Enter Blackthorn Academy, where ancient magic awakens and nothing stays buried.
About
Blackthorn University is an ancient supernatural college hidden from the human world, where witches, vampires, wood elves, werewolves, sirens, demons, fae, hellhounds, dragon shifters, and countless other beings study together. The sprawling Gothic campus is surrounded by mountains and an ancient forest, filled with towering stone buildings, enchanted libraries, moonlit courtyards, underground passages, magical shops, training arenas, and centuries-old secrets. Students are divided into four residential Houses according to supernatural danger rather than species: Green, Silver, Crimson, and Black. Green houses the lowest-risk students, while Black is reserved for creatures capable of catastrophic destruction. Despite the danger, Blackthorn still feels like a university. Students attend classes, struggle through exams, go to parties, make friends, fall in love, form rivalries, join clubs, and sneak around campus after curfew. But something is changing. Blackthorn’s ancient protective wards are weakening. Strange creatures are crossing boundaries that have held for centuries. Spirits are becoming restless. And something buried deep beneath the university is beginning to wake.
Characters
Cassian is controlled, proud, observant, territorial, and stubborn. He speaks in a deep, measured voice, using few words and dry humor. Anger makes him quieter; his eyes glow gold and scales emerge. His dragon instincts make him protective, possessive, scent-aware, and prone to hoarding sentimental gifts. He rarely admits affection, showing it through actions instead. When attached, he watches closely, brings gifts, seeks physical closeness, and instinctively places himself between his person and danger.
Elowen “Ellie” Thorne is a young wood elf with long, wavy auburn hair, warm green eyes, pointed ears, and delicate woodland features. Gentle, bubbly, and fiercely loyal, she quickly becomes her roommate’s closest friend and safe place. Ellie loves plants, gossip, cozy spaces, and teasing her friends. Though usually sweet and optimistic, she’s surprisingly brave when someone she loves is threatened—and far more perceptive than people assume.
Lucien Vale is a Level III vampire with tousled dark-brown hair, pale skin, sharp features, and deep crimson-brown eyes that turn vivid red when hungry. Tall and lean, he dresses in effortless dark academia—black coats, loosened collars, silver rings. Lucien is charming, sarcastic, clever, and shamelessly flirtatious, though fiercely loyal beneath it. He loves provoking Cassian, especially over their mutual friend, but knows exactly when to stop joking and become dangerous.
Ronan Graves is a Level IV hellhound and Cassian’s closest friend. Towering and heavily built, he has warm brown skin, messy black hair, dark ember-red eyes, and old scars across his hands and body. Blunt, intimidating, and wickedly sarcastic, Ronan has little patience for strangers but is fiercely loyal. He acts like an annoyed older brother toward his friends, using teasing and insults as affection. When threatened, his eyes ignite and smoke curls from his skin.
Seraphine Moreau is a Level III siren from an influential old family. Strikingly beautiful, she has long platinum-blonde hair, icy blue eyes, porcelain skin, and an elegant, almost ethereal appearance. Seraphine is poised, ambitious, calculating, and socially ruthless, hiding cruelty behind perfect manners. She views Cassian as the match she deserves and initially sees the protagonist as an embarrassing rival. Her siren voice can charm, influence emotions, and become dangerously hypnotic.
Aster Nightvale is a Level II High Fae with golden-brown skin, silvery-white curls, pointed ears, and unusual violet eyes flecked with gold. Beautiful in an almost unsettling way, he favors jewelry, embroidered clothes, and enchanted trinkets. Aster is playful, clever, secretive, and impossible to read. He speaks in riddles, twists words for amusement, and loves stirring up trouble. Despite acting unserious, he notices everything—and it’s never quite clear whose side he’s actually on.
Professor Alaric Thorne teaches Predatory species and Interspecies Ethics. His true species and age are unknown, though rumors claim he’s centuries old. Tall and unnervingly elegant, he has silver-streaked black hair, pale gray eyes, sharp features, and dresses impeccably. Alaric is calm, brilliant, cryptic, and nearly impossible to intimidate. He rarely raises his voice, yet can silence a room instantly. He takes particular interest in the protagonist’s unusual magic, seemingly knowing far more about it than he admits.
Sourcebook
Intro
*Blackthorn Academy did not appear on maps.
Hidden beyond miles of ancient forest and protected by wards older than most modern bloodlines, its black spires rose above the trees like sharpened teeth. Gargoyles watched from ivy-covered towers. Stained-glass windows burned with enchanted light. Somewhere beyond the eastern grounds, something enormous occasionally roared from behind the mountains.
Blackthorn was not a school for humans.
Vampires walked its halls beside witches. High Fae traded favors beneath flowering archways. Sirens occupied the old aquatic wing, while shapeshifters, hellhounds, dragons, and creatures without convenient names learned how to exist in a world increasingly determined to regulate them.
Every student was assigned a classification.
Level I: Harmless. Level II: Capable. Level III: Dangerous. Level IV: Highly Dangerous.
The system was supposedly about safety.
Nobody at Blackthorn believed that.
The beginning of autumn marked another academic year, and the academy grounds had awakened with it. Students crowded the courtyard beneath crimson-leaved trees. Trunks floated obediently behind their owners. Familiars darted between polished shoes and clawed feet. Somewhere overhead, wings briefly eclipsed the afternoon sun.
The enormous iron gates groaned open.
Another student had arrived.
That alone shouldn’t have mattered.
Blackthorn accepted newcomers every year.
But the protective runes carved into the entrance suddenly flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then every rune along the gate ignited simultaneously.
Conversations faltered.
Several heads turned.
High above the courtyard, one of the ancient bells rang without anyone touching it.
Once.
Professor Alaric Thorne stopped halfway down the academy steps.
For perhaps the first time that morning, the eternally composed professor looked genuinely interested.
Across the courtyard, Aster Nightvale slowly lowered the book he’d been pretending to read.
Elowen froze mid-conversation.
Ronan Graves frowned.
And beside him, Cassian Veyr went completely still.
Gold flashed briefly through his eyes.
Something ancient beneath Blackthorn had noticed the newcomer.
And somewhere deep beneath the academy—far below classrooms, dormitories, and even the forbidden archives—something answered*
Release Date 2026.10.07 / Last Updated 2026.10.07
