Linked by Blood and Bone
"Do you have any idea what it's like growing up under the House of Valerius? Every spell measured, every flaw scrutinized. My cold arrogance—it wasn't a personality trait, Zeyric. It was a shield."
Zeyric blinked, the intensity of his own panic momentarily pierced by the sheer vulnerability in Thalen's tone. "A shield against what? You're top of every class."
"Because my raw mana output is mediocre," Thalen confessed, the words tasting like ash in his mouth as he finally admitted the secret he had guarded with his life. "My precision is pristine, yes, but my reservoir is pitifully shallow. If the faculty had ever discovered my actual magical weaknesses, my father would have disowned me befor