Villianess of the Hero's Academy

I'm supposed to be impressed.

I looked up at the white marble towers defying gravity, floating over a sea of clouds that probably cost more to maintain than it would to feed three provinces of my homeland. The Bridge of Light beneath my leather boots — boots that, incidentally, pinched my instep with an almost personal spite — hummed at a frequency that crawled up my legs like an irritating tingle. It wasn't "celestial magic," as the recruitment pamphlets claimed. It was pure ostentation. It was the sound of stolen wealth buzzing under my feet.

"Breathe, Nyx. You look about to stab the first statue you see," a voice whispered beside me.

I didn't bother looking at the girl walking with my group of "noble refugees." Elsa, or something like that. Blonde, with the kind of skin that had never known the touch of ash, and a smile that reminded me of curdled milk: white, but with a sour aftertaste.

"It's the altitude," I lied, letting my voice come out like the silk I'd been forced to wear. "It makes me... nervous."

"Nervous" was the word cut-rate heroines used before fainting into a prince's arms. I wasn't nervous. I was calculating the angle of entry for the obsidian dagger strapped to my left thigh, just beneath three layers of black lace. If the wind blew hard enough, the lace brushed against the bone handle, reminding me why I was here.

My father, the Dark Lord — a very dramatic title for a man who basically just wanted his lands back and to be left to read in peace — had been executed by the man who lived at the top of this floating rock. My mother and sister were in a stone cell where damp seeped through the walls. And I... I was here to play the refined young lady.

We entered the Great Hall and the sensory assault hit me like a hammer blow.

The smell of bergamot, expensive beeswax, and the stale sweat of five hundred adolescents with too much lineage and too little sense. But the smell was the least of it. The worst part was the noise. Not the conversations — my own gift. The Mirror Touch is a curse that poets mistake for empathy. It isn't empathy. It's invasion.

A woman from House Lumen passed by me, her silk cloak brushing my shoulder.

Zap.

Her vanity hit me like a shot of vinegar. I felt her self-satisfaction, the metallic taste of her contempt for the "commoners" dirtying up her academy. My stomach turned. I drew my arms in, pinning them to my sides. Every accidental brush in this place was like sticking my hand into a bin of someone else's emotional garbage.

"Welcome, future pillars of the Kingdom," a voice thundered from the dais.

And there he was.

Cassian Aurelian. The "Hero of Light." The boy who had supposedly dealt the final blow to my family while I hid in a supply closet, counting my own heartbeats.

I looked at him with the objectivity of a butcher assessing a cut of livestock. He was tall, which was irritating. His hair was that dirty blond that seemed to have caught the world's last ray of sunlight, and his jaw was so square you could use it to square a cathedral's blueprints. He wore a white-and-gold robe that screamed I am pure and better than you.

But then, as he went on about "sacrifice" and "honor," I noticed his hands.

They rested on the oak lectern. His fingers were long, but the nails — bitten down to raw flesh. The edges were red, nearly bleeding. And while his voice stayed steady and velvet-smooth, his right index finger tapped rhythmically against the wood. Tap. Tap. Tap. A nervous tic that didn't fit the image of perfection they were selling us.

His magic, Consequence Sight, supposedly let him see the future. If that was true, he had to be seeing something truly horrible to have torn his hands up like that.

"...and now, let the bonding feast begin," he finished, and a deafening ovation filled the hall.

I made my way to the edges, looking for shadow where my disgust would be less obvious. I stopped near an obsidian column, feeling the cold of the stone through my dress. I took a small piece of bread from a passing tray and crumbled it between my cold fingers. My hands were always cold. A Vortex trademark.

"You don't like the noise much, do you."

I tensed. My hand went instinctively to the fold of my skirt, seeking the dagger's handle. I didn't reach it. A figure materialized beside me.

Not Cassian. A boy with amber eyes and hair red as embers of a fire that refuses to die. Kairos Ember, of House Ignis. I recognized him by the embroidery on his jacket. He looked strangely... calm. He didn't radiate the thermal agitation pyromancers usually had.

"Too many people pretending to like each other," I answered, my voice recovering its edge of sharp indifference. "Exhausting to watch."

Kairos looked at me, and for a second, I felt an unusual warmth coming off him. Not fire. Silence. Like the stillness of a forest after snowfall. He didn't try to touch me, which I appreciated privately.

"Sometimes silence is the loudest weapon," he said, offering me a cup of tea that smelled of cinnamon and something far more bitter. "Try it. It helps with the nausea of hypocrisy."

I frowned. "How do you know I'm nauseated?"

He simply shrugged and drifted off into the crowd, leaving me with the steaming cup. I didn't drink it. It could be poisoned. I would have done it myself.

I set the cup on a ledge and decided I'd had enough socializing for one lifetime. My plan was simple: locate Cassian's chambers, mark the patrol routes, and vanish before the "Hero" decided my face looked familiar.

I turned to leave the hall, but fate — or a waiter's clumsiness — decided to play a cruel trick on me. A young man from House Umbra, distracted by some nymph from House Lumen, stumbled into me.

His hands crashed against my forearms to steady himself.

Error.

The Mirror Touch activated like a burst of static. I felt his insecurity, a sticky stain of fear of failure, mixed with an adolescent lust so basic it made me want to shower in bleach. But the worst part was the physical reaction. Direct contact, no gloves, no barriers. My nerves lit up. It wasn't a "magical spark." It was a physiological assault. My skin burned where he touched me, an irritating, damp heat that made me recoil with a growl.

"Let go of me!" I hissed.

I shoved him harder than necessary, and the boy stumbled, spilling red wine over his immaculate black robe. The conversations around us stopped. The silence spread like an oil stain.

"My, what a temper for a guest," said a voice that made the hairs on my neck stand up.

I turned slowly.

Cassian Aurelian walked toward us. The crowd parted before him like water before a keel. His gray eyes, which from a distance looked like stars, up close were hailstorms. His smile was perfect, but his eyes weren't laughing. They were analyzing every millimeter of my posture.

"My apologies, Lord Aurelian," I said, lowering my head in a bow that tasted like bile. "The contact... caught me off guard."

He stopped less than a meter from me. Personal space was clearly a concept this man ignored. I could smell him: old leather, dry paper, and that ozone scent that precedes lightning. It was an invasive, dominant smell.

"No need to apologize," Cassian said. His voice was low, meant only for my ears. "It's understandable that a daughter of House Vortex would be... cautious of her surroundings."

My blood turned to ice. Not figuratively. I literally felt my body temperature drop several degrees. He knew me. He knew who I was.

"I don't know what you mean, my lord," I answered, keeping my eyes fixed on the second button of his robe. Looking him in the eye was a risk I wasn't ready to take.

"Oh, I think you do." He took another step. He was so close I could feel the heat radiating from his chest. Not Kairos's zen warmth. A feverish heat, like someone burning up from within. "You have your father's eyes. That same shadow of I'm going to kill you and enjoy it right behind the pupil."

I felt my fingers close. I needed my dagger. But if I moved now, they'd turn me to ash before I could draw the blade.

"Are you going to arrest me?" I whispered, my lips barely moving.

Cassian tilted his head. His hair brushed my forehead for a second. The texture was soft, but the contact sent an alarm signal to my brain. My heart began hammering against my ribs, not from romance, but from the primal instinct of a cornered animal. My pulse was so strong I could feel it in my fingertips.

"Arrest you?" He laughed. It was a dry sound, joyless. "That would be a waste of potential, Nyx. I have a much better plan for you."

Before I could react, his hand shot forward. He grabbed my right wrist with surprising strength. His fingers wrapped around my skin, hot and callused. Unlike the boy before, Cassian radiated no insecurity. What I felt through the Mirror Touch was an abyss. A void so deep and calculated it made me want to scream. There were no simple emotions. There was strategy. There was an exhaustion that weighed like lead.

I tried to pull my hand back, but he tightened his grip. I felt the friction of his thumb over the bone of my wrist, a deliberate pressure forcing me to look at him.

"Let go," I hissed, my eyes now fixed on his.

He didn't let go. Instead, he raised my hand before the eyes of the entire hall.

"Citizens of the Academy!" he shouted, his voice regaining that triumphant fairy-tale-hero tone. "I'm pleased to announce that the reconciliation of the Kingdom has begun today!"

The hall fell so silent I could hear the torches crackling on the walls.

"This young woman," Cassian went on, his hand squeezing mine until I began to lose feeling in my fingers, "is Nyx Vortex. Daughter of the man who was once our enemy. But she has seen the light. She has come to us not seeking revenge, but seeking peace."

I felt disgust rise in my throat. I knew what was coming. I could feel it in the way he looked at me, like a chess piece he'd just captured.

"And to seal this new pact of unity" — Cassian pulled me toward him, forcing my body against his. I felt the hardness of his muscles, the rapid beat of his own heart against my shoulder — "I have the honor of announcing that Lady Nyx has agreed to become my betrothed."

The eruption of applause was like thunder.

I stood frozen. My traitorous body was responding to his closeness with an adrenaline surge that scrambled my senses. His free hand slid along my waist, holding me with a possessiveness that made me tremble with pure rage.

Cassian leaned in, feigning a gesture of affection, and brought his lips to my ear. I could feel his warm breath brushing my skin, a damp sensation that made every muscle tense.

"Smile, little assassin," he whispered, his voice laced with sweet poison. "If you try to kill me now, your mother and sister won't see the dawn. If you play along with me... perhaps I'll let them live long enough to see you crowned queen."

He pulled back slightly to look at me, keeping that mask of radiant love in front of the crowd. His gray eyes were full of cruel satisfaction.

Slowly, I forced my lips to curve. It wasn't a smile. It was a battle grimace.

"I'm going to gut you, Cassian Aurelian," I returned the whisper, all while still "smiling" at the aristocrats cheering us on.

"I know," he replied, kissing the back of my hand. His lips were dry, rough, and the contact felt like a death sentence branded on my skin. "That's why I chose you. Docile wives are so... boring."

That night, as House Ignis's fireworks lit up the sky above the floating island, I realized one thing:

I was trapped inside a glided cage with the only monster capable of seeing that I wasn't a victim, but the knife that would finally slit his throat