How not to fall for a Dragon

Kirrily Vane

My toes had gone numb twenty minutes ago. Now, the cold was a dull ache creeping up my legs. I kept my head down, hunched my shoulders, and let my teeth chatter. It wasn't entirely an act. The wind sweeping across the Snowy Mountains was brutal, carrying tiny pieces of ice that hit my cheeks like broken glass. We stood in the courtyard of the Obsidian Keep, though calling it a courtyard was generous. It was a flat stretch of black stone hanging over a thousand-foot drop into a frozen ravine.

Minus twelve degrees. That was what Jarrah had told me over the radio before I boarded the helicopter.

"Look pathetic, Kirri," my brother had said in his usual cheerful voice. "These rich kids feed on weakness. Give them what they want. Make them think you're a helpless girl with no magic, and they won't give you a second look."

He was right. He usually was.

I pulled my thin wool coat tighter around my body and tucked my bare hands under my arms. Around me stood the heirs of Australia's richest families. They looked perfectly comfortable in their expensive clothes, but that wasn't what kept them warm. Their magic did. I could actually see the heat coming off them.

To my left stood a tall girl with pale skin and a perfect auburn ponytail. She wore a light jacket, yet the snow melted before it could touch her shoulders. Indi Carmichael. Heiress to a powerful mining empire and a fire dragon by blood. She caught me staring, and her lips curled into a cruel smile.

"Try not to die before the Chancellor finishes his speech, scholarship girl," she said. Her voice was loud enough for the others to hear. "The staff will have to scrape your frozen body off the ground, and that will ruin the look of the place."

A few students laughed. Their laughter was soft and careless, the kind that came from people who had never worried about where their next meal would come from. I widened my eyes and trembled as I quickly looked away, fixing my gaze on the black stone beneath my cheap boots. Weak. Invisible. Harmless. I played the part perfectly.

But beneath my thick brown hair, just behind my left ear, a small patch of skin was burning. The jammer. It was a tiny piece of illegal technology hidden beneath the broken compass tattoo behind my ear. Jarrah had arranged for it to be implanted there. Its job was to hide my human identity by blocking the magical signals that others could normally sense. To the dragons around me, I was nothing. No magic. No power. Just an ordinary human who had no business standing among them.

If the device failed, I would be in serious trouble. The High Council would discover that I had lied my way into their academy. They wouldn't simply send me home. They would kill me and throw my body into the ravine.

"Welcome, initiates."

The voice cut through the howling wind, and the students fell silent. Chancellor Barton Sterling stood on a raised stone platform at the front of the courtyard. He was an older man with silver hair and a walking stick with a silver handle. He looked weak, but his voice carried across the entire courtyard without the help of a microphone.

"You stand at the gates of the Obsidian Keep," he began. "You are the heirs to some of the greatest fortunes in the world. But here, in the heart of the Snowy Mountains, your family wealth will not save you. Only power, intelligence, and the will to survive will earn you a place on the High Council."

He paused, looking over the fifty students standing before him. His eyes seemed to linger on the back row. On me.

"And yet," he continued, "the Keep believes in balance. Every ten years, we admit a small number of ordinary humans. Those who have no dragon blood. You are here because of your academic results."

Indi gave a quiet scoff. Sterling struck his walking stick against the stone, and a low hum spread through the ground beneath our feet.

"But do not mistake our decision for kindness. The Keep has no place for the weak. Your orientation is over."

His expression hardened.

"The cull begins now."

Before I could make sense of his words, the temperature dropped sharply. My breath froze in front of my face. This wasn't the weather. It was him.

The students began moving aside, opening a path through the crowd. A tall figure walked towards the front with a calm, silent step that made every instinct in my body scream at me to run.

Thane Corin.

He was twenty-three, but there was something about him that made him seem older. He stood well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a dark winter coat that probably cost more than the hospital where I was born. His platinum-blond hair whipped in the wind, but his eyes were what caught my attention. Glacial blue. Cold and ruthless.

He didn't need to threaten anyone. His presence alone was enough to make the other students step aside. The frost coming off his body was so strong that the heat around Indi faded as he passed. She shivered and lowered her head.

Thane Corin was the sole heir to the Corin Group, the largest business empire in the Southern Hemisphere. He was also an Alpha ice dragon. And he was the main target of my heist. Somewhere inside his private vault was an artifact worth enough to buy an entire country. My job was simple: find it, steal it, and deliver it to Jarrah. Simple, at least, on paper.

Thane stopped near the front and turned his head slightly. His cold eyes swept across the crowd until they landed on me. The moment our eyes met, a sharp pain struck my chest, right over my heart. I gasped and stumbled backwards.

Thane's brow tightened. It was a small change in his expression, but I noticed it. For a brief moment, the air between us felt strange, as if something invisible had pulled tight.

What was that? I'd never felt anything like it before. Don't look at him, my instincts warned. Look away. Remember who you are.

I lowered my head and pulled my coat tighter around me. The pain disappeared as quickly as it had come. I took a shaky breath. Was he using magic on me, or had something else just happened?

"Before you enter the Keep," Chancellor Sterling announced, bringing my attention back to him, "we must make sure that none of you have brought in forbidden objects, tracking devices, or false magical identities. The wards will now inspect every initiate."

My stomach dropped. The wards? Jarrah had promised that the first checks would only involve ordinary security scanners. He said the deeper magical scans wouldn't happen until we reached the infirmary, where he had already gained access to the medical system. He hadn't mentioned anything about this.

A deafening crack of thunder shook the mountain. At the far end of the courtyard, a huge wall of blue light rose from the black stone. It crackled with energy and stretched from the Keep's iron gates to the edge of the cliff. Then it began to move.

The glowing wall swept towards us, passing through the first row of students. As it touched them, their magical powers became visible. Indi blazed like a living fire, while others glowed with green light or silver energy. It wasn't an ordinary security check. The wards were scanning their very blood and magic.

The jammer behind my ear let out a sharp hiss. Pain burned through my skin.

Oh, God.

The device was designed to fool ordinary magical scanners, not a powerful wave like this. The wards were forcing it beyond its limits. If it failed, everyone would know I was hiding something. Worse, the small battery inside the device could overheat and burn through the skin behind my ear.

"Stay calm," I whispered. "Just stay calm, Kirri."

The blue wall was twenty feet away. Then ten. Heat spread behind my ear until it felt as if someone had pressed a burning piece of metal against my skin. I fought the urge to reach up and touch it. I couldn't afford to draw attention to myself.

I searched for a way out. To my right was the open ravine. To my left stood Indi and a crowd of powerful dragon shifters. In front of me was the approaching wall of magic. There was nowhere to go.

I had two seconds to decide. If I stood still, the scan could expose my identity or destroy the device inside my head. If I ran, I would prove that I had something to hide. Either way, my mission would be over, and I might not survive the day.

The blue light reached my boots. A sharp crack burst from behind my ear. At the same moment, the stone beneath my feet split with a deafening sound. I barely had time to look down before the ground vanished beneath me.

And I began to fall.