VEILBORN

NULL, BORING, INVISIBLE.

Chapter 1

Bone Gate → Ash Tier dorms, Day 1 Morning.

I touched the bone gate and prayed for boring.

Forty feet of whale bone glowing faint blue in the dusk light. New students everywhere - sparks flying, parents crying, familiars screeching. The air tasted like ozone and burnt sugar.

“Next,” the gatekeeper said, not looking up.

My palm hit the bone. Cold. Dead.

One second. Two.

Gray pulse. Ash dull. Then nothing.

“Null reading,” he grunted. “Ash Tier. Move.”

Ash Tier. Bottom level. Perfect. Weak. Forgettable.

I grabbed my single bag and slipped through the gate before anyone asked questions.

Then stopped breathing.

Nocturne Sanctum wasn’t a school. It was a wound that decided to be beautiful. It was a paradise.

Obsidian towers climbed the volcano walls in five levels. Chains thick as trees held floating walkways between them. The sky was stuck at dusk - purple bleeding into orange, stars that never moved. Students on Level 3 rode ice disks between towers. Level 2 had floating gardens. Level 1, where I was, looked like a stone pit with better lighting.

“This is illegal,” I whispered. “Illegal levels of pretty.”

I was staring up at Level 3 where the Obsidian Spire stabbed the sky when I turned the corner.

Didn’t see him.

We collided.

Hard.

My bag exploded. Scrolls, spare shirt, underwear, everything scattered. I hit the stone on my knees and palms. Stung.

“Watch it!” I snapped, then realized I’d hit someone.

I looked up.

White-silver hair. Black uniform with zero wrinkles. Eyes like a glacier right before it sinks a ship. Cold. Blank. Zero emotion.

Magic runes crawled up the side of his neck like frostbite tattoos. When he breathed, they shimmered once and sank under his skin. Obsidian Circle pin on his collar. Ember Tier.

I scrambled up, cheeks burning, realizing his rank, and the fact that he wasn't to be played with. “Sorry! I wasn’t looking. Are you okay?”

He didn’t answer.

He just looked down at me like I was a c***k in the stone he didn’t want to step on.

Then, “Move.”

One word. Flat. Cold. No apology. No “are you hurt”. Nothing.

He stepped around me and kept walking up the chain stairs to Level 2.

“Rude,” I muttered, dropping to gather my stuff. My hands shook from anger, not pain. I’d apologized. He hadn’t even checked if I was okay.

“Wait up!”

A girl’s voice, sharp and annoyed.

Dark copper hair pulled back tight. Gray eyes like flint. Tall, athletic, uniform pressed like armor. Same black uniform, same pin as him. Ember Tier. She caught up to him in three strides and fell into step beside him like she owned that space.

She didn’t glance at me on the floor.

As they climbed, her voice echoed down: “I told you new Ash Tier nulls would be in the way. Are you hurt?”

He didn’t answer her either. Just kept climbing. Frost trailed behind his boots and vanished.

I sat there with scrolls in my lap and hate burning in my chest.

I apologized. He didn’t. He didn’t help me up.

Asshole. Ice statue. Rude, rude, rude.

My dorm assignment scroll floated up from the mess. Ash Tier, Cell 12. Shared bath, stone bed, window that was just a slit showing lava below.

I shoved everything in my bag and climbed down to Level 1. Ash Tier was all stone and echo. No floating walkways here. Just stairs carved into the volcano wall.

Cell 12 was tiny. I dropped my bag on the bed. Didn’t unpack.

A bell rang through all five levels. Deep, vibrating.

“First period for Ash Tier starts in ten minutes, West Caldera Platform!”

Ten minutes? I just arrived!

I grabbed my schedule. Ran.

Still muttering “Move” under my breath like a curse.

Asshole Ember Tier guy ruined my first hour.

Perfect.