Daughter of the Shadow Court

Ascendria Academy never slept.

Even at dawn, the sky above the floating campus buzzed with patrol drones, aerial transport skiffs, and internal system recalibrations. But beneath the hum of technology and duty, a tension had taken root.

An unease.

No announcement had been made about the Nullblood breach.

No memo had addressed the blackouts in the Gate Trial results.

But word spread anyway.

And in the training halls, lecture amphitheaters, and bloodline sparring arenas, one name kept circling like a storm on the horizon.

Jace Thorn.

---

Inside Tower West, Jace stood shirtless in the private training chamber attached to their "quarantine suite." His body was leaner than before, muscle corded tightly beneath skin etched with faint sigils that only flared when his Codex stirred.

He threw another punch into the reinforced kinetic slab, watched it vibrate under the impact.

> Codex Synchronization: 21%

Next Integration Threshold: 30% – Requires either: Soul Weapon Awakening / Unique Crystal Absorption / Hybrid Bloodline Stabilization

He exhaled.

The Nullblood Echo's essence still pulsed in his blood. The traits he'd gained—Null Pulse, Adaptive Reflex Chain, the surge of strength—hadn't faded. If anything, they felt more real than before.

But he hadn't used them again since.

Not yet.

Not until he understood what they were turning him into.

"You keep punching that wall and it's going to punch back," Violet said, stepping into the chamber.

She wore the dark purple combat garb issued to upperclassmen, though hers bore no house insignia. Her sword, sheathed across her back, glowed faintly with shifting runes—more active than before.

Jace rolled his shoulder. "Still sore from yesterday?"

"Barely," she replied, tossing him a flask of recovery fluid. "But you should be asking yourself the same thing."

Jace caught it, drank. "I feel wired. Like there's something under my skin trying to crawl out."

Violet nodded, leaning against the wall. "That's the soul weapon. It's coming."

"I thought only awakened nobles could manifest one."

She smirked. "You're a hybrid Codex bearer who devoured a living shadow. Stop comparing yourself to nobles."

He laughed once.

Then paused.

"…When did you awaken yours?"

Violet's eyes turned distant.

"When I was twelve. During a fire raid. My village was burning, my sister buried under rubble. I didn't pray. I didn't scream. I commanded."

She pulled the blade from her back.

The runes flared brighter.

"Steel obeyed. And I became something else."

Jace stared.

She sheathed it again, slowly. "For you, it'll be different. The Codex will forge yours. It won't ask what weapon you want. It'll ask what you are."

---

Later that afternoon, the summons came.

Not from the Academy council.

But from someone higher.

The message was short. No signature. No seal. Just a blood-red ribbon across black parchment.

> "Ascendria receives its guests with dignity. Be dressed by dusk."

"She arrives tonight."

Violet read it twice.

Her grip tightened slightly.

"Who's 'she'?" Jace asked.

Violet didn't answer at first.

Then—"Someone from the Shadow Court."

"The same one the Nullblood Core came from?"

"No," Violet whispered. "Worse."

---

Far across the continent, a crimson gate opened within the root caverns of the old war-buried lands. From within stepped a girl—barefoot, tall, dressed in layered silk shadow armor that whispered against itself with every step.

Her eyes glowed faintly—lunar silver with a slit of obsidian down each pupil.

Hair black as night draped across her back like a living shroud.

And behind her, monsters slithered back into hiding.

She had no entourage.

No guard.

She was the threat.

The escort from Ascendria waited outside the cavern. All three of them—elite sky-knights—bowed as she emerged.

No words exchanged.

She boarded their craft.

And as they took flight toward Ascendria, the temperature dropped.

Even the clouds parted to make way.

"The Heiress and the Hybrid"

The great sky-lift hummed as it ascended the final spire of Ascendria's inner sanctum—the Hall of Convocation, a place few students ever entered and fewer still ever left with their status intact.

At the summit, banners of the twelve founding bloodlines hung like solemn sentinels from gilded rafters. Floor tiles shimmered with imbued arrays, defensive enchantments baked into every inch of stone. The hall was warded, layered, and reinforced not just against invasion—but against betrayal.

Jace stood at the center, flanked by two silent guards.

He wasn't in chains.

But he might as well have been.

Across the room, seated on a throne of silver and blackthorn branches, sat the girl from the Shadow Court.

No… woman.

Up close, she was impossible to mistake for a student or emissary. Her presence wasn't loud—it was sovereign. The moment she entered the academy earlier that night, every noble sense flared in warning. Even the council didn't know how to greet her. She'd offered no name. No bloodline. Just one statement:

> "Bring me the Codex bearer. Alone."

Now here she sat, legs crossed, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of a curved obsidian dagger.

Her eyes locked onto Jace the moment he entered.

"Come forward."

He did.

Every step made the Codex in his blood pulse louder, the symbols along his spine tingling. As if part of it recognized her.

She studied him for several long moments before speaking again.

"You're young. And yet… your bloodline screams ancient."

Jace met her gaze. "You said you wanted to speak with me. So speak."

A corner of her mouth twitched.

"A little bold for someone newly forged. Good."

She stood with graceful precision, descending the steps of the throne in silence.

"My name," she said at last, "is Selira Veyne. Last heiress of the Shadow Court. Former wielder of the first complete Bloodbound Codex."

Jace blinked. "Former?"

She stopped one pace from him.

"The original Codex fractured during the final war. To prevent its power from falling into enemy hands, I shattered it myself. The fragments were cast into forgotten realms… bound to bloodlines that would one day awaken."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "One of those fragments found you."

Jace's voice dropped. "Why me?"

"That," she said softly, "is the only question I don't have an answer for."

---

A long silence passed between them, charged and heavy.

Then Selira stepped around him, slowly, as if measuring his soul.

"I've read the signatures etched into your Codex. Absorbed Nullblood. Formed a bond with a rogue inheritance holder. Fought Ascendria's enforcers and lived. Grown faster than protocol should allow."

She stopped behind him.

"And yet… you're still raw. You don't understand the Codex."

"Then teach me," Jace said without turning.

Another pause.

Then—

"I will."

He turned.

Selira faced him fully, raising one hand.

A faint red glow emerged from her palm—a projection of a tree. Its trunk was shaped like a spine. Its branches twisted into veins. Its roots stabbed downward into a pool of blood.

"This is the true Codex," she said. "Not a system. Not a tool. A living archive. Every battle it records shapes its next bearer. Every drop of blood you shed writes a new law."

She looked at him then—not as a teacher to a student… but as something more.

"I offer you a choice, Jace Thorn. Return to the shadows with me. Let me guide you. Train you in the ways the Council would never permit. Or remain here—among wolves who smile while sharpening knives."

Jace didn't respond immediately.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Every instinct screamed for caution.

And yet…

His Codex pulsed softly.

> [Request Acknowledged – Lineage Crosslink Detected]

Selira Veyne: Compatible with Advanced Synchronization Pathway

Warning: Accepting guidance may accelerate Codex growth beyond stable limits.

He swallowed.

"What happens if I say no?"

Selira tilted her head. "Then I return to the Court. And you'll remain here… until they decide what part of you is worth keeping."

"…And if I say yes?"

She smiled faintly.

"Then I'll teach you how to burn gods."

---

From a hidden chamber above the throne hall, Violet watched the entire exchange through a one-way viewing mirror. She said nothing, but her eyes followed Selira's every movement like a blade pressed to her back.

The Covenant had told her what to expect.

But not who.

Not her.

And now that she had returned…

Violet's mission had changed.

Dramatically.

"Forked Paths of Blood"

The offer hung in Jace's mind long after Selira Veyne vanished back into the folds of her shadow escort—leaving nothing behind but the scent of winter air and old power.

She hadn't demanded a decision on the spot.

Just a number:

> "Twenty-four hours. At dawn, I leave. With or without you."

Now the clock ticked.

And Jace felt it in every breath.

---

He stood alone on the academy's east terrace, the one place left unwatched by drones or surveillance charms. The wind here tasted like rain—clean and cold. Below, the campus thrummed with life: students training in formation, nobles boasting over cultivation rankings, instructors shouting feedback into the wind.

He was no longer part of that world.

Maybe he never had been.

His reflection shimmered faintly in the terrace glass. Not because of the lighting—but because the Codex marks along his arms had begun to shift again. Black and crimson sigils reconfiguring themselves, preparing… for something.

> [Codex State: Pre-Synchronization Flux]

Warning: Soul Weapon Manifestation Incoming

Estimated Timeframe: 36–72 hours

Potential Type: Adaptive (Form not yet fixed)

"Of course," he muttered. "Now it decides to wake up."

Behind him, a voice spoke.

"You're not seriously considering her offer."

Jace turned.

Violet leaned against the terrace rail, arms folded, expression unreadable.

He didn't answer immediately.

Then—"You saw her."

"I saw danger wearing confidence like a cloak," she said. "And you? You were staring like she hung the damn moon."

Jace frowned. "She knew things. About the Codex. About me. Stuff no one here's even tried to explain."

"And you think she's the answer?" Violet asked, stepping closer. "You barely survived your last breakthrough. You think following someone like her is going to stabilize you?"

Jace was quiet.

Then, softly, "No. I think it'll push me further. But maybe that's what I need."

She didn't respond.

The silence between them was thick—until Violet broke it.

"They called me," she said. "The Covenant."

Jace's eyes narrowed. "What for?"

"To test my loyalty." Her voice was quiet. "They told me if I keep following you… if I keep protecting you… I'll be branded a traitor."

Jace stared at her.

"And?"

She looked up at him then—silver eyes meeting his, no masks left between them.

"I told them to go to hell."

---

Meanwhile, beneath the academy...

The Council was not unified.

Not anymore.

In the shadows of the chamber beneath the Hall of Convocation, voices clashed like swords.

"He cannot be allowed to leave with her."

"Stopping him would mean open conflict with the Court!"

"We should extract the Codex before it becomes more deeply bound—"

"Do that, and you'll have a bloodbath."

At the edge of the gathering, a silent figure in a hood listened without comment. Her hand rested on a glass vial filled with swirling red mist.

Not yet, she thought.

But soon.

He will return to the Codex.

Or he will break it.

---

That night...

Jace dreamed.

Or… something dreamed through him.

He stood in an endless red field, sky cracked open with lightning. Across the horizon, armored figures made of blood and light knelt before a single throne forged of stone and fang.

On that throne sat himself.

Older. Stronger. Eyes burning.

But different.

His voice—cold, jagged—echoed through the dreamscape:

> "Do you want power, Jace Thorn? Then bury the part of you that hesitates. That asks."

The seated version of himself stood.

Took a blade from the air.

And drove it through the ground.

> "Or you will die still asking."

---

Jace woke with sweat dripping down his spine, the Codex glowing along his collarbone.

> [Codex Prompt: Soul Weapon Awakening Sequence Ready]

Trigger Required: Voluntary Risk or Mortal Combat

Warning: Delay may cause Core Instability

He sat up, breathing hard.

Outside, the horizon cracked with first light.

Dawn.

Time to choose.