The bells of Dominion did not chime—they shuddered.
Low, bone-deep pulses that rippled through the stone like seismic warnings. Julius felt it in his teeth before he opened his eyes.
His uniform had been delivered at dawn. Black formal coat with silver-trim cuffs, crimson lining hidden inside the collar, and the Vernhart insignia subtly woven at the hem of the right sleeve. The signet ring glowed for a moment when he buttoned the last cuff. Not approval—recognition.
Kaela said nothing as they walked.
She wore no insignia. Just the standard Academy black, adorned with quiet arrogance.
They joined the line of initiates making their way down through the east wing toward the Sanctum of Codex, the lower cathedral chamber used for blood evaluations. The halls grew darker the lower they went—not due to lack of light, but because the light changed hue: silver-blue, almost surgical, laced with patterns that reacted to each student's passing like runes choosing whom to notice.
The Sanctum was enormous.
Vaulted ceilings carved with concentric spirals of sigils. Thirteen altars arranged in a half-moon, each shaped from a different kind of stone: obsidian, bone, petrified wood, metal that shimmered like mercury. Above them hung glass screens that shimmered with floating names and blood crests, sorting themselves in real time.
Faculty stood around the perimeter like priests. Some wore armor. Some wore robes. One had a living snake coiled around their shoulders. All were silent.
Above, in a high mezzanine behind mirrored glass: the Elders.
Julius saw her.
Adra.
Veiled again, seated, still as death.
She wasn't watching the others. She was watching him.
A gong sounded.
The first name was called.
"Romelo Asterlight."
A tall boy stepped forward. Golden eyes. Confident smile. He approached the bone-white altar and placed his hand on the bloodstone embedded in its surface.
The altar drank.
Instantly, the glass above him flared.
Blood Rank: 10. Lineal Resonance: 72%. Threat Index: Stable.
A projection formed behind him—an image of a battlefield with a throne at its center. The image flickered, stabilized, then vanished. The crowd whispered, some impressed.
Others followed. Each placed their blood. Each was read. Some fainted. Some screamed. One girl fell to her knees laughing uncontrollably until she had to be dragged away.
But the system never hesitated. It always responded.
Until now.
"Dominic Kael Rykar."
The name echoed across the sanctum with ceremonial finality.
Dominic stepped forward with the casual precision of someone who didn't fear being measured—because he already knew the result. His coat was half-buttoned, gloves tucked into his belt, eyes lazy and unreadable.
He chose the obsidian altar.
He didn't pause.
His left hand moved smoothly to the stone, and with a small flick of his thumb, he let blood bloom across its center—quick, surgical. The stone drank fast, greedily.
The response was immediate.
The air above the altar shimmered—no hesitation, no stutter.
Blood Rank: 3. Lineal Resonance: 96%. Threat Index: Moderately Controlled.
A sharp intake of breath echoed across the room.
Even the masked faculty tilted slightly toward each other, murmuring just low enough not to be caught by the monitors.
Julius didn't flinch, but his fingers twitched.
Rank 3? That high?
Then came the projection: a wide river of black, splitting around a single spire. Lightning above it. Chains leading downward—hundreds. At the top of the spire, a crown made of thorns rotated slowly.
It shimmered once.
Then bowed toward Dominic.
The entire room felt it.
Dominic looked up at the image, and for a moment—just one—his expression changed.
Not awe.
Not confusion.
Something colder.
Recognition.
Then the image faded.
He turned, walked calmly back toward the formation—but just before reaching his place, he passed within ten feet of Julius.
He didn't look at him.
He didn't speak.
But Julius heard his voice, clear and deliberate—inside his skull.
"Your turn, ledger boy."
And then, silence again.
Above, in the glass mezzanine, Adra leaned forward slightly—only slightly. But it was the first movement Julius had seen her make.
And somewhere behind Julius's ribcage, the black ledger stirred.
Not physically.
Psychically.
Like a muscle preparing to clench.
"Kaela Seraphyne Everwyn."
The name echoed with a different kind of weight.
Some students turned. Some flinched. One boy whispered a prayer in a tongue Julius didn't recognize.
Kaela stepped forward slowly, deliberately, her violet eyes surveying the altars like they were offering her less than she deserved. Her steps were light, but nothing about her felt delicate.
She reached the center of the ring of altars—and stopped.
She did not approach any of them.
The faculty paused. The glass shifted, awaiting input.
One of the robed instructors stepped forward, voice polite but forceful.
"Miss Everwyn. You are required to provide rite blood. Please select your altar."
Kaela smiled.
"Required by who?"
"By Code of Admission," the voice replied evenly. "To maintain systemic balance and rank alignment—"
"Systemic balance," she said, "was broken when my house was dissolved by cowardice and prophecy."
The room stilled.
The instructor tilted his head. "Do you refuse?"
"I decline."
"You are aware refusal will mark you as a threat entity."
"I'd be insulted if it didn't."
Another murmur swept the room. Not ridicule. Not admiration. Concern.
Kaela turned back toward the student formation—but not before lifting her hand.
There, faintly glowing on her palm, was a crest—a bloodline mark most had only seen in archives.
An Eye of Seven Lines.
The crowd gasped. Even the faculty hesitated.
One masked instructor murmured, "That crest was expunged during the Ninth Pact—"
"It survived in me," Kaela said simply. "Which means your seals failed."
A pause.
Then the system responded.
Above her, on the glass:
Participant Declined. Evaluation: Incomplete.
Bloodline Status: Corrupted Heritage.
System Threat Rating: Dormant – Condition Red.
Seal Enforced: Class C Hexlock (Time-Limited)
A flash of violet flame burst around her ankles, then crawled briefly up her spine before vanishing into her coat.
She didn't wince.
She walked back toward Julius and stood beside him like nothing had happened.
He glanced at her. "That was dramatic."
She tilted her head slightly. "I'm a terrible liar. This way, expectations are already ruined."
Above, Adra still did not move. But Julius knew what she was thinking.
Kaela was more dangerous than the test could measure.
And now, it was his turn.
"Julius Kaine Vernhart."
The name struck the air like a slow-dropped coin in a cathedral—everyone heard it, and no one dared move.
Julius stepped forward, walking with the calm of someone who knew the game but hadn't yet decided whether to obey its rules or rewrite them. The altars flickered faintly, one after another, reacting to his proximity like hounds sniffing an unfamiliar command.
He approached the mirrorstone altar, the one at the farthest point of the crescent—black as void, reflective like frozen oil, veined with silver cracks. No one had chosen it.
As he reached it, the atmosphere thickened—not with ceremony, but with hesitation. The room, the altar, the watchers—everything paused, waiting.
He removed his glove.
Cut his palm with the small ceremonial blade on the altar's edge. Clean, swift.
Blood struck the stone.
At first, nothing happened.
Then—
A pulse.
The altar rippled. Not visibly—but through the mind. A soft vertigo. Then the glass above him flickered wildly. The text began to form:
Blood Rank: —
Then scrambled.
Lines of code-like sigils surged across the screen. The symbols stuttered, repeated, folded over themselves. The faculty stepped back. The lights in the hall dimmed, pulsed, shifted hue—green, gold, violet.
A sharp crack echoed from the altar, and the mirrorstone spiderwebbed.
Kaela, standing still in formation, tilted her head slightly. She said nothing.
Dominic grinned from the shadows.
Then finally—one word stabilized.
Glowing gold. Floating above the fractured altar.
UNREADABLE
Silence.
Julius blinked once. His expression didn't change.
But he heard it again.
From nowhere. From inside.
"You cut yourself. You expected pain.
I expected an offering."
Julius stepped back from the altar. Blood still dripping from his palm.
The system didn't stop. The word remained.
A second line blinked into existence beneath it:
Dominion Override: Pending Manual Clearance.
Ledger Rank Required.
Above, in the mezzanine, Adra's veil shifted as she leaned into a private console.
The altar dimmed. The screen darkened.
Julius turned away calmly and walked back toward the formation.
Kaela's voice reached him in a whisper as he passed.
"You just bent the rules around you."
He didn't reply.
Dominic's eyes followed him all the way back to his place.
The ledger pulsed once in Julius's mind.
Like a held breath.
The cathedral chamber was silent again.
After the rankings concluded, faculty closed the gates of the Sanctum of Codex. The altars were dimmed, the sacred glass scrolled blank, and the stone doors sealed with eight-pointed locks, layered in concentric circles of spell-forged steel.
It was night now.
No one remained inside.
At least—no one visible.
But something had stayed.
Far beneath the cracked mirrorstone altar—down where the Academy's foundations touched ancient strata—the stone walls pulsed once. Not with life. With memory.
Old memory.
Something sealed.
The fracture Julius left behind had deepened since the lights went out. A hairline break, invisible during the rite, had widened in the silence. It stretched along the altar's base and curled downward like a question mark carved by pressure.
Dust shivered.
Symbols around the altar flickered. Some went dark. Others lit briefly—then twisted into untranslatable script.
And below it all...
In the buried black...
A chamber not opened in two hundred years...
Something moved.
Not fast. Not free.
But aware.
Gold light blinked once—then again. A pair of eyes, long dormant, opened like twin suns through fog. They cast no light. They simply saw.
The room around them remained unmoved, undisturbed.
But in the far corner of that chamber, a circle of twelve thrones sat empty—save one.
A thirteenth throne, larger, crowned with broken blades, held only a name carved into its back:
Julius Kaine Vernhart.
As if it had always been waiting.
The golden eyes blinked again.
And somewhere above, in the cold of his dormitory, Julius sat up in bed—not waking, not startled.
Already aware.
He turned toward the drawer.
The ledger sat atop it now.
Closed. Silent.
But glowing faintly under moonlight.
A new mark had appeared on its cover.
One he hadn't seen before.
He leaned closer.
It read:
Sealed System Integrity Breach:
Code 011 – Dormant God Contact: Julius Kaine Vernhart
Status: Irreversible.