The Warborn Academy

They called it an academy, but it looked more like a prison.

Warborn Academy rose from the cliffside like a jagged fang, all black stone and iron spires, a castle built not to inspire but to contain. The sky above it boiled gray and bone-white, heavy with stormlight. The wind howled through its ramparts like it, too, had been trained to scream.

Mist curled at our feet as we crossed the threshold, clinging to the earth like ghost fingers. The iron gates groaned closed behind us, loud and final. This wasn’t a school.

This was a sentence.

I paused just beyond the iron portcullis, my stomach twisting into something sharp. Everything here reeked of punishment and power. Even the stone seemed to hum with it—a low, vibrating thrum that settled in your bones and whispered submit.

Gargoyles leered from above, their eyes carved to follow you wherever you walked. The sigils etched around the doors pulsed faintly, not welcoming but warning. Wards. Strong ones. Not to keep intruders out—but to keep the monsters in.

A guard shoved me forward. “Keep moving, witch.”

I stumbled but didn’t fall. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Not the guards, not the red-blooded wolves who leered at every girl, not the pureblood witches in their silk-thread uniforms. Not the ones who already thought I was beneath them.

Inside, the air was colder—deader. The halls were carved from obsidian-black stone that swallowed sound, swallowed light. Even the torches on the walls burned low and blue, casting flickering shadows across the vaulted ceilings. The architecture didn’t whisper secrets.

It kept them.

I could feel the enchantments crawling under my skin—wards, glamours, memory snares. Static magic, just faint enough to forget until it caught you by the throat. Everything here was designed to remind us we weren’t in control. Not anymore.

We were herded through winding corridors into a dome-shaped chamber. It was massive, cavernous—cathedral-like, but there was no holiness here. Only glass-stained windows depicting ancient battles: witches burned at the stake, wolves howling from cages, winged creatures torn apart mid-flight by spellfire and silver.

This was their idea of legacy.

A voice boomed from above.

“Welcome to Warborn.”

I looked up.

A man stood at the top of the stairs, silhouetted by cold light. Silver hair. Broad shoulders. A face carved from war. Alpha general Kael. Not a teacher, not a headmaster—a war general who’d traded battlefields for training grounds. Scars gleamed across his neck and jaw like medals.

His eyes swept across us like a wolf assessing prey.

“You are here because you are dangerous,” he said, voice like cracking stone. “You are also weak.”

Silence fell like a blade.

“That will change.”

He descended slowly, boots echoing on stone. Every step was deliberate. Controlled. “Some of you are witches,” he sneered, “descendants of bloodlines that think ancient power makes them untouchable. It doesn’t.”

My hands curled into fists, nails biting into flesh.

“Others are wolves—feral things who think strength alone is enough. It isn’t.”

A growl answered from behind me.

Kael paused at the base of the stairs. “Bloodlines don’t protect you here. Your packs, your covens, your family names—they mean nothing. You’re all the same now: fodder until proven otherwise.”

He turned, cloak sweeping behind him like a second shadow. “Training begins at dawn. If you survive the first week, maybe I’ll remember your names.”

Then he was gone.

And just like that, we were dismissed.

—

The dormitories were worse than I’d imagined.

Rows of narrow cots stretched like grave markers, spaced close enough that even your breathing felt like a trespass. No curtains. No warmth. Just stone and shadow and the ever-present hum of suppressive magic.

I claimed the cot nearest the window—not for the view, but to remind myself that the world still existed outside these cursed walls.

“She doesn’t belong here,” someone said behind me.

I turned.

A girl with crimson-braided hair stood with her arms crossed. Emerald rings glittered on every finger. Her uniform looked like it had been pressed by magic, and her boots gleamed without a speck of dirt. A pureblood, obviously. Her friends—three other witches—flanked her like wolves scenting blood.

“She’s street-scum,” the redhead continued, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Everyone knows the Thornbrook line fell. She’s only here because they’re desperate.”

My jaw tightened.

Another girl laughed. “Maybe she’ll wash out before Solstice.”

“Or die,” added the third, a vicious glint in her eye.

They walked past like I was already fading.

I sat on the edge of my bed, breathing slow and quiet. They wanted a reaction. Wanted me to lash out so they could call me unstable. Unworthy.

I wouldn’t give them that.

Not yet.

Outside, the training grounds stretched out in grim perfection. Obstacle courses of stone and barbed wire. Dueling circles scorched with runes. Sparring rings rimmed in salt and silver to nullify magic. Everything here was built to bleed you.

I stood at the window and watched as a fight unfolded in one of the rings—a girl in violet robes wielding fire magic, and a boy, shirtless and shifting mid-swing. Wolf. He was all brute strength, but the girl was faster. Smarter. Her spells cracked like whips, coiling flames around his throat until he yielded.

No one clapped. No one cheered. They were learning—here, power wasn’t applauded. It was feared.

That’s when I felt it.

A gaze. Heavy. Focused.

I turned my head slowly and found him.

He leaned against the far wall, half in shadow, arms crossed. Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in black. Tousled hair, dark as smoke. His eyes—golden, slanted, unreadable—were fixed on me.

A wolf.

But not like the others. He didn’t smirk. Didn’t leer. He looked at me like he saw something he wasn’t sure he liked. Or maybe something he recognized and hated for it.

I didn’t look away.

I lifted my chin instead, refusing to blink, to flinch. I met him stare for stare.

He didn’t smile.

But after a beat, he gave a slight nod. Barely there.

And then he turned and walked away like he hadn’t just lit a fuse beneath my ribs.

I didn’t know his name.

But I knew this much.

The wolves weren’t the only dangerous ones here.

And I wasn’t planning on dying quietly.

Not for them.

Not for anyone.

Not ever.