Academy of Dust and Shadows by Oriana Bael
Academy of Dust and Shadows by Oriana Bael
English | 2026 | Sci-Fi & Fantasy
What if the only way to save your family was to wake a dead god and bind your soul to the enemy?
Down in the toxic, smog-choked slums of The Sink, survival is paid for in blood. Zylia Raine knows this better than anyone, hoarding scraps of rusted Aether just to keep her twelve-year-old sister breathing. But when sheer desperation pushes her into the glittering, aristocratic heights of Aethelgard to rob the Royal Museum, she accidentally triggers an ancient, forbidden magic. With a single drop of blood, she resurrects Acheron—a ten-thousand-year-old dragon made entirely of petrified fossil and ash.
Instead of facing the executioner’s pyre, Zylia is thrust into the brutal Vanguard Academy, a lethal military college for the high-born elite. Shackled by a heavy void-iron suppression collar, her deadly necromantic powers are now entirely controlled by the very aristocrats who despise her. She is bound to the Triad: Ronan, a brooding and calculating shadow-wielder; Korvan, a massive brawler with explosive kinetic magic; and Lysander, an ice-cold, pristine prince. To fly her undead beast and survive the punishing drills, she must feed on their life force.
Yet Vanguard is hiding a rotting, terrifying secret beneath its polished black glass floors. The horrifying parasites known as the Vordrathi aren’t just swarming outside the mountain’s walls; they are being bred and kept in the dark by the ruthless Commandant Ravena. Thrust into forced proximity with the arrogant warriors she was raised to hate, Zylia must navigate a lethal web of conspiracy, prejudice, and an undeniable, magnetic attraction that threatens to burn them all to the ground. Will she risk everything to sever her chains, or will the intoxicating, soul-deep bond she shares with her captors ultimately become her salvation?
