Storm of shadows, p.1
Storm of Shadows, page 1
Storm of Shadows
The Firestone Academy
Book 1
Hannah Haze
Copyright © 2025 by Hannah Haze
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Front cover designed by Covers by Christian
Edited by Buckley's Books
Formatted with Vellum
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Also by Hannah Haze
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Foreword
This book is a 'why choose' paranormal romance with one female main character and more than one potential love interest. This story is based in a dystopian world where the powerful prey on the weak and where much inequality and unfairness exists. There is physical and verbal bullying of the female main character in this story (although not by the love interests) as well as steamy scenes. For more detailed content warnings, please visit my website.
If you spot any typos in this book, please drop me a line so I can make it right: hannahhazewrites@gmail.com (Or just drop me an email anyway. I love to chat!).
Chapter One
Briony
Snowflakes swirl in the gray sky, catching in my hair and my eyelashes and the cold is biting. I blink them away and hug my bag more tightly to my chest, trying to ignore the stiffness in my fingers, the wetness creeping in through my boots and the ache in my chest.
I can’t decide if I’m pleased to be leaving Slate Quarter for the academy or really pretty furious about it.
It doesn’t matter either way. I’m going. I don’t exactly have a choice in the matter.
I glance down the platform at the other kids my age, surrounded by family and friends – hugging each other close, wiping tears from their eyes, laughing and joking.
There’s a sense of anticipation in the air, of excitement. I can practically taste it on the end of my tongue. These kids actually believe this is their ticket out of here. Their tickets to better things.
I snap my head away.
They’re fucking deluded.
And, actually, not kids anymore either.
Young adults – that’s what they call us when we hit twenty-one and that’s why we’re all lined up waiting for the train that’s going to whisk us away to the Firestone Academy.
The old clock on the wall, its face cracked, ticks another minute.
Monday, January 3rd. 8:57am.
The train will be here in three.
My dad isn’t coming to see me off.
Why am I even surprised?
He makes all sorts of promises in the evening, rarely keeps them in the morning. I know that, so why the hell did I think this time would be any different? Just because I’m leaving. Just because he swore on his life. The pull of the tavern has always been more alluring than the pull of his only daughter.
Only remaining daughter.
I swallow hard, trying not to think of that. Of the last time I stood on this platform waiting for this train. That day had been filled with glorious sunshine – rare out here in Slate Quarter – and my stomach had been full of that same excitement and anticipation that’s buzzing around today.
I don’t think it’s full of anything today. Mostly because Muriel refused me breakfast. Partly because it’s been years since I felt anything at all.
In front of me, the rail tracks vibrate, then rattle and then the station fills with the roar of the train. The people down the platform pick up bags, grab last-minute embraces, and kiss each other’s cheeks.
I simply clutch my rucksack and wait as the train slides into the station, halting with a hiss like a giant silver snake, the blacked-out windows of the engine like soulless eyes. It’s eerie and, as the doors part and an announcement instructs all young Slate Quarter adults to board, I can’t help but feel like we’re about to step inside the stomach of a monster.
I’ve no one to hug. No one to say my goodbyes to. Not even someone to wave to. So I climb on board, walking as far down the carriages as I can until I’m right at the front of the train and there’s nowhere else to go. I pick a bench on the far side from the platform and slide along to the window.
I’ve no interest in watching any more of the spectacle out there on the platform – a reminder that others have people who actually give a damn about them. I’m more than aware of that.
It takes a few more minutes and another announcement over the loudspeaker, and then the others board the train – a trickle at first, just one or two. Then groups of friends, chatting away animatedly, talking over one another, so damn excited. The noise makes me wince.
No one picks the seat next to me on the bench, but I keep my bag on my lap anyway, clinging it tightly to my chest. I lean my head against the frigid pane of glass and close my eyes.
Soon, the train jolts and then slithers forward. I don’t bother to open my eyes, to watch my home slip away from sight. It hasn’t felt like home for a long time. I don’t care if I’m leaving, even if I have no desire at all to go where we’re headed.
Around me, the other kids keep right on chattering like monkeys locked in a cage. I wish I had a way to block out all the noise. I wish I was out in the forest, away from everything and everyone. I’ve never ‘peopled’ very well.
Or maybe I did once.
Then things changed.
Unfortunately, like everyone else on this train, I have no special powers, no remarkable abilities. I don’t have a way to silence all the voices or block out all the sound. Just like them, I’ll endure a year of hell at the academy – tested, assessed, probed to the extreme. Only for them to find out just how ordinary we all are and send us straight back to Slate Quarter.
An hour passes and another. Somewhere along the journey, I open my eyes and watch the passing landscapes outside the window. I can’t help it. I’ve never left Slate Quarter before. This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home, and I am curious.
At first, it’s all snow and ragged crops of mountains as far as the eyes can see, then gradually it thaws and trees and grass spring up from the ground – so much green it makes my head buzz. I want to press my nose against the glass and breathe it all in, pretend this is some magical adventure and not the start of a year of pain.
Unfortunately, any hope of escaping into a comforting daydream is interrupted by the slamming open of the carriage door. I should ignore whoever is swaggering through the doorway, but that damn curiosity of mine gets the better of me and I can’t help peering over my shoulder.
Stanley Chandlers and his band of merry meatheads.
For a second, I catch his eyes and his top lip – one I’ve kissed – curls in disgust. Then I snatch my head back round and stare straight ahead.
I’m not interested in any of his bullshit.
“Hello, friends,” he snarls, and I can almost hear the others in the carriage shaking around me. Seriously, and they think they’re actually going to make it through Firestone Academy? That they’ll return home heroes to their families and not in a body bag?
I’d roll my eyes, but I know it’ll only provoke a jerk like Stanley.
“You know the drill,” he says, striding into the middle of the carriage, hands deep in his worn pant pockets. “Open your bags and hand over your lunches.”
There’s a menace in his voice, at odds to his laid-back demeanor, and no one argues. There’s rustling as people unzip bags and root around for their lunches – lunches their moms probably packed with care.
From the corner of my eye, I watch Stanley’s gang move around the carriage, snatching boxes and p
I turn my attention back to the window.
“And you too, Storm.” I feel a hand slap down on my shoulder and then his hoarse voice by my ear. “We all know you think you’re special or some such shit. You’re not. Give me your lunch.”
I’m trapped. My usual method of escape – running as fast as I freaking well can – is not an option. The only place to run to is right off the end of the carriage, onto the tracks, and most probably under the wheels of the train.
I snap my head around and glare at him. “Why? Did your mom forget to pack you one?”
It’s a low blow. One I know will hit him hard. I doubt anyone else knows about his mom. Only me.
His brow furrows, his eyes turn cruel, and he shakes me so damn hard I feel my brain rattle against my skull.
It’s hard to remember the sweet boy he used to be, the one I spent that summer with three years ago. The one who was my friend. The one I kissed.
That was before he got tall and big and popular.
“Give me your fucking lunch, bitch,” he snarls.
I keep my face blank. I learned from Muriel that if you show nothing, it makes them even madder. They want tears. They want anger. It’s best if you don’t give them anything at all.
“I don’t have any,” I say robotically.
He slams me back against the seat. The carriage is silent except for the rattle of the train on the tracks and the wind whistling past the windows. Everyone else is still, watching us.
“You’re lying.” He takes a fistful of the collar of my thin jacket. “You think you’re special.”
“I don’t,” I whisper.
“You think you’re going to get to the academy and they’re going to see how smart you are and you’ll be assigned Granite Quarter. But you’re wrong. You’re fucking stupid. There’s only a handful of us who are going to make it through the academy with enough points to be assigned some better quarter – who aren’t going back to that shithole. And you won’t be with us.”
For once, he may actually be right. Although, I doubt it will be as many as a handful. One or two, possibly. Stanley, though, has a good chance. He’s strong and athletic – he certainly won’t make it to Granite Quarter with all the nerds and scholars, definitely won’t be going to Onyx Quarter with the shadow weavers, but he has a good chance of Iron Quarter with all the other jocks and soldiers.
“Oh - kay,” I say slowly, as if what he’s saying is the most boring thing I’ve ever heard.
His expression hardens further. Since his glow up, he’s been used to people treating him with respect. I can sense the blood in his veins boiling.
“Last chance, you little slut.”
I snort.
And he slams his fist right into my face. I hear my cheek crack and pain spirals right across my face and into the recesses of my skull. My mouth fills with the warm coppery taste of blood and my vision multiplies.
Despite the pain, I wrap my arms tightly around my bag and clutch it to my chest. He tugs on it, but I cling all the harder, refusing to let it go.
“You’re going to regret this,” he snarls, swinging his fist into my ribs and then against the side of my head.
I expect him to keep swinging, to beat me until I’m unconscious and he can take the bag from my limp arms. He doesn’t. He stops and stalks away with his treasure, the carriage door slamming shut behind him.
He knows I’m not lying.
There may be something hidden in my bag, but it isn’t lunch.
Chapter Two
Briony
I wait for everyone else to shuffle off the train, then stand and swing my rucksack up onto my shoulder. The action makes my bruised ribs ache and I wince against the pain, my head still pounding from the two punches I took to the skull.
It’s fine. Sure, my reflection confirms my left eye’s all puffed up and slowly turning blue, a cut striping across my cheek bone where Stanley caught me with his ring. But it will heal. It always does.
I lift my chin, walk to the train door and descend the metal steps out onto another platform.
This one’s not covered in snow, but it’s as cold and bleak as home, a frigid wind whipping around all the kids already lined up for some kind of inspection, the sun hanging low in the sky and shadows already descending.
I join the line, standing beside some girl who used to be in my woodwork class back at school. I lower my bag to the ground, positioning it between my feet, and wait.
There must be several hundred of us at least and we’re the last ones to join. Not surprising. We had the furthest to travel because, of course, they’d build the academy closest to Onyx Quarter – can’t have all those spoiled bastards traveling too far, can we? Plus, I suspect our train was the oldest and most decrepit. In fact, I bet most of the shadow weavers were driven in fancy cars by goddamn chauffeurs.
It’s easy to spot who they are and an extreme sensation of disgust, hatred and fear spirals in my empty stomach.
They’re furthest down the line from us and dressed in clothes that weren’t handed down or retrieved from thrift stores. They’re made from bright, expensive-looking materials and they actually fit them. Although, that isn’t the only giveaway. There’s something about the kids – an air of self confidence and arrogance that’s discernible even over the distance.
Then there’s the actual shadow magic – some of the kids tossing balls of it up into the air or at each other, making it clear to all of us losers just how special they are.
I run my gaze over the other soon-to-be students lined up along the platform – kids from the white-collar workers in Granite Quarter or the soldiers and athletes in Iron Quarter. They aren’t as extravagantly dressed as the shadow weaver kids, but they still look a hell of a lot better than us.
It’s why any one of the kids I traveled up with in the train would give their right arm to come out of the academy and all its trials and testing and be designated one of the other quarters, escaping a lifetime of hard labor in the factories, fields and mines of Slate Quarter. A better life for them and their family – if they choose to take them. Not all do. Some want an entirely clean break. I can totally relate.
These Granite and Iron kids are ordinary, though, not a lot different from me and the others from Slate Quarter, and as a consequence, and to my utter shame, my gaze is pulled back to the shadow weavers.
To the magic. To the bright clothes. To the sense of power.
They are beautiful, all of them. And well fed and healthy.
It makes me hate them all the more.
They have so much — everything anyone could ever dream of — and yet they took the only thing I ever cared about.
Suddenly, my eyes meet the gaze of a boy peering along the line in our direction. For the briefest of seconds, we simply stare at each other – both stunned to be caught gaping.
Everything about him screams strength – from the way his shirt tugs across his muscular chest, to his square jaw and sharp cheekbones. He looks like he could crush me with his bare hands. Even his eyes are intimidating – an unusually pale color I can’t make out over the distance, that contrast – startling so – with his dark brows and the dark hair that hangs to his shoulders.
For a moment, it’s like everyone else around us melts away – all the noise, all the commotion – and it’s just me and him staring at each other across the distance. A strange sensation shivers down my spine and I wonder if we know each other, if I recognize him from somewhere. Is that what this is? Or is it his magic? I’ve never met a shadow weaver in real life before – although I’ve heard a fuck-load about them.
