9 parti In corso Kaelen never speaks about the night his life split in two. He doesn't need to. The way he studies flames - not afraid, not drawn, just... measuring - tells anyone paying attention that something was taken from him long before he arrived at Cross Hexed.
He's spent years preparing for this place. Training in secret. Learning what the Mystians expect, what the dragons watch for, and how to survive between them without belonging to either side. Cross Hexed is a risk, a gamble, a blade he intends to sharpen himself on. If he plays it right, it will put him closer to the answers he's been chasing since childhood.
He thinks he's ready for all of it.
He isn't ready for Lorcan.
She hits him like a blade drawn too fast - fierce, beautiful, and already looking at him like she knows exactly what he is. Her sister's disappearance carved something hard into her, something Damon recognizes even if he won't admit it. They're enemies by nature, rivals by circumstance, and the academy seems determined to throw them into the same fire.
They clash immediately.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Just two people who refuse to yield an inch.
But Cross Hexed has a way of binding fates tighter than either of them want. Missions. Trials. Nights where survival depends on trusting the last person you should.
Kaelen came here with a plan.
Lorcan was never part of it.
And yet, somehow, she becomes the one variable he can't calculate - the one person who makes him hesitate, makes him think, makes him feel the heat he's spent years burying.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Just a spark in the wrong place, at the wrong time, between two people who should never have touched.
