MorriganBlackwood

Veinborn Protocol

Book One of the Glyphbound War

In a city ruled by blood and illusion, one forbidden bond could unravel the last law holding the shadows at bay.

Kael Drayce is a smuggler, a runner of illegal tech, and an expert at not asking questions. But when he accepts a job cracking a sealed vault beneath the vampire Citadel, he unleashes something he was never meant to see—**Vireya Nocturne**, an exiled vampire queen of the extinct Primeclade.

Sealed for over a century beneath glyph-coded stone, Vireya awakens into a future she doesn’t recognize and a city that wants her erased. Her resurrection triggers an ancient bond between her and Kael—one written in blood, older than any Protocol, and powerful enough to rewrite the Masquerade.

Now Kael is mutating, hunted, and haunted by visions of a past not his own. Vireya, still bound by secrets and betrayals, must navigate a world that turned her into a myth—and decide whether Kael is her jailer, her savior… or her weapon.

Together, they must outrun Protocol enforcers, decode blood-marked ruins, and survive a bounty placed on them by Clades who fear what they could become. Because the bond between them is not just illegal.

It’s alive.

And it’s waking up.

Veinborne Protocol

Chapter 4 – "The Crown and the Blade"

Part 1 – "The Summoning"

Not flames—yet—but data fire, signal sparks, pulsebombs whispered through every feedstream. Cipher cells, awakened by the fall of the Crucible, had begun striking in coordinated waves across Noctis-V. Small teams swept into Protocol relay stations, blacked out surveillance hubs, and corrupted archival cores. Every blow peeled back a layer of the Masquerade's armor.

From a rust-streaked overlook in Sector Vein, Kael watched as another drone blinked offline. A cheer rose behind him—Dax and Ril's team returning from their successful run, glyph-tags smoking.

Vireya stood at his side, face lit by the rising light of a system breaking apart.

"It's starting," she said, voice calm.

Kael nodded. "But they'll answer."

"They already have," Marion said, stepping through the access hatch with a folded dark envelope in one gloved hand. "We just received this."

Kael turned. The envelope shimmered faintly in the dim light, its seal marked by a stylized crown of ash—the symbol of the Midnight Throne.

"An invitation?" he asked, knowing the answer.

Vireya exhaled slowly, the motion long and cold. "The Court. They've been watching."

Marion nodded. "They're calling a summit. An emergency one. Underneath Citadel Vanta."

Dax scoffed. "They want to leash you. Turn you into a symbol before the war goes hot."

"They fear her," Marion said, eyeing Vireya. "But Kael... they loathe you."

Kael took the envelope. The seal stung his fingers—old magic, blood-writ.

Come. Or be hunted.

Marion stitched Kael's coat with light armor thread. Dax offered twin concealed blades—vibro-steel from the Cipher vault. Cedrin wrapped Vireya's glyph with a shimmer-weave scarf, designed to distort pattern scans.

"If they offer peace," Vireya said, buckling her boots, "it will be temporary."

Kael turned to her, voice even. "Then we'll treat it like a dance with knives."

They descended that night into the old tram system—bypassing surface Protocol routes now choked with retaliation strikes. At the lowest level of the city, the air thickened with incense and stone.

Kael tasted it on his tongue: iron, dust, memory.

"I don't belong here," he muttered.

Vireya took his hand. "Then neither do I."

The gates of Citadel Vanta rose like a maw carved into the foundation of the world. Gargoyle-faced guards flanked the entrance, their armor engraved with house crests older than cities. Behind them stood a tall woman draped in umbral velvet—her eyes like carved garnet.

She bowed faintly. "Vireya Nocturne. Kael Drayce. The Midnight Throne welcomes you to court."

The woman didn't flinch. "Mind your step. Royals play with blood and words alike."

The chamber beyond opened like a cathedral built for war. Black marble and crimson crystal lined the walls. Thorn-vine chandeliers dripped with bioluminescence. Dozens of nobles watched them enter—some seated, others cloaked in shadow, glyphs on their throats pulsing with restrained fury.

Vireya's face did not flicker. Kael's jaw tensed—but he walked taller.

From the far end of the hall, atop a high stair carved of bone-laced obsidian, sat the Elder.

A voice boomed from him—not loud, but deep, like tectonic plates grinding.

"Step forward, bondmarked. Tell us why you shouldn't be erased."

Vireya's voice rang clear. "Because your empire has already begun to fall. And we are the future it fears."