Chapter One

  Jade:

  MEEP… MEEP… MEEP…

  I shot awake.

  The alarm on my nightstand shrieked like it was watching someone getting stabbed. Half sleep I picked it up and threw it at the wall. Silencing it.

  “Jade… get up.”

  Val’s voice cut through the silence, half-buried under the whirl of her mini blender. Protein shake of the damned. I groaned and rolled onto my back, blinking at the ceiling like it had answers.

  “Why are you blending things this early?” I croaked.

  “It’s not early, it’s 6:00,” she replied without missing a beat. “And because breakfast opens at seven and all the good stuff is gone when you crawl out.”

  I sat up, hair a disaster, hoodie collar half in my mouth. “You say that like it’s not a hate crime.”

  Val laughed and tossed me my brush. It bounced off my chest and landed in the sheets. “My boyfriend is coming over today after class so… I need the room.”

  I blinked staring at her, “Do you and that orc only hook up.

  She flushed.

  Well, she loves the color green.

  I rolled out of bed and landed on the floor.

  “Ghhhhhh, let me sleep.”

  I felt her Sausage fingers grab me by the shoulders and prop me up on my feet.

  “You’re a menace,” I mumbled, grabbing my hoodie off the chair and dragging it over my head like a funeral shroud.

  “No,” Val said, slinging her gym bag over one shoulder. “I’m a responsible, semi-functioning adult who refuses to let her cryptid of a roommate rot in bed.”

  “I’m not a cryptid,” I yawned. “I’m an artist.”

  “Same thing,” she called, already halfway out the door.

  I shuffled into the bathroom, eyes half-lidded, toothbrush dangling out of my mouth. By the time I came back, Val was gone. The silence felt heavier than it should’ve.

  I grabbed my sketchpad off the desk. The pages were still open from last night.

  I didn’t remember drawing this one.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  A thin dragon curled around a shattered building. It was spined, elegant, eyes narrowed like it knew a secret I didn’t. There were tiny claw marks in the margins, like it had tried to crawl off the page.

  I ran my thumb across the graphite.

  Still just paper.

  Right?

  Later…

  In the studio lab Professor Klein walked into class holding a travel mug and a stack of critiques like he hated both equally. The studio was quiet except for the occasional clink of metal stools and the dull hiss of the heating system kicking on.

  I found my easel and set it up fast, hoping to stay invisible. Cam waved at me from across the room. Brynn sat beside him, her tablet already open and stylus flying.

  “Looking feral this morning, Moreno,” Cam whispered.

  “Art goblin hours,” I muttered back.

  “Respect.”

  We were supposed to be working on abstraction today. Interpret your inner world or whatever. Mine had apparently decided to manifest as smoke, claws, and something burning just out of view.

  By the time I looked up, I had drawn a massive green eye behind a set of teeth like broken glass. The edges of the page looked scorched, even though my pencil hadn’t moved past the middle.

  I blinked.

  Were those... runes?

  If I remembered runes are illegal, by King Valen’s orders. I wonder is his wife against runes. He probably smells like onions and McConnell’s since he’s fat. I could go for a burger and fries.

  I snorted a laugh.

  “Ms. Moreno, what’s funny?” Professor Klein snapped, eyes narrowing like he was just waiting for someone to make his day harder.

  I straightened up my stool. “N-nothing.”

  He held my gaze for a second longer than was necessary, then continued his lecture like I hadn’t just embarrassed myself in front of twenty other art majors.

  Cam, bless his gossipy soul, leaned over just enough to whisper, “You good? Or did you just spiritually disconnect from this plane?”

  I shot him with a weak glare. He grinned like a cat who’d just knocked over something expensive.

  And of course, Brynn didn’t say a word, he just raised a brow and sipped from her matte black skull-patterned thermos like this was Tuesday morning entertainment.

  I looked down at my sketch again.

  The eye hadn’t moved.

  But the longer I stared at it, the more I swore it looked... deeper.

  Not like “emotional depth.” I mean, three-dimensional depth. Like if I touched the page, I might fall in.

  “Well, Ms. Moreno, you can get out since your painting caught fire,” Professor Klein snapped.

  I blinked. “What? It’s not on fire.”

  He raised a brow like he was just dying for a reason to throw me into the nearest academic dungeon. “Then why is the painting burned on the edges?”

  I looked down.

  And, yeah... okay.

  That was not how it had looked five minutes ago.

  The corners of the canvas were blackened, the paper curling inward, edges burnt like someone had taken a lighter to them. But there’d was no flame. No smell. Nothing.

  “Well, how should I know?” I snapped. “I don’t have a lighter or know any fire spells.”

  That last part slipped out before I could stop it.

  His face turned red—tomato red—like he’d been holding in rage since the Semester began. “Get the fuck out and leave your canvas for the Academic Integrity Board!”

  I stood up too fast and the stool clattered to the floor. “It’s my work,” I hissed, grabbing the edge of the canvas.

  He reached out and snatched the other side like it was some divine artifact. “It’s school property now.”

  And just like that, we were in a full-blown tug-of-war over my flaming, cursed, probably-going-to-ruin-my-life painting.

  “Let go,” I growled.

  “Let go,” he snapped right back.

  The class was dead silent. Someone’s pen hit the floor, and no one dared pick it up.

  Then—

  The canvas pulsed.

  Not metaphorically.

  It throbbed once in both our hands, like a heartbeat. A slow, deep thump.

  I let go.

  Klein didn’t.

  The moment I released it, a line of fire slithered from the eye on the page and licked across his sleeve.

  He screamed.

  I didn’t wait.

  I grabbed my bag and bolted.