Confluence Academy · #1
Unbound
Nineteen-year-old Nessa Thorne expects death when she volunteers for Empire's selection. Instead, she's thrust into Confluence Academy, where students harness elemental magic and bond powerful beasts—from wolves to ancient dragons—forging themselves into the Empire's most lethal weapons.
Students are branded by affinity: water, air, earth, or fire. But Nessa’s mark is different. A silver spiral—the mark of an unbound. It’s a power so dangerous her kind were hunted to extinction centuries ago—or so the Empire claims.
To survive, she must hide what she is in a castle that reeks of blood, where students kill each other for advantage and failing to tether an elemental means death.
Nessa’s greatest threat may be the only other volunteer—Raith Hollow, a powerful fire affinity whose scorching gaze follows her every move and whose secrets could topple kingdoms.
Alliances are forged in blood, enemies circle like vultures, and forbidden desires close in. Death once seemed like release from her tragic past. Now it's not an option. She'll embrace her terrible potential or watch everything she's fought for burn.
At Confluence Academy, students leave as weapons... or they don't leave at all.
What to expect: A delicious slow burn romance as dangerous as the magic? Check. A final line readers are saying will haunt you for weeks? Double check. An ending that will leave you desperate for book 2? Absolutely.
The series
There are places meant to forge warriors, and then there’s the Academy, a place built to break them first.
Read full series description
In a crumbling empire where elemental magic isn’t a gift but a currency of control, Nessa Thorne walks into the selection expecting pain, maybe even death. What she finds instead is something far more dangerous: power that should not exist, a bond with a dragon that defies the academy’s rigid laws, and a mark that ties her to a long-buried legacy. At Confluence Academy, survival depends not only on magical talent, but on reading every glance, every lie, every betrayal before it lands like a knife.
The academy's stone corridors echo with tension. Magic isn’t just taught here, it’s enforced, tested, weaponized. The students are blades in training, and Nessa is the one no one expected. Her ability to manipulate all four elements, a trait thought extinct, makes her a threat to both her peers and the empire itself. And yet, it’s not just the magic that stirs conflict. Emotions fray as loyalties twist, especially when it comes to Raith, a fire-wielding rival whose touch burns nearly as much as his secrets.
What begins as a fight to belong unravels into something deeper. Dragons whisper truths. The empire grows restless. And Nessa must decide if she will bend to the academy’s mold or become something that was never meant to be shaped.
Gripping, immersive, and laced with a dark academic tension, this romantasy series blends elemental warfare, slow-burn rivalries, and richly layered world-building into a storm you won’t see coming. Power doesn’t come without consequence here, and neither does love.
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