind a velvet-draped balcony, Mystica and Dove watched in silence.

Dove leaned over the railing, cigar in her mouth, smoke curling up despite the royal ban. Her eyes were locked on Queen Lucy below, who had just delivered her brutal judgment.

"Oof," Dove muttered with a smirk, "cutting off his manhood? Goddess, I love her. Why can't I be married to Lucy? She gets it."

Mystica smirked without looking at her. "You're not exactly husband material."

"Please. I'd treat her like a damn empress every night. Breakfast in bed. Foot rubs. Blood offerings. Whatever she wants." Dove exhaled, then added, "Unlike that limp royal stick she's married to."

"Just don't let the smoke hit her," Mystica warned. "She'll have your lungs on a plate."

"She already has my heart. She can take the lungs too."

Down below, Queen Lucy exited the courtroom with her guards trailing behind her. The moment she stepped into the hallway, Mystica and Dove moved.

They intercepted her near the corridor.

"Your Majesty," Mystica greeted.

Dove added with a wink, "Looking radiant as ever, Queen Lucy."

Lucy didn't even look at them. "Not here."

She pushed past them, heading for her private chamber.

"She said not here. That means later. I'm in."

Mystica sighed, "Dove, shut up."