Chapter 1
lyra
EARLY-AUTUMN SUNLIGHT BEATS DOWN ON the glass greenhouse, turning the air an almost insufferable blend of sweltering and muggy. My forehead is damp with perspiration, and my hair sticks to the back of my neck, making me even more irritable as I try to painstakingly pluck weeds from a raised bed of midnight lotus flowers without damaging their extremely delicate petals and root systems.
I pinch a small—but formidable—weed between my forefinger and thumb and tug. Nothing happens.
Going to be difficult, huh?
I tug again. The weed holds fast.
My brow furrows, and a touch of heat goes through me as my irritation mounts.
For the life of me, I have no idea why I opted to take Exotic Flora as my elective this semester. I don’t even like flowers and plants that much.
Oh, wait.
My eyes cut across the greenhouse to one of my roommates, Alina Ravenscroft.
The princess has her long blue hair braided back from her face, and she’s intently studying a cluster of pink-veined flowers—I can’t remember their name. Her knight and fated mate, Raelan Ashvale, stands outside the greenhouse. I glower at the back of his head as the breeze outside tousles his tunic. I wish I could open a window. I’m about to melt into a puddle in here.
The other students don’t seem to be struggling quite as much as I am. Some are even wearing their academy-appointed robes still, seeming unbothered by the heat. My fire magic keeps me a comfortable temp even in the cold, but it also makes me overheat easily. And right now, I’m about to self-combust.
As if to punctuate my discomfort, a bead of sweat runs down my back.
So gross. All I want is a cold bath.
I tear my gaze away from Raelan and focus once more on my mortal enemy: the damn weed.
Yet again, I give it a tug. And yet again, it resists me with herculean strength.
With a scowl and a flare of irritation, I grab a garden trowel from the cart beside me, jab it into the soil, and pry the weed out of the bed.
And accidentally uproot an entire midnight lotus flower in the process.
The plant—beautiful and exotic and more delicate than a soap bubble—lies atop the garden soil, its petals alreadystarting to lose their lustrous gleam as it withers before my very eyes.
I wasn’t supposed to do that. Professor Fleur already warned me to be careful, and my grade in this class isn’t looking good, even this early in the semester.
Maybe that’s because I’m a fire witch. I don’t have any business being in a garden, especially around baby-soft plants that die if you so much as look at them the wrong way.
“Ouch,” says a student next to me. I don’t know his name. I don’t care to. “Murdered another one, huh? You’re savage, Wilder.”
He and his friend laugh.
The midnight lotus continues to wilt.
Another drop of sweat goes down my back.
I hate this.
And suddenly, my hands are smoking. The next thing I know, they’ve gone up in flames from my fingertips to my wrists, and the dying midnight lotus is already smoldering, caught too close to my sparks.
It happens almost before I can blink.
The fire leaps from one flower to the next, growing, smoking, chewing up each and every delicate petal in its path.
“Shit!” the boy next to me snaps, jumping back from the raised bed and lifting an arm to shield his face as if that’ll protect him from the flames.
