Why dream of becoming royalty, when you can just overthrow them?
Two hundred years after the war, magic use is regulated, monitored, and limited to the select few who win the masochistic Gauntlet and are given 'The Power of the Eternals' and sent to Imdalind Academy for training.
No Gauntlet, no magic, no Paranormal Academy, and no place in society besides outcast with the Drains that live in the old tunnels that dot what once was Europe.
Unless you are me, who after a cruel twist of fate is left with a diseased fragment of magic. I may not be as strong as the bastards that lord over us, but that isn't going to stop me from raising more than a little hell.
This year I am running the Gauntlet, and enrolling myself in their damn academy. After all, there is no better way to take down the evil overlords of our world than from the inside.
Those royal bastards won't know what hit them.
Well, as long as I can get the King Ilyan's son, Rowan, out of my way...