THE WOLFLESS HEIRESS OF CRIMSON ACADEMY

They made me walk in through the front gates like I was nobody. That was the point. Luna Grey. No crest. No escort. One bag that kept slipping off my shoulder because the strap had been mended twice and still wasn't right. Crimson Academy sat on the ridge like it had been carved there on purpose, all dark stone and red glass, banners snapping in a wind that smelled like pine and wet iron. I kept my head down until I was inside the courtyard. Then I looked. Ranks here were a language. You could read it off the post. Alphas took space. Betas moved like they had somewhere to be. Omegas hugged the edges and pretended they weren't watching everybody else. I was supposed to be one of those. Wolfless. The kind of student who lasted a semester if she was lucky and quiet. A pair of shifted wolves crossed the far lawn on a leash of command, not chain. Training collars. Their handlers didn't look at anyone under Beta rank. I watched the way the younger one flattened its ears when an Alpha passed. Even the animals here knew the ladder. To the left of the fountain, a cluster of first-years compared pin colors like the metal could save them. One girl had already started crying and then stopped when nobody joined her. I understood that. Tears are expensive in a place where prices weaken out loud. I wasn't quiet. I didn't talk. A girl stepped into my path like she owned the stones under my feet. Senior. Omega, but the kind that had learned how to bite sideways. Pale hair tied high. The academy pin on her collar polished so hard it threw light. "New meat," she said. Loud enough. I tried to go around her. She bumped me on purpose. My bag hit the ground and split. Books, a cracked comb, the cheap tin I used for hairpins. They skidded across wet flagstone. Someone laughed. Then more than one someone. She waited. I knew that wait. I wanted to say sorry. It wanted me on my knees gathering my own things while she stood over me and the courtyard filed it away as the natural order. I didn't pick the bag up first. I looked at her. She had pale eyes. They were used to people dropping theirs. I held them. Counting in my head the way my old tutor used to make me count when I wanted to hit something. One. Two. Three. The noise around us thinned out, not gone, just thinner, like the whole yard had leaned in without meaning to. She blinked first. Not a big thing. A flicker. Then she scoffed and walked off like she had better places. Her friends went with her. One of them kicked my tin as she passed. It rang against a pillar. I crouched and put my things back. My hands were steady. That surprised me more than it had surprised the girl. A boy near the fountain muttered wolfless under his breath like it was a diagnosis. I slotted the last book into the bag and stood up slowly, like I had all afternoon. If they wanted a show, I wasn't going to give them the ending they paid for. People were still looking. I felt it on the back of my neck. Up on the east balcony, a figure stood apart from the cluster of seniors. Too far to see a clean face. Dark coat. Still. Watching like he had time to spare and no interest in pretending otherwise. I didn't wave. I slung the bag on and walked toward registration. The hall inside was worse. High ceiling, old wood, the academy crest cut into every doorframe. A wolf with a crown in its teeth. A line of new students snaked toward three desks. Someone's mother was arguing with a clerk about a pack transfer and getting nowhere. A posted timetable listed meal blocks by rank. Alphas ate first. Unranked ate last. That was printed, not whispered. I signed Luna Grey where they told me to sign. The clerk didn't look at my face. He looked at the empty line where a pack rank should have been and made a small sound in his throat. Behind him, a board listed last term's expulsions. Four names. All marked unranked. Someone had drawn a small wolf skull next to the last one in the pen. "Omega wing," he said. "Third floor. Don't be late to orientation. They mark you down." "Alright." He waited as I might explain myself. I took the key. The stairwell to the Omega wing smelled like wet wool and floor soap. Notices papered the landing. Curfew. Shift-permit hours. A handwritten warning about stealing from the protein line. I passed two girls arguing about a borrowed jacket and a boy asleep, sitting up with a textbook on dominance theory open on his knees. My room was narrow and cold. Two beds. One already claimed, blankets folded with military corners, a stack of annotated texts on the desk. Roommate out. Good. I sat on the bare mattress and pressed my thumb into the faint mark on my left wrist. People always thought it was a scar. I let them. Ashveil. The name sat behind my teeth and stayed there. Royal decree. My father's seal. Twenty years of being the daughter who didn't shift and therefore did not get to exist in public. I had one job here. Stay Grey. Find what I was sent to find. Don't bleed the truth all over the floor. Easy on paper. A bell went off somewhere deep in the building. Orientation. I washed my face in the basin. The water came out brown for a second and then cleared. I looked like what I was supposed to look like. Dark hair. Too-plain clothes. Eyes that people called strange if they stared too long, so I didn't let them. The entrance hall was packed when I got there. Students in rows. Instructors on a raised platform. Someone was talking about hierarchy and conduct and the Crimson Trials like those words were supposed to make us grateful. A map of the grounds hung behind him. Combat halls. Vault tower. Archive stairs marked restricted in red. I stood at the back next to a radiator that ticked. That was when it started. Not a sound. Not a smell exactly. Something under both. Like the air in my chest had been waiting for a cue and finally got one. Heat first, low, then a pull that had no business being in a body that had never grown a wolf. My fingers went numb around the strap of my bag. I scanned the doors. He came in from the north arch. Tall. That was the stupid first thing. Black training coat, no crest I recognized at first; then I did. Varn. Lycan court. The kind of bloodline that didn't walk into places. Places rearranged themselves. He didn't look lost. He looked like he was counting exits. The pull got worse. Old- that was the word that showed up, which was a ridiculous word for a feeling. Something in me leaned toward him hard enough that I had to lock my knees. He passed the first row. Second. His gaze moved the way a blade moves when someone is checking the edge. It snagged on me. Two seconds. Maybe less. His face didn't do anything useful. No smile. No frown. Just a look that went through the Grey name and the empty rank line and whatever I thought I was hiding in my posture. Then he looked away and took a place near the front like that had been the plan all along. I breathed out through my teeth. Wolfless, I told myself. You don't get a pull. You don't get a wolf. You don't get him. The speaker on the platform kept talking. Meal times. Ranked sparring blocks. A reminder that unranked students needed written leave to cross the east lawn after dark. I heard one word in three. When it ended, students spilled toward the courtyard again. I went with them because standing still in that hall felt like volunteering to be studied. Outside, the announcement board on the east wall lit up. Red letters first, then white. ORIENTATION ADDENDUM LYCAN KING CANDIDATE IN RESIDENCE NAME: CAIUS VARN RANK: HEIR DO NOT APPROACH WITHOUT SUMMONS The crowd made a sound. Not a cheer. More like hunger trying to pass as interest. I read the name twice. Caius. The pull in my chest answered it like it had been waiting for the letters. Up on the balcony, the dark coat was gone. I adjusted the strap on my bag and walked back toward the Omega wing before anyone could watch my face do something I hadn't permitted it to do. Behind me, the board flickered once and held. Caius Varn. I said the name once, under my breath, just to know how it sat. It sat like a problem. Dinner bells started up from the west hall. Students peeled off in packs that already knew each other. The smell of stew and burnt bread came down the path. I wasn't hungry. I went up the Omega stairwell anyway and sat on my bed in the dark until the window square turned from red to ordinary night. Down in the courtyard, the announcement board stayed lit. I could see the edge of it if I leaned. Caius Varn. Tomorrow I would have to stand in the same building as that pull and pretend my chest was empty. I lay back without taking my boots off and stared at the ceiling cracks until they looked like a map of someplace I wasn't allowed to go.