Chapter 1: The Glitch
Three minutes.
I had exactly three minutes until the immortal Head Warden realized I was a complete fraud and snapped my neck in front of the entire student body.
My heart battered against my ribs like a trapped bird, a frantic, desperate rhythm that I prayed no one with supernatural hearing could pick up on. I dug my fingernails into my palms until the skin nearly broke, grounding myself in the sharp sting of physical pain. I forced my expression into a mask of absolute, icy boredom.
*Do not panic. Panic smells like prey. Panic equals death.*
"Next," a voice boomed, rattling the colossal stained-glass windows of the grand entrance hall.
The architecture of Blackwood Academy was supposed to be awe-inspiring, designed to remind every student of their ancient, terrifying heritage. To me, it just looked like a very fancy, gothic slaughterhouse. Jagged arches of black iron stretched overhead like the ribs of some colossal beast. The air itself was suffocatingly thick, heavy with the stinging scent of ozone, burnt copper, and the raw, suffocating pressure of unbridled magic.
Ahead of me in the sorting line, a boy with iridescent, bruised-looking scales patching his neck stepped up to the massive obsidian pedestal. Head Warden Malakor—a hulking brute of a man built like a medieval executioner, with glowing purple eyes that lacked any trace of humanity—placed a massive, clawed hand over the boy’s skull.
Instantly, a roaring column of sickly green fire erupted from the pedestal, casting eerie, dancing shadows against the stone walls.
"Basilisk lineage," Malakor grunted, his voice like grinding stones. "Pass. Next."
I swallowed the lump of sheer, blinding terror in my throat. Blackwood Academy wasn't just an elite boarding school for the wealthy and gifted. It was a holding pen for reincarnated monsters. Ancient, bloodthirsty souls crammed into the bodies of dangerously attractive teenagers.
And then there was me. Greer.
No fangs. No claws. No venom. No magic. Just a completely normal, painfully fragile eighteen-year-old human girl who had been dragged through a cosmic portal by absolute mistake.
If Malakor touched me, that pedestal wouldn’t light up. It would stay dead. And humans weren't allowed to roam the halls of Blackwood. Humans were food.
"Next," Malakor barked.
Two people ahead of me. *Think, Greer. Think.*
I risked a glance upward. High above the chaotic floor, a sweeping marble balcony overlooked the hall. The student elite stood there, lounging against the railings, watching the sorting process like it was an entertaining blood sport. But the crowd naturally parted for three boys standing at the dead center. They radiated so much dark, ancient power that the very air around them visibly warped and shimmered.
**The Three Kings.**
Julian, the Leviathan. Even from this distance, the temperature in the room seemed to plummet when you looked at him. He stood with a posture of absolute, terrifying perfection, his pristine, dark uniform perfectly pressed. His icy blue eyes were bored, but the air around him felt like the crushing, lightless depths of the ocean. I watched in morbid fascination as actual frost crept along the marble railing beneath his pale hands.
To his left was Orion, the Plague. He was leaning entirely over the balcony, a chaotic, feral grin stretching across his handsome face. He wore his uniform loosely buttoned, his dark hair a mess of unruly waves. Where Julian was pure control, Orion was chaotic destruction. Little flakes of black, corrosive ash drifted from his fingertips, quietly eating away at the stone beneath him. His glowing golden eyes scanned the crowd, hungry for a distraction.
And finally, Kael, the Sun-Eater. Brooding, heavily muscled, and glaring down at the new recruits with piercing amber eyes that looked like they could melt steel. He didn't move. He didn't have to. He possessed a heavy, predatory stillness that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The scent of scorched earth and dry summer heat wafted down from wherever he stood.
*If they find out what I am, they won't just kill me,* I realized, a sickening jolt of nausea hitting my stomach. *They’ll play with me first. I'll become a toy.*
"Next!"
One person ahead of me. A girl with wings made of pure midnight shadow stepped up. The pedestal glowed with a blinding, silvery light. She passed without a word, vanishing into the school.
"Next."
It was my turn.
Every muscle, every bone, every instinct in my body screamed at me to turn around and run for the heavy oak doors. Instead, I forced my shoulders back. I lifted my chin. I didn't scurry, and I didn't hesitate. I glided forward. If I was going to die today, I was not going to give these monsters the satisfaction of seeing a human cower.
The heavy, suffocating silence of the hall pressed down on me as I stopped in front of the obsidian stone. It was freezing cold, completely devoid of life.
Malakor narrowed his glowing purple eyes at me, his lip curling into a sneer. "Hand on the stone, girl."
I raised my hand. My fingers were trembling—just a microscopic fraction—so I deliberately curled them into a loose, elegant fist before pressing my palm flat against the slick black stone.
Malakor clamped his massive, heavy hand down over my skull. His fingers felt like bands of iron.
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the bone-crushing pain of an execution. I waited for the snap of my neck.
One agonizing second passed. Two. Three.
Nothing happened.
The pedestal didn't glow. There was no fire. No light. No grand display of power. Just absolute, dead, heavy emptiness.
A murmur rippled through the massive hall. The student body began to whisper—a chorus of hisses, growls, and low, dangerous voices. Even Malakor frowned, his thick brows knitting together in confusion. He pressed his hand harder against my head, trying to forcibly pull a magical aura to the surface.
But you can't pull water from a dry well.
"Nothing," Malakor muttered, his eyes darkening with lethal suspicion as his claws began to extend, pricking my scalp. "No aura. No magic. What are you?"
He raised his other hand. He was going to gut me. Right here on the altar.
*Lie,* my survival instincts screamed in the dark. *Make the greatest, most arrogant lie of your life.*
I didn't pull away from his claws. Instead, I slowly opened my eyes, looking up at him through my lashes with utter, chilling contempt. I let my mouth curve into a slow, dark, mocking smirk.
"No magic?" I whispered, making sure my voice dripped with arrogant amusement. It echoed perfectly in the sudden quiet of the hall. "Look closer, Warden. I don't *produce* magic."
I tapped my fingernail against the cold, dead stone of the pedestal. *Click. Click.*
"I consume it."
Silence slammed into the room. It was so absolute, so heavy, you could hear a pin drop a hundred feet away.
Malakor froze. His purple eyes widened, darting between my coldly smiling face and the completely unresponsive stone. The legend of the ancient Void—a cosmic entity that produced no light and no aura because it devoured every ounce of magic it touched—was the ultimate ghost story in this brutal world.
He slowly pulled his hand away from my head like my skin had burned him.
"The... The Void?" he breathed, his voice cracking as he took an actual step back.
"Pass me, Warden," I commanded softly, keeping my face terrifyingly blank even as my lungs screamed for air. "Before I get hungry."
Malakor swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. "Pass."
My knees nearly gave out from the sheer, overwhelming wave of relief, but I kept my posture impossibly straight. I turned on my heel, walking past him and toward the looming shadows of the academy's inner corridors. I had done it. I had survived the first impossible test.
But as I stepped out of the grand hall and into the dim, torch-lit corridor, the temperature violently plummeted. A freezing chill swept over the back of my neck, raising goosebumps along my arms. The shadows around me seemed to elongate, trapping me in the dark.
"That was quite the performance."
I froze in my tracks.
Stepping gracefully out from the pitch-black space between two stone pillars was Julian. The Leviathan.
Up close, the crushing pressure of his aura was agonizing. His icy blue eyes were mesmerizing, hyper-realistic in their cold, fractured beauty, and utterly merciless. He stepped into my personal space, leaning down until his flawless face was mere inches from mine. He smelled of winter storms, deep water, and dangerous, terrible secrets.
"The Head Warden might be an i***t," Julian whispered softly, his gaze dropping slowly to my still-trembling hands before snapping back up to lock onto my eyes. "But I'm not. You're no monster, sweetheart. You're something much more fragile."
