I pulled my thin canvas coat tight. The fog was cold and wet on my skin. I took a deep breath to slow my heart. The air here smelled different. In the low-tier outer territories, where I had lived my whole life, it smelled of rust and trash. Here it smelled of old money and cold iron.
I looked up, and there it was.
Blackwood Academy.
The school sat on the cliffs like a huge animal. Its walls were black granite, so dark that they seemed to soak up the weak light. Iron spires stuck up into the mist. Stone wolves with bared teeth sat on top of them. Heavy iron gates blocked the arched entrance. The hinges had rusted red after hundreds of years of mountain rain.
It was scary. It was beautiful in its own way. Mostly, it was cold.
My stomach tightened. I put my hand in my coat pocket and touched the folded paper. It had come three weeks ago. The wax seal was broken, but the raised ink was still clear: Full Scholarship Transfer Acceptance - Blackwood Academy.
I still did not know why I was here. Orphans like me did not get invited to Blackwood. I had no pack, no title, and no family name to boast about. We were not supposed to sit in class with the heirs of High Council families. We were not supposed to train in the same arenas as future Alpha commanders.
All my life, I had just tried to get through each day. As a teenager, I scrubbed grease off pack kitchen floors. I carried firewood until my fingers bled. I worked night shifts at border checkpoints. I did it all for a few silver coins, enough for a bowl of thin broth and a dry bed. Every scar on my body came from hard work in the dirt. That included the small, faint crescent mark near my collarbone, which I had carried as long as I could remember.
I knew how the world worked. The strong ruled. The weak served. Unbacked orphans stayed at the very bottom.
So why had Blackwood sent for me?
Then an engine roared out of the woods.
I had no time to move. A sleek black SUV came fast up the mountain road. Its tires threw cold water and brown mud everywhere.
I threw up my arm to cover my face. A wave of icy slush hit my legs. It soaked my boots and stained my frayed pant cuffs dark brown.
The SUV stopped right in front of the gate. A dark window slid down a few inches. A girl with sleek platinum hair looked out. Her ice-gray eyes ran over me. She looked at me the way you would look at a rat in your driveway.
"Look at that," a smooth, rich voice said from inside the car. "The academy is letting street trash in the front gates this year."
Someone giggled. The window slid shut with a soft electric hum. The engine purred. The heavy gates groaned open, just wide enough for the SUV, and it rolled onto the cobblestone courtyard.
I stood in the mud. My jaw was clenched so hard that my teeth hurt. My fists were tight inside my pockets. I pushed my anger back down into my stomach.
Don't snap, I told myself. I breathed in slowly through my nose. You can't get thrown out before you even go in. You need this degree. You need the protection that comes with an academy title.
I wiped some mud off my boot with a dry hemlock leaf. I fixed the strap of my old duffel bag on my shoulder and walked to the gatehouse.
A wide, heavy man stood under the gateway. He wore a stiff guard uniform with silver braid. A ring of iron keys hung from his belt and clinked with each step. His face was hard and rough, with a scar across the bridge of his nose. His small amber eyes followed me as I came closer. He did not hide his contempt.
"Name," he barked. His voice sounded like two stones grinding.
"Vespera Thorne," I said. I kept my voice flat and calm. "Transfer student."
The guard was Warden Briggs. He did not open the gate. He just stared. His eyes went down to my muddy boots, my faded coat, and the worn out strap of my one canvas bag.
"The scholarship orphan," he spat. He did not try to hide how he felt. "Give me the paper."
I took the folded paper from my pocket and passed it through the bars. Briggs snatched it. He opened it quickly and looked closely at the wax seal and the signature at the bottom. He did not believe it.
"Vespera Thorne," he muttered, as if the name tasted bad. "Unbacked. No registered pack. No rank lineage."
He looked up. His amber eyes met mine, and he smirked.
"I don't know who you pleased on the administrative board to get this paper, girl," Briggs said. He leaned against the bars. His breath smelled of stale tobacco and bitter ale. "But here's some free advice. This isn't a charity house. Blackwood is built on iron and blood. The heirs inside were born to command. And orphans like you? You're target practice."
"I can handle myself, Warden," I said quietly. I looked straight at him and did not look away.
Briggs gave a dry, barking laugh. "That's what the last scholarship case said, back in the winter term. He lasted three weeks. Then they carried him out on a wooden stretcher with a broken spine. Scholarship orphans don't last their first semester here, girl. They break, they quit, or they end up buried under the pine trees."
He unlocked the narrow side gate with a loud click and shoved it open, just wide enough for me to squeeze through. He threw my acceptance paper back at my chest.
"Take the stone path up to the Grand Hall for orientation," he grunted, and turned his back on me. "And don't track mud onto the marble floors. The Commander doesn't like dirt."
I caught the paper and put it back in my pocket. Then I walked through the gate and onto the grounds of Blackwood Academy.
The cobblestone path climbed through a row of tall, dark pine trees. Their branches met overhead and blocked most of the weak daylight. The air inside the walls felt heavier. It had a strange metallic charge that made the small hairs on my arms stand up.
Ahead, big double doors of iron-bound oak stood open. Warm light spilled onto the stone steps of the Grand Hall. A group of well-dressed, high-born students stood on the steps. They talked in small circles and laughed loudly. The sound carried across the courtyard.
As I got closer, the laughter faded.
One by one, they turned their heads. Dozens of eyes, gold, gray, blue and brown, fixed on my wet boots, my worn bag, and my pale, scarred face. Then I felt their commanding aura. It pressed on my chest like a hand. It was a silent warning, meant to make low-born shifters bow their heads and look down.
The pressure kept growing. It squeezed my lungs. It wanted me to bow.
I took a sharp breath and locked my knees. I held my head high and stared back with cold, dark eyes. I would not crawl for anyone.
Then a chill swept across the courtyard. It was so sharp that even the high-born students stopped talking. The air did not just get colder. It felt frozen solid.
The oak doors at the top of the stairs opened wider. A man stepped out onto the landing.
He wore a dark, military-cut commander's coat. His shoulders were broad, and he stood stiff against the warm light behind him. His hair was dark slate brown, cut short and clean. His jaw looked carved from gray granite.
He was six foot three. His Alpha dominance was so strong that the air around him seemed to hum with quiet violence.
He did not look at the heirs whispering on the steps. He did not look at the great hall. His steel-blue eyes moved slowly across the crowd, through the misty air. They stopped on mine.
The moment he looked at me, a shock went through my chest. It was so sudden that I stumbled back half a step on the wet cobblestones. It was more than his authority. It felt like a wire had been hooked to my heart, and someone was pulling hard.
His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. He looked down at the crescent scar on my collarbone.
For a second, he looked truly shocked. Then the look was gone. His face went flat, and he gave me a cold, deadly glare.
He took a slow step down the stairs toward me. His hand rested on the handle of the silver sword at his waist.
His eyes held mine. And my blood began to burn under my skin. It had never done that before. It hummed like a heated wire. It was answering a call I had never known was there.
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