Dragontail Trials (Solenhart #1)

Chapter 1 Elarion Academy of Wonder

They braided a gold thread into my chestnut hair.

Tight, ceremonial, a crown without weight, yet all the weight in the world.

The royal carriage, pulled by magical fire horses, curved up the ancient slope of the Spine toward the heart of Rionis.

My best friend, Shakari, sat beside me with her usual wicked glint in her golden eyes.

Her wild, wavy hair was pinned half-up in soft gold.

Her features were sharp and expressive. Her eyes sparkled with mischief and unspoken thoughts. Serene in name, never in nature.

“Are you nervous?” Shakari asked.

I blinked, then smiled. "No, just excited to be free.

" That was only half true. Beneath my words, I felt relief at escaping the constant presence of guards and the scripted, stifling palace days. But freedom wasn’t pure.

An ache pressed closer. I was stepping beyond my old boundaries.

Yet invisible ones tightened around my chest: the expectation to lead, to live up to a role I was never sure I wanted.

Shakari looked at me with doubt, her gaze flicking to my wrist where the golden jewelry shimmered faintly. I tried to avoid her eyes, pretending to focus on the protection of the heirloom's glow instead. "You say that, but you still look every bit the princess with that hair."

I reached up. My fingers hesitated at the crown of my head.

I felt the weight, not just the braids, but all they meant: power, lineage, expectation.

My heart drummed with something between defiance and relief.

I slid my fingers through them, undoing the coils one by one.

Amber-brown hair strands fell around my shoulders, soft and loose.

My voluminous hair hadn’t been allowed to fall free in years.

It felt like shedding a skin I hadn’t realized I’d outgrown.

The air kissed the nape of my neck. For a moment, I was no longer the heir of Solenhart.

I was just Thea.

"Someone wants to bend some rules," Shakari said, her grin curling wider. "Now that’s the Thea I want to see. Less crown, more claws."

I should have smiled, but my stomach tightened. The exaltation of undoing my braids faded, replaced by a heaviness I hadn’t expected. In that moment, I realized I was walking in a line between who I had been and who I had no choice but to become.

At twenty, I was finally of age. I was the only daughter of the Solenhart line and next to rule the court governing the island of Rionis.

My duty: attend Elarion Academy, join the Emberkeep legion, and master not only casting and command but also leading legions against the dragons in the Wastelands.

No more tutors in sunlit marble halls. No more guards shadowing my every step. Now I was beyond the Glass Castle walls.

And for the first time, the entire weight of expectation rested on me. I felt it press down, demanding I become something real, formidable worthy of the crown I was born to claim. Doubt crept in, and a silent admission haunted me: I didn’t want it.

As I turned to the window, the King’s Forest yielded to misted cliffs veined with aether light. The road shimmered, thick with magic scented of pepper and honey, as we circled closer to the island’s heart. Then, beyond a sweep of white granite, the towers rose into view. Elarion Academy of Wonder.

The academy crowned the island’s heart. Its walls, carved from spell-forged stone, shimmered with Sun and Moon magic. Divine forces binding light and shadow since Rionis began.

Two pale towers twisted toward the sky. Each was crowned with glass domes and enchanted ivy that burned like trapped sunlight.

Arches spanned skybridges, suspended by invisible ropes and unwavering will.

Magic wasn’t merely used here. It breathed.

I leaned forward, pressing my palm to the glass. “It’s… alive.”

The academy sat at the center of Rionis. Here, all magic converged and flowed outward. This was where Sunheart and Moonveil magic found natural balance.

Before the main entrance, I pressed my hand against the inner rail of the carriage, letting a ripple of magic slow the fire-made horses into a graceful halt. Shakari groaned beside me. “Don’t tell me you’re stopping here,” she said, already guessing.

I was already reaching for my bag. “We walk the rest,” I said, swinging the satchel over my shoulder. “No royal entrances today.”

“You’re impossible,” Shakari muttered, but she slid out behind me with a dramatic sigh and a glare at her shoes.

Bag over shoulder, I strode toward Elarion’s entrance. Marble runes flared in sunlight. The path, white marble streaked with molten gold, shimmered with heat from the enchanted stone. Stepping forward, reverence shifted to awareness. Eyes pinned to me. Voices hushed. Pressure thickened the air.

They were watching.

They all knew who I was. So much for trying.

Shakari nudged me with a smirk. “Well, it looks like everyone knows their princesses. Sunhearts, and Moonveils alike.”

To the east, students who mastered fire and had golden eyes —Sunhearts moved toward the Solphire Tower.

To the west, students with silver eyes wielded shadows, moving toward the Natch Tower.

One island, two factions of magic. Just looking at us, we looked the same, only our eyes glimmered differently, and yet we were so different.

Our eyes are gold like the sun, theirs silver as the moon.

We were charged by the sun; they were charged by the moon.

We would bend the sun and fire; they would bend the night and shadows.

As we passed through the Gate of Solstice and Dusk, a hush fell.

Eyes followed us, Sunhearts and Moonveils alike. Some bowed. Some whispered. Others simply stared; their attention fixated not just on the gold of my robes but on the title, they knew I carried.

A wave from the edge of the Sunheart procession caught my eye.

Thalen.

He didn’t wait for me to approach. He strode forward with such confidence that heads turned.

His entourage parted behind him like the sea.

His robes were white, pristine, and regal, from the Emberkeep legion.

His golden hair gleamed like a halo in the sun.

The smirk tugged at his lips gave him away.

He knew every pair of eyes was watching.

“Thea,” he said with theatrical gravity, reaching for my hand before I could protest. He lifted it to his lips and pressed a kiss there. I was a deliberate, lingering display. “Where is your…” he began, but I tore my hand back before he could finish, sharper than I meant to.

“We’re bound by duty,” I said, pulling away, “you just wanted everyone to see it.” Thalen’s jaw tensed, a flicker of words caught behind clenched teeth, but I was already turning away. He hadn’t even said it yet, but I knew what was coming. Why wasn’t I wearing the ring.

The diamond ring I had never chosen. The one I was forced to wear.

Somewhere behind us, two red-haired twins I didn’t recognize failed to contain themselves. Muffled laugh broke free, sharp as splintered glass.

“You know,” Shakari said in a sing-song voice, “you’re technically supposed to be married to that one sometime after graduation.”

“I’m aware,” I muttered.

She bumped into my shoulder with hers. “You could at least try to look like you don’t loathe him”

“I do loathe him. He was my boyfriend. He cheated on me, and now my mother is forcing me to marry him. I don’t want his ring. It’s quite simple.”

“Yes, sounds very simple,” Shakari replied with a smirk. “I never liked him anyway.”

But it wasn’t simple. The bitterness of betrayal stung beneath my skin like a splinter I couldn’t remove. For a moment, frustration mingled with sadness, and each glance at that ring twisted pain in my gut, raw and sharp as glass.

Thalen wasn’t just cold. He was polished, statuesque, untouchable. Worse, he was cruel in the deliberate way only someone who knows your heart can be. He had been mine when he entered Elarion. In his first-year, he chose someone else, treating me as a steppingstone. As if I were nothing.

And still, last year, my mother and his father made it official.

They forced the engagement, slid the ring onto my hand, and called it destiny.

Not for me, but for them. For his father, General Barret, and my mother, the Queen of Solenhart.

A tidy alliance between crown and command, forged in legacy and sealed in blood.

They would marry us for our strong magical traces and ensure a powerful heir for the throne.

What I wanted never mattered. I didn’t want the ring, and I didn't want the crown.

The thought burned hot in my chest and blurred all else, but Shakari’s voice and the world around me pulled me back.

I forced the ache aside as the looming tower doors of the main hall rose ahead, tall and framed in etched silver.

The hum of Elarion’s central spire vibrated faintly beneath my boots, reminding me that no matter how loud my thoughts became, the academy would keep moving without me.

And then, just before the arch swallowed us into the main tower I saw him.

His eyes held mine. They were Moonveil's deep silver eyes. I should have looked away. But I didn’t.

Standing just beyond the crowd, his arms crossed over his chest; green uniform sleeves rolled to the elbow, a half-smile playing at his mouth like he knew something the rest of us didn’t.

He was taller than the rest. Lean and muscular cut more than built. Sun-kissed skin from years of training below the sun stretched over his forearms that flexed as he shifted. His shirt clung to a chest broad enough to carry a blade, narrow at the waist; hips angled in lazy challenge.

A tattoo on his muscular arm displayed a Dragontail legion’s sigil in green and gold. His jaw was sharp. His mouth was full and unsmiling. Stubble darkened his cheekbones. His hair was a deep caramel brown, thick and unruly, tousled like the wind had tried and failed to tame it.