Chaotic Affinity: A Rebirth Magic Academy Romance

Genoveva Stuart POV:

I took a taxi to King's Cross Station.

The letter's instructions led me to a forgotten corner between platforms nine and ten, where a dust-coated mirror stood ignored by the crowds. Nobody looked at it. Nobody ever did.

I clutched my ticket—a quaint card printed with the emblem of the Starfall Express. As the clock struck midnight, the mirror's surface rippled like moonlight on water.

I touched the ticket to the glass.

My hand passed through a cold, liquid curtain.

I stepped in after it.

The world dissolved and reformed. The station's noise was gone, replaced by an ancient platform bathed in pale light: the Phantom Platform. A crimson steam train waited in silence, the school's four-beast crest gleaming on its engine.

I pulled out my phone to check the time.

The screen was black. No signal—not a single bar. I stared at it, then tucked it away and smiled despite myself. The world I was stepping into didn't run on any of the things I had grown up with.

The Starfall Express carried us through a night that felt days long. When it slowed, I followed the students out—and saw it.

The School of Myriad Races.

A castle of towering spires, cradled between mountains and a vast, dark lake, grander than anything I had ever seen. The students spilling from the train were every bit as strange as the stories promised: girls with fox ears and silver tails, boys whose eyes glowed faintly, a tall silver-haired girl whose pointed ears caught the lamplight, a youth with the sheen of scales at his throat.

My first morning in the world of the myriad races.

At the main gate, older students wearing prefect badges greeted the arrivals.

I handed my admission letter to the one in charge: a blond boy with Abyssal House's sea-dragon emblem on his chest. His eyes flicked to my name. Then to the notation beside it—Chaotic Affinity. Contempt crossed his face before he bothered to hide it.

He passed the letter to his companions. They snickered.

"Chaotic Affinity?" one said, loud enough for me to hear. "Has the Silver Cloud Society run out of decent blood? Sending us their trash?"

The blond prefect adopted the flat tone of a man doing an unpleasant duty. "Genoveva Stuart. Per Article Seven of the new-student statutes, any student with a special affinity or questionable background must pass the Gauntlet of Elements to prove their worthiness to enter the Keep of Myriad Races."

I knew there was no such statute. It was hazing.

The Gauntlet was a hundred-step stone staircase, every step charged with raw elemental energy—built to knock down, disorient, and bruise any ordinary first-year who dared attempt it.

Around me, whispers rippled—pity and morbid curiosity. The rumor was already spreading: the useless one was about to be humiliated.

I felt no anger. I offered no argument. I gave a slight bow, my voice calm.

"Of course, Prefect. Is there anything I should do to prepare?"

My easy answer seemed to stun them. The tears, the protests, the panic they were braced for—none of it came.

The blond prefect frowned, annoyed that his punch had landed on cotton.

Beside him, a red-haired boy in Blaze-Spirit House had been watching with amusement. Now he looked at me with a flicker of surprise.

Something else caught me. Red hair—and behind the amusement, something quieter, harder to read. When his eyes crossed the lamplight, I noticed they weren't quite round. The pupils were narrow, slit-like, and for half a heartbeat they held a faint, molten glow.

Dragon-kin. So the old races had begun sending their children here too.

The prefect jerked his chin at a winding stone path. "Prepare? No. Go. If you can walk the hundred steps before your magic runs dry, you pass."

I nodded and set my suitcase down beside the path.

I walked to the foot of the Gauntlet, and the whispers grew louder.

"Is she actually going to try? She'll be flattened."

"A Chaotic Affinity can't even master a single element. How is she supposed to pass?"

I ignored them and stood before the first step.

Just as I lifted my foot, the red-haired boy spoke. Low, but it carried.

"Hey. First-year."

I turned.

His expression was complicated—half pity, half curiosity. Then, almost reluctantly, he muttered, "Don't fight them. Try to feel them."

He turned away at once, as if he hadn't spoken at all.

The blond prefect shot him a dirty look but said nothing.

My heart gave a small, strange flutter.

"Don't fight. Feel."

I gave the boy a grateful glance, though he wasn't looking. Then I took a breath, and under everyone's eyes, I set my foot on the first step of the Gauntlet of Elements.