Chapter Eighteen
Haide
The Flying Grounds are nothing like the rest of Rathe U.
There are no polished stone walkways or pristine enchanted gardens meant to impress visiting royals.
No ancient sculpture or scripture meant to make one gifted feel more inferior than the other.
No distinction based on where they came from, the family names that built their realm, or the ones who merely exist within it.
I may be from the island, but even there it was easy to see the hierarchies in the world of magic.
There is a food chain in every area: animal, human, and gifted alike.
Out here, the land is raw and sprawling, a wide circular basin carved into the hillside with cliffs rising on all sides. High enough for a dragon to launch. Low enough for a Fae to fall without dying when they’re still learning how to use their wings. Probably.
The afternoon sun spills through the canopy in fractured beams, catching on the floating practice rings that drift lazily across the field like oversized halos.
Grassy patches give way to dark, scorched dirt in places where dragon fire has kissed the ground, leaving spirals of blackened ash curling like old scars.
Farther out, massive stone perches jut from the terrain, smooth from centuries of scaled bodies landing and leaping again.
It’s huge, open, humming faintly with leftover magic—like every creature that’s ever flown here left behind a piece of itself.
I like it.
It feels honest. Untamed.
Not suffocating with rules, etiquette, or all the shit the rest of the university shoves down your throat the second you blink at the wrong noble.
And best of all.
It’s empty.
Finally, an entire damn space to myself.
No classmates pretending not to stare; no professors watching me like I might sprout fangs and rip someone’s spine out.
Honestly, I’d be grateful for some fangs right about now.
At least that meant there was something under this skin of mine, as Creed so dickishly put it.
I drop into a patch of grass near one of the stone perches and pull out my codex. The leather cover warms instantly under my palm, as if greeting—or warning—me. Or maybe just trying to look impressive so I don’t set it on fire like I did the last training dummy.
“Let’s see if there’s anything worth a damn today,” I mutter, flipping it open. The pages flutter on their own, stopping somewhere near the middle where new spells shimmer faintly along the vellum, as if the ink hasn’t decided whether it wants to stay or run.
SpellChemy has been…weird.
Useful, sure, but weird.
Every time I leave that class, something inside me rattles loose and the codex shifts to match whatever new knowledge I’m taught.
After that first day in SpellChemy, the book had maybe half a dozen spells.
Now? It’s filling itself faster than I can keep up.
Words rearranging, diagrams redrawn, margins scribbling with new instructions that were never there before.
I drag a finger down the latest section.
Binding.
Shielding.
Elemental Manipulation—fire, water, wind, stone.
I pause there, staring at the page.
Fire.
My palm tingles, a phantom echo of the heat that sparked there in class.
Warm enough to notice, not enough to understand.
I can’t decide if I like it or if it unnerves me.
Maybe both. A symbol swirls below—a thread of script that curves into something almost serpentine, like flame curling through scales.
It’s the first fire-related spell that’s appeared since that first day. This one a focusing spell: a way to take raw heat and give it shape. Give it purpose.
That…actually makes sense.
The professor’s voice nudges the back of my mind: magic isn’t just power, Haide, it’s precision.
A curl of anticipation winds through me, low and warm.
I roll my shoulders back and read the script, slower this time, letting the diagram settle into my mind, feeling for anything inside me that might respond.
Nothing dramatic happens. No burst of flame or explosion.
But my palms warm just the slightest, a simmer beneath the skin, like something alive is turning over in its sleep and stretching its claws.
“Okay…” I breathe, dragging the heat up toward my fingertips, imagining it shaping into the pattern the spell wants from me. “Let’s try—”
A prickle runs down the back of my neck.
I freeze, eyes lifting and flicking across the grounds.
It’s empty, but the sensation of being watched doesn’t fade. It fucking tightens, circles like a predator’s breath against the back of my skull.
I turn slowly, ready to tear someone’s face off, but there’s no one there. Nothing but the perches and a distant bite of wind.
I shake it off, forcing my shoulders down. “Paranoid much,” I mutter, returning to the diagram despite knowing it’s pointless.
How can I be precise if I can’t give all my focus?
Taking a deep breath, my pulse steadies. The heat flickers again along my palm, climbing toward my knuckles, and I focus on imposing the shape the spell wants on the delicate thread of control that—
A whisper of movement against the floor cuts off my thoughts.
I snap my hand out, fingers hooking as if to catch a throat, but all I come up with is air.
Unease sits in the center of my spine, coiled tight, watching the horizon like something is about to pop out at me. There’s a snap above me, and my head tilts up just as a long, curling shadow slips across the leaves overhead in the familiar silhouette of a tail.
My fingertips warm instantly, heat blooming across my palm.
I drop my gaze back to the codex, pretending I’m not suddenly on high alert.
My heart tightens in that quiet, coiled way it does when a fight is coming.
The words blur, meaningless, because every ounce of my attention is stretched out across the grounds, listening for the wrong breath, the wrong shift of wind.
Slowly, casually, I nudge the codex off my knee.
I bend to pick it up, fingers sinking into the soil. As I rise, I let the book fall from my palm again, and the moment it hits the ground, I whip the fistful of dirt into the space directly in front of me.
It hits something solid. Something invisible, wafting out into a cloud that starts to take shape.
The air splits with a surprised cough, and the glamour collapses, peeling back like torn cloth until a gifted girl wearing the same Rathe U uniform I do snaps into view.
I don’t give her a second to think. My knee drives up into her gut, folding her in half with a strangled wheeze.
My other leg sweeps hers from beneath her, dropping her hard onto her back, and before the breath can even leave her lungs, I’m already straddling her, dagger pressed to the hollow of her throat.
The girl snarls up at me, her lips curling. “Bitch.”
“Says the girl on the ground. Bet you’ve never seen that little dirt trick, have you?” I lean closer, pressing the blade tighter to her throat. “Don’t worry, it’s something only a poor little giftless would know.” I fake pout.
“We know it was you!” she screams. “You’re going to pay! You’re already screwed and you don’t even know it!”
I frown, ready to argue when her eyes begin to glow a deep yellow. I act before whatever magic she has explodes out of her.
I slam my forehead into hers, the crack echoing through the clearing. Her eyes go blank and her body limp. Warm trickles of blood slip down my forehead and across my nose. I shove off her chest, wiping her blood from my brow with the back of my hand, and push to my feet with a sigh.
“Fool,” I mutter, brushing dirt from my pants and adjusting the dagger at my boot.
I dust off my codex, and start walking toward my dorm, already annoyed at how fast the peace of the grounds disappeared.
Fuck did she mean I’m already screwed?
I know that I’m stuck here and all, but I am sort of starting to like it. For now. But that’s beside the point!
How would she know that?
Am I being played?
“Damn girl, shut the fuck up,” I utter to myself. Since when do I go getting all paranoid?
Since when do I give a flying fuck about any of that?
Despite myself, my thoughts continue to run. Now I just want to get fucking punched hard enough so that I can take a damn nap.
That girl back there doesn’t know how lucky she is, getting her mind to shut up for five minutes. I did her a favor.
Just as I’m about to pass the last stone perch that signals the exit of the Flying Grounds, the shadow reappears. It glides between the trees in a way no person could soundlessly manage.
I pivot hard and throw my dagger. The blade sinks into the dirt with a solid thunk, just where I intended, and something enormous exhales.
The trees shudder, and then he steps out.
Ruby-red scales catching light like molten glass with wings tucked tight against a body big enough to flatten half the university if he felt dramatic about it. His long neck curves toward me, eyes glowing as bright as the Forbidden Gems back on Exile, a deep, volcanic red.
Dragon, and not even a fully grown one.
“Thank you,” I say lightly, like I’m greeting an old friend. “I know that was you, the snap of the branch.”
His pupils widen, round and bright, and he lowers his head a fraction, huffing a warm breath across my skin.
“Did you see her?” I wonder.
He snorts, a plume of smoke curling around my knees.
“Smelled her.” I nod. “Of course.”
A deep rumble vibrates through the air, low and warning. His long neck coils then stretches toward the earth, gaze darting toward the far end of the field.
Slowly, he backs away, the ground trembling with each step, his wings unfurling like a banner of fire and shadow.
I watch him go, a strange sense of satisfaction sweeping through me.
With one last glance back at the Flying Grounds I take off toward the main campus.
When the spires of Rathe University rise into view, I angle toward the eastern promenade, following the path of lanterns suspended in a lazy arc of floating chains. These weren’t here on my way out, but it’s clearly a path meant to be followed.