The Assassin Prodigy in the Royal Academy of Mages and Knight

Kael Vance is a ghost. Raised from infancy by the legendary Master of the Silent Blade assassin guild, he has become their greatest prodigy—a Qi master who can weave shadows and silence hearts. He knows nothing of friends, only contracts; nothing of classrooms, only kill-zones. His world shifts when a powerful Duke, desperate and cunning, contracts the guild not for a death, but for a guardian. His daughter, Lady Elara von Cassian, a genius ice mage with a cold demeanor and a target on her back, is entering the perilous political playground of the Royal Academy of Mages and Knights. Kael's mission: enroll as a commoner student, become Elara's unseen shield, and surgically eliminate anyone—student, professor, or noble—who threatens the Duke's house. Now, Kael must play the part of an average, magically-untalented orphan amidst the kingdom's most brilliant and arrogant youth. He must learn to feign incompetence in magic theory while his Qi senses murder plots in the dining hall. He must protect a girl who scorns his "lowly" presence, all while investigating a web of conspiracy that reaches the academy's highest towers. As he faces magical beasts, dueling clubs, and glittering balls, Kael finds the lines blurring between mission and life, between the assassin he was made to be and the person he might become.