Chapter 3 Riley's POV

The morning I left the trailer, nothing felt real. My backpack, frayed strap, stubborn zipper, the same one I’d hauled to dead-end shifts, sat open on the floor.

Inside, I stuffed the few pieces of clothing I owned, a secondhand notebook, my cracked phone, the scholarship letter, and one photograph I couldn’t leave behind.

Its edges curled from years of being handled: me at six, missing teeth but smiling wide, my dad sober enough that day to hold me steady.

He hadn’t come home the night before. Maybe he’d drunk himself into forgetting, or maybe not showing up was easier than saying goodbye.

A small, selfish part of me still wished he’d slammed the door, cursed me out, at least then I’d have heard his voice one last time. Instead, I left a note on the counter and walked out into silence. The stale air of beer and cigarettes clung to my clothes as I shut the door for good.

The bus to Silverwood looked like it had been pulled from another life. Leather seats instead of torn vinyl. Bottled water waiting in cup holders.

Even the driver wore pressed gloves. It all whispered the same thing: not for you.

I pressed my forehead to the glass as my town blurred into the distance. Gray streets, rusted signs, gas stations where everyone knew my name.

Each mile stripped away a layer of the girl I’d been, though some labels felt branded deep enough to follow me anywhere.

By the time Silverwood’s gates rose into view, tall iron laced with silver crests, I was sweating through my palms.

Beyond them, manicured lawns rolled wide, stone towers pierced the sky, and banners snapped like they belonged to another century. Silverwood Academy didn’t just look powerful. It was power.

Students crossed the courtyard in crisp uniforms and polished shoes, their laughter ringing out like it had been rehearsed. They belonged here. I clutched my backpack tighter, reminding myself I didn’t.

Then I felt it. The weight of a stare. It prickled across my skin, sharp enough to make me look up, and there he was.

Across the courtyard, he stood like the axis tilted toward him. Dark hair, just tousled enough to look careless.

Jaw cut sharp, posture loose but coiled like a predator seconds from lunging. But it was his eyes that rooted me in place: cold gray, endless, unreadable, and they were locked on mine.

The crowd fell away. No uniforms. No banners. Just him.

Most people, faced with that kind of presence, would look down. Instinct. Survival. I didn’t. Maybe I was too stubborn, maybe too reckless, but I held his gaze. My pulse thundered in my ears, begging me to look away. I refused.

Something flickered across his face, quick as a blade’s flash. Surprise. Curiosity. Then the faintest curl at his mouth. Not a smile. Something sharper. Dangerous.

The headmistress’s voice cut through the air, calling everyone to assembly. The spell shattered. I dropped my gaze first, disappearing into the swell of students, my heart hammering so loud it felt like the whole courtyard could hear.

What the hell was that? I told myself it was nothing. Just a stare. Just a boy. But deep down I knew better.

Nothing about Silverwood was going to be ordinary, and definitely not him.

The crowd swept me forward into the great hall. My sneakers squeaked against polished marble, my reflection flickering back at me from a floor polished to glass.

I kept my head down, clutching my backpack like it could shield me. The ceiling soared above, painted with constellations that shimmered faintly, as if they were alive.

Silver banners draped from the rafters, embroidered with the academy crest, a wolf wound around a sword.

Every detail whispered the same truth: this place wasn’t built for people like me. It was built to remind me I didn’t belong.

I slipped into the back, half-hidden by a pillar. No one smiled. Their eyes cut over me like blades, assessing, dismissing, some lingering long enough to curl with disdain.

I didn’t need to hear the words to know them: trailer trash. scholarship case. doesn’t belong.

The headmistress stepped onto the stage, tall and regal, her silver-blonde hair twisted into a chignon so precise it looked carved.

She didn’t need to raise her voice. Her presence alone silenced the hall.

“Welcome to a new year at Silverwood Academy,” she said, her tone smooth as steel. “Here, you will be challenged. You will be sharpened. The weak will either rise, or they will break.”

The words cracked through the air like a whip. Around me, students straightened, pride glittering in their eyes. My stomach clenched. Rise or break. That wasn’t a motto, it was a warning.

She introduced some of the professors, each more intimidating than the last. Professor Marcellus, with eyes like cold steel that stripped the skin off your thoughts.

Professor Liora, elegant, watchful, her smile curved like a knife’s edge. Even the human professor, Mr. Natheniel, carried secrets heavier than the briefcase in his hand.

Whispers stirred the air when the headmistress paused at the end of her list.

“And finally,” she said, her voice cutting clean across the hall, “we welcome a new student this term. Riley Walker, recipient of the Silverwood Scholarship.”

The words struck like a spotlight. Every head turned. Heat burned up my neck as the weight of hundreds of eyes pinned me in place.

Curiosity. Judgment. Hostility. My chest tightened until I could barely breathe. I wanted to vanish, to melt into the marble under my shoes. But there was nowhere to hide.

So I did the only thing I could, I lifted my chin, just enough. My pulse thundered, but if they were waiting for me to flinch, they’d have to wait longer.

And that’s when I felt him. Those same icy-gray eyes, watching me from the front of the hall.

He leaned back in his seat like the world bent toward him, flanked by three other boys I hadn’t noticed before, who looked like they’d been sculpted to belong here, sharp suits, sharper smiles.

This time, he didn’t smirk. Didn’t look amused. He only watched, unreadable, like he was already peeling back my layers to see what I was made of.

I broke the stare first, heat crawling up my throat.

The assembly closed in a roar of applause, thunder echoing off marble and stone. Students spilled into the courtyard again, their laughter sharp, their whispers sharper.

Some brushed past me without a glance. Others made sure to slam shoulders into mine, hard enough to send my bag sliding down my arm.

“She won’t last a week,” a girl hissed as she passed, her perfume sharp as poison.

Maybe she was right. Maybe this place was built to break people like me, but as I tugged my bag higher on my shoulder and stepped into the sunlight, I thought of the letter folded in my backpack, the one that had pulled me here, that reminded me why I’d come.

I hadn’t worked three jobs, scrubbed my hands raw with bleach, and survived nights alone in a trailer just to shatter under the weight of polished shoes and perfect smiles.

I wasn’t here to blend in. I was here to fight, and maybe, just maybe, to figure out why a boy with storm-gray eyes had looked at me like I wasn’t ordinary at all.