**Chapter 57 – First Dawn, First Blood**
– September 8, 2029 – Aerie Academy, 5:57 a.m.**
The dorm wakes us with sunrise poured straight into our veins.
No alarm.
Just the sky outside our windows turning the exact shade of Remy's eyes when he's half-shifted, and every oath mark on our wrists flaring like a starting gun.
We're already moving.
Remy's braids are still loose from sleep, hanging wild down his back.
I'm in yesterday's jeans and the black tank he never got back.
Hellebore Mist is strapped across my spine like it never left.
*Sânge Furtună* is under my arm, humming.
The dorm gives us a door that opens onto the roof.
We step out into dawn that tastes like war.
The entire academy is already awake.
Floating islands lit gold and crimson.
Dragons doing barrel rolls between dorm towers.
A phoenix the size of a city bus screaming across the sky in greeting.
And waiting for us on the main plaza, exactly where the titanium half-pipe meets the void:
Kael Stormrider, barefoot on his hovering board, arms crossed, grinning like the devil just handed him a lighter.
Behind him: five upperclassmen in Aerie colors (black and violent violet), boards glowing, eyes sharp.
**Kael (voice carrying over the wind):**
"Advanced Sky Rebellion 501, first session.
Topic of the day:
Prove you belong here."
He kicks his board.
It flips once and becomes a spear of solid wind.
**Kael:**
"Rules are simple.
Last team standing gets breakfast.
Losers clean the Void Bowl with a toothbrush."
Seras is already in full armor, sunrise blazing off every plate.
Lucian's wings snap wide, thunder rumbling in his chest.
Kayo's tails spin into nine golden blades.
Rowan just smiles, closes one eye, and the gravity under the upperclassmen flickers like bad reception.
Remy looks at me.
I look at him.
We don't need words.
**Celeste & Remy (together):**
"Coyote Club rule number nine:
Never lose on an empty stomach."
We drop.
Boards hit the rail at the same time (mine sparking violet lightning, his carving claw-marks of desert wind).
The plaza erupts.
Seras becomes a comet.
Lucian becomes the storm that follows her.
Kayo opens nine portals and steps out of all of them at once.
Rowan rewrites the rules of physics just to watch the upperclassmen try to skate upside-down.
Remy and I move like we share one heartbeat.
He grinds a rail of frozen starlight on my left.
I ollie over a blast of wind meant to knock me into the void and land on the same rail, riding tandem.
We're laughing (actually laughing) while the world tries to kill us.
Kael meets us head-on, wind-spear leveled.
**Kael (grinning):**
"Welcome to college, freshmen."
Remy snarls, shifts mid-air into dire-coyote, and tackles him off the board.
I flip *Sânge Furtună*, catch Remy on the way down, and we ride the falling spear like it's just another rail.
The upperclassmen last exactly four minutes.
When the dust settles, Kael is on his back in the middle of the plaza, laughing so hard he can't breathe.
His team is scattered, boards cracked, pride in pieces.
We stand over him (six of us, breathing hard, glowing, unstoppable).
**Kael (wiping blood from a split lip):**
"Breakfast is on us.
And Storm Queen?"
He looks straight at me.
**Kael:**
"Word of advice.
The Sky Court's already heard you enrolled here.
They're coming early.
Like, end-of-first-week early."
I smile, slow and sharp.
**Celeste:**
"Good.
Let them see what happens when you try to drag kids out of a school that was built for war."
Remy slings an arm around my shoulders, braids brushing my cheek.
**Remy:**
"Tell them to bring better toys."
Kael laughs again, sits up, and offers his fist.
We bump it (six fists on one).
**Kael:**
"Class dismissed.
Go eat.
You've got four days until the Sky Court knocks.
Try not to burn the campus down before then."
We walk away together.
Boards under arms.
Oath marks blazing.
The dawn sky above Aerie Academy cracks once (just once) in what might be fear.
First morning of the rest of our lives?
We just aced it.
And the Sky Court is about to learn the hard way:
You don't interrupt a storm on its first day of college.
Not if you want to keep your wings.
** The Sky Court Knocks Early**
** September 11, 2029 – Aerie Academy, 3:33 a.m.**
The sky over Aerie rips open like paper.
Not a portal.
A wound.
Violet light pours out, thick and wrong, and the temperature drops thirty degrees in a heartbeat.
Every alarm in the academy goes off at once (dragons roaring, phoenixes screaming, the titanium half-pipe howling like it's in pain).
Our dorm door explodes off its hinges.
We're already up, already armed, already moving.
Remy is half-shifted, claws out, braids whipping in a wind that shouldn't exist.
Seras's armor is blazing so hot the air around her shimmers.
Lucian's wings are full thunder-dragon, lightning crawling over every feather.
Kayo's tails are nine burning spears.
Rowan has a book open in one hand and reality cracking in the other.
I have Hellebore Mist drawn and *Sânge Furtună* under my arm like I was born holding both.
Kael Stormrider skids through the ruined doorway, barefoot, bleeding from one ear, grinning like this is the best day of his life.
**Kael:**
"They're here.
Whole damn High Aerie.
They brought the Citadel."
He doesn't need to explain.
We can feel it.
The floating citadel that was supposed to wait above Everest is parked directly above the academy now, so massive it blocks out the stars.
Its shadow is a physical weight.
A voice rolls down from it (ancient, genderless, made of wind and judgment).
**Sky Court (voice shaking the islands):**
"CELESTE VALENTINA MORAU AND HER UNLAWFUL COURT.
YOU WERE SUMMONED.
YOU DEFIED.
SURRENDER THE SKY YOU STOLE OR WE TAKE IT BACK IN BLOOD."
Remy snarls so loud the dorm windows that are left shatter.
**Remy:**
"They want to come to our house on week one?
Let's give them a welcome party."
Seras cracks her neck, armor flaring brighter.
**Seras:**
"I've been waiting to punch a cloud with a crown." And Now I can Cast Off grid Too Because of the Armor Is a Generator of Godly Magic.
Kael tosses us each a small black stone etched with the Aerie crest.
**Kael:**
"Emergency warp stones.
One squeeze and every student on campus drops whatever they're doing and comes running.
We've been waiting for someone to give the Sky Court a reason."
I look at my pack.
They're already nodding.
I squeeze the stone.
The entire academy answers.
Thousands of warp-flags bloom across every island (students, professors, dragons, phoenixes, things I don't even have names for).
They land around us in waves.
Aerie Academy just declared war.
I step forward onto the broken balcony, wind tearing at my hair, Hellebore Mist singing.
Above us, the citadel opens like a mouth.
Winged figures in storm-silver armor pour out (hundreds, maybe thousands).
I raise my katana to the sky.
Lightning answers, splitting the night in half.
**Celeste (voice carrying to every corner of the academy):**
"This is Aerie soil.
You want the sky?
Come and try to take it."
Remy steps up beside me, dire-coyote form towering, golden eyes blazing.
**Remy:**
"Coyote Club rule number ten:
When the Sky Court crashes your first week of college—
you remind them who actually owns the horizon."
The first wave of Sky soldiers dives.
We meet them halfway.
The war for the sky starts now.
And we're not the ones who are scared.