by baninaa
new chapters every day for the rest of this month! PART ONE OUT NOW!!! Skylar Robedane was full of Graece. Allira Robedane is not. Skylar’s magic was powerful; her hands could stitch wounds and souls back together, like the many Kalkai healers that had come before her, yet it was also her downfall. Allira is a witness at Skylar’s funeral, where it is made clear that she doesn't belong. Little does anyone know her and her Graeceless family are the only ones to step out of temple doors. It begins with Allira attacking one of the bony, hungry-eyed priests. It ends with every single Kalkai falling to the floor and blood pooling at the Robedanes’ feet. Except, it doesn't end here. The Academy of Azarian Affairs, the huge school training the Graeceless for powerful government jobs, is Allira’s alternative to magic. A scholarship means a safety net over falling to the traditional path of marriage and being locked into domestic labour. Except now, that net is tearing. All evidence gleaned from the collapse of the Kalkai points to her. The Academy are flailing to save themselves, and so give Allira an ultimatum. Either she gives up her scholarship, and retreats back into the world she knows, or she conducts her graduation project with none other than a Paxton Trite. Paxton and Allira only have one thing in common – the insatiable desire to see themselves at the top. In theory, it should be easier for Paxton, what with his abundant resources and endless favour. But under his bucket hat, lies a secret that eradicates everything the Academy teaches. At home, sits a drunkard mother, the ghost of a father, and a sister slowly slipping away. He is holding it together, slightly unorthodoxly, and his freedom inches forever closer. Working with Allira is the only barrier to proving that he is worth it. The pair signed up for an uncomfortable few weeks and a few all-nighters. Instead, they get the absolute joy of witnessing magic get weaker, and its entities more volatile. It is now up to the Graeceless to find magic and hand it back to its rightful wielders. Yet, as the investigation gets messier and messier, they start to question... who really deserves to hold such power in their hands? In a dark, shadowed corner of a soul, lies something sinister. It gets more and more powerful every day. Allira and Paxton do not know it exists, but it knows that they do, and it cannot wait to hand them its form of justice. It is not only them it has its eye on. It is you, dear reader.
