The Shadow's Gambit (Chip's Awakening Series Book 1)

When the Academy's darkest secret chooses you, survival becomes rebellion. Chip Ashford never wanted to be special. As a blacksmith's son from a dying village, he expected a life of honest labor — until his magical awakening revealed something the elite mages of Aetherion Academy fear more than any enemy: a Prismatic Core. Unlike the nobles who wield a single element with precision, Chip can touch them all. It's a power that shouldn't exist. A power that makes him either the kingdom's greatest weapon — or its most dangerous threat. When shadow-beasts attack his village and a cryptic letter warns of a conspiracy reaching into the Academy's highest ranks, Chip realizes his awakening was no accident. Someone has been watching. Waiting. And now they're ready to harvest what they've sown. Caught between a system built to exploit him and forces that would see him destroyed, Chip must master a power that grows harder to control with every use. Because the truth buried beneath the Academy doesn't just threaten his future — it threatens everyone he's ever loved. Some powers are meant to be controlled. Others are meant to break the world.