The Academy of The Ascendant - Book 1 Marked by Starlight
She was never meant to survive their world.
Now she’s the only one who can burn it down.
Lyra thought she was just a girl with strange dreams and a birthmark that shimmered beneath moonlight. But when a celestial event rips her from Earth and drops her into the brutal halls of the Academy of the Ascendant, she discovers a deadly truth: she’s the lost heir of a realm that erased her bloodline—and she’s carrying the forbidden magic that could unravel it all.
The Academy is ruled by power and hierarchy. The weak are crushed. The strong ascend. And the Triad—three elite heirs born of elemental fire, storm, and air—will do anything to break her. Until they realize she’s more powerful than all of them.
Mocked. Hunted. Desired.
As Lyra unlocks the four elemental affinities no student should possess, she becomes the center of a prophecy that the Council has killed to keep buried. But it’s the fifth element—the forbidden Void—that marks her for something more.
Survival means mastering her magic.
Love could cost her everything.
And rebellion might just start with a kiss.
Perfect for fans of Zodiac Academy, Throne of Glass, and The Cruel Prince, Marked by Starlight is the explosive first book in a dark fantasy romance series filled with elemental magic, enemies-to-lovers heat, and a heroine who refuses to bow.
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Chapter: Chapter Thirty – Trial of Claim(Lyra’s POV)They waited until the morning bell to make their move.A summons posted in the mess hall. Not discreet. Not private.It hung like a threat, stamped in the violet wax of House Caelaris, a noble line aligned with the High Council since before the Void wars. They bore no Dorm flag. Only lineage.“Petition for Expulsion: Claim of Illegitimacy Against Lyra Solstice.”The parchment shimmered with runes of tradition — and insult.Whispers stirred like wind through dry grass.“She’s being challenged.”“She brought Void into the Academy.”“House Caelaris wouldn’t move without cause.”I stood in front of the scroll, expression blank, pulse steady.So they weren’t just whispering anymore.They wanted me gone.The Council Hall felt colder that day. Not because of the mountain’s breath, or the stones etched with history — but because of attention.Every student who could get a seat lined the stone benches. Professors stood along the upper rails. Even the Headmistress watched from her
Last Updated: 2025-05-20
Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Nine – Name of the Forgotten Flame(Lyra’s POV)It began with a summons.A sealed scroll left at the foot of my bed. No crest. No wax. No warning. Just a single line of ink scrawled across the parchment:“Come to the Starlight Records before the final bell.”No signature. No explanation.But I felt it.In my bones.In my blood.Something was coming.And it had my name.The Starlight Records was the oldest wing of the academy — a place older than any House crest, older than the first Trial of Convergence. It was said that the stones themselves remembered.No magic passed through its doors without permission. No spellwork could shield what it held. Not even the Triad dared disturb its walls lightly.I walked the halls in silence.The air was colder here, as if the breath of ancient bloodlines still lingered. The stone floors had been worn smooth by centuries of footsteps — heirs, traitors, queens.When I arrived, the door creaked open on its own.No guards.No escort.Inside stood one figure: the Archivist.I had seen he
Last Updated: 2025-05-20
Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Eight – A New Gravity(Lyra’s POV)Something had changed.I felt it before I saw it. In the way people looked at me. In the way silence filled the spaces I entered. Not the silence of suspicion.Respect. Or fear. Maybe both.By the third day after the archive trial with Talon, it became obvious.I wasn’t being followed.I was being watched.The first time it happened, I was crossing the courtyard near the training decks. A group of second-year students parted for me. Not because I asked them to. Not because of rank.Because they knew.The Trial. The flames. The whispered news of the restricted archive.I hadn’t said a word about it.But secrets didn’t last in the academy.Especially not mine.I caught a few of their expressions as I passed: wary, awed, confused. Like they weren’t sure whether I was one of them anymore — or something else entirely.A girl reborn in fire.“Is that her?” one of them whispered, not quietly enough.“She’s the one who walked through the Convergence Trial alone.”“She melted the
Last Updated: 2025-05-20
Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Seven – The Archive Trial(Talon’s POV)I knew she’d come here.She moved like she thought the shadows obeyed her.They didn’t.But they tolerated her more than most.I stood between the stacks of the restricted archive, half-shrouded behind a shelf of runes I hadn’t read in years. The candles cast long, low glows on the stone, just enough to reveal the curve of her shoulder as she slipped past the locked gate.No hesitation.No fear.Just quiet, deliberate rebellion.She reached the central podium and scanned the glyph-etched rings, fingers hovering just above the surface.She didn’t touch it.Yet.“You’re two breaths away from triggering a ten-layer lockdown,” I said.She spun around.Not startled.Not exactly.“You followed me.”I stepped forward. “You’re in a forbidden sector.”“So are you.”“I have clearance.”She folded her arms. “Then why wait until I crossed the line?”“Because I wanted to see if you’d hesitate.”I took another step. Her mark pulsed faintly in the torchlight.“You didn’t.”She didn’t b
Last Updated: 2025-05-20
Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Six – Burn It Clean(Lyra’s POV)I didn’t sleep after Riven left.His story clung to my skin like storm-soaked linen. The truths he’d buried, the Council’s experiments, the branding, the silence — it all lived just under the surface now, humming beneath my ribs like a storm yet to break.He’d said I had a choice.He was wrong.There was no choice left.Not if I wanted to survive.Not if I wanted to stay me.So I made a decision.If the academy wanted me broken — they’d get something else entirely.They’d get me lit.The training rings were empty at dawn.I liked it that way.No spectators. No whispers. Just space — and heat.I walked barefoot across the obsidian floor, the cold licking at my soles until I stepped into the center ring and summoned flame to my hand.It came easier now.Not gentle. Not passive. Fire wasn’t meant to be.It danced over my fingers like it was waiting.Cassian had shown me what it felt like to be consumed. What happened when you didn’t fear heat — when you let it lick, singe, c
Last Updated: 2025-05-20
Chapter: Chapter Twenty-Five – What the Thunder Remembers(Riven’s POV)I felt it before I saw her.The thread of fire curling under my skin, the pressure behind my eyes.The bond between her and Cassian had formed. Not complete. Not sealed like prophecy said it would be. But it was enough to light up the ley lines like a warning bell only I could hear.It wasn’t jealousy.It was the knowing.Knowing that everything was shifting. That she had stepped into the fire and walked out wanting more.I leaned against the rail at the top of the west wing overlook, watching the ring below where Lyra stood in the early light. She didn’t look broken. Not like she had after the Trial. No, this time, she looked… sharpened. Like a blade finished on the whetstone of someone else’s hands.And the mark on her wrist was still glowing faintly, even in daylight.Part of me wanted to go to her.Another part of me wanted to turn away.Because the closer I let myself get, the more of me she seemed to see.By midday, she had vanished.But I knew where she would go.
Last Updated: 2025-05-20
Born of Fire and Moonlight
🔥 Synopsis – Born of Fire and Moonlight
Book One in the Fated Flames Series
Nova Quinn was never meant to survive.
Branded wolfless and bound by a magical cuff that suppresses the fire under her skin, she’s spent her life silenced, controlled, and discarded by the very packs sworn to protect their own. But when Alpha Kael Draven walks into her life and the mate bond snaps into place, everything burns. He doesn’t claim her—he rejects her. Calls her a threat. Chains her in front of the very Council who once hunted her kind to extinction.
But Nova is no ordinary wolf. And she is far from tame.
As forbidden power stirs in her blood and ancient fire awakens in her bones, Nova begins to uncover the truth about who she is—and the legacy the Council tried to erase. Kael wants to protect her. The Council wants to destroy her. And a growing rebellion wants her to rise.
With enemies closing in, a bond she can’t sever, and a secret that could ignite war, Nova must decide:
Will she kneel to fate?
Or will she set the world on fire?
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Chapter: ASHKael Draven – POVNova was asleep in my arms.Her skin was soft against mine, her breathing slow and steady. I could still feel the heat of her—every curve, every sound, every broken moan etched into my bones like a brand. Her fingers rested lightly on my chest, and the bond pulsed softly between us.Not screaming now.Just steady.Alive.I should have felt whole.Instead, I felt like I was standing in the wreckage of everything I’d tried to protect.I stared at the ceiling, unmoving.This wasn’t what I was trained for. Not love. Not fate. Not bonds that made your skin feel too tight and your mind too loud.This was a battlefield I didn’t know how to fight on.And worse—I didn’t know which side I was on anymore.You waited too long, a voice inside me growled.The shift was sudden. My body went rigid. My breath stilled.You let her burn alone.Ash.The part of me I’d buried deeper than any wound. My wolf. My instinct. The piece of me that had been howling in silence since the moment I
Last Updated: 2025-05-18
Chapter: TRAINING TENSIONSNova QuinnI found Kael in the training yard just after sunrise.He hadn’t summoned me. No orders had been given. But the moment I stepped onto the scorched ground, he looked up—as if he’d been waiting.Without a word, he tossed a training staff toward me. I caught it with one hand and twirled it once out of reflex. The motion was smooth, sharp.His jaw tightened.“Barefoot?” he asked.“More grounded that way,” I replied.A flicker of a smirk, gone before it fully formed.We faced each other across the cracked dirt, morning mist curling between us like smoke. My cuff buzzed faintly—an ever-present reminder of the power I still couldn’t touch.“Why are we doing this?” I asked.“Because you’re still angry,” he said.I raised a brow. “And you think hitting me will help?”“No,” he said. “I think hitting me will help.”That stopped me cold.But I didn’t argue.The first strike was mine.A clean spin. A sharp jab toward his ribs. He blocked it easily, twisting to deflect and counter.We mov
Last Updated: 2025-05-18
Chapter: SHADOWS RETURNNova QuinnKael returned two days later.I knew it the second he crossed back into Blackridge territory—because the bond flared like it had been yanked awake mid-scream. A cold burn sliced through my chest, sharp and sudden. The air shifted. My magic stirred. His absence caused our connection to become fragile and worn like a thread unraveling at its ends. The connection reestablished itself suddenly and returned to its original state.I didn’t run to him.I didn’t leave my room.But the fire inside me—still stifled, still shackled—snarled to life like it had sensed prey.I stood at the window, arms crossed, watching from the upper level as Kael dismounted his bike. GHe advanced toward the estate causing the guards to move nervously. His shoulders were tense, jaw clenched. His fists flexed at his sides. His scent hit me a minute later—pine smoke, blood, and something cracked and feral beneath it.He was angry.Good.So was I.I didn’t expect him to knock.He didn’t.The door flew open
Last Updated: 2025-05-18
Chapter: THE ESCAPE PLANNova QuinnKael was gone before dawn.I felt it first—a soft tug through the bond, like a thread being pulled tight, then suddenly slack. A cold draft slid under my skin as his presence disappeared. He didn’t wake me. Didn’t say goodbye. He just vanished, like he’d never been here at all.And somehow, that hurt worse than the cuff on my wrist.Mara brought me breakfast like she was dropping off an offering at the temple of a moody god.“Where is he?” I asked, not looking up.“Council summoned him.” She set the tray down. “Western border. Something political.”“Of course.” I pushed the food away. “Right after they clipped my wings. Convenient.”Mara crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. “Don’t act like he wanted that cuff on you.”“No?” I held up my wrist. “He didn’t exactly fight them. He let them brand me like a threat.”“He kept them from killing you.”“I don’t want gratitude. I want a choice.”She didn’t respond. Just left me there in the silence, the scent of toast and ash
Last Updated: 2025-05-17
Chapter: UNDER LOCK AND FIRENova QuinnThe cuff wasn’t metal.It looked like it was—sleek, black, and cold against my wrist—but it wasn’t iron or steel. It pulsed softly with something older. Something that didn’t belong in this world. Magic.I felt it the second they snapped it shut.My fire recoiled, like a wave pulling back from the shore. The heat in my chest, the rhythm of my veins—it all dulled at once. My body still burned, but under glass. Muffled. Leashed.“You’re serious,” I said, voice flat.Liora didn’t blink. “It’s for everyone’s safety. Including yours.”I looked down at the cuff again. A thin silver rune shimmered on its surface, faintly glowing.“And if I take it off?”“You can try,” Mara muttered behind me. “But I’d wait until you’re ready to regrow your wrist.”Kael stood to the side, arms crossed, expression unreadable.“You agreed to this?” I asked him.He didn’t answer. Didn’t flinch. Just stared at me like he always did—like I was a problem he couldn’t solve.“Right,” I said, stepping away
Last Updated: 2025-05-17
Chapter: THE COUNCIL’S ULTIMATUMNova QuinnThe room still smelled like him.Sweat. Forest. Fire.The bond between us had finally snapped into place—claimed in flesh, sealed in heat—but Kael was gone before the sun rose. Again.I sat on the edge of the bed, sheet around my waist, trying not to feel stupid. Trying not to let the emptiness beside me feel like proof that everything that happened was just biology and desperation.But it wasn’t.And we both knew it.By midday, Mara found me in the kitchen, nursing black coffee like it could stop the ache under my ribs. Her expression was tight.“Council’s summoned you,” she said.“Now?”“They know the bond snapped. And they felt your last flare.”I went still. “How?”“Because a tree two miles away was reduced to ash and the warding stones cracked. They’re not asking anymore. They’re demanding.”The cold of the Council chamber surprised me as my breath became visible in the chilled air turning into quickly disappearing soft clouds. Gigantic stone walls surrounded me while
Last Updated: 2025-05-17
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