Chapter 10: The Cipher Wakes
Julien closed the door to his quarters with more force than necessary, heart pounding. The weight of Veldaric's offer—his threat—still lingered like static in the air.
Take the bond-seal. Become mine. Or be taken anyway.
Julien pressed a palm to his chest. His skin still burned where Veldaric had touched him, as if the mark beneath his collarbone—the one the Marshal had carved into him with magic weeks ago—had been reawakened.
He paced the room once. Twice. Then sat heavily at his desk.
The blank card Elsin had given him lay in the drawer.
Julien stared at it.
He shouldn't touch it. Not now. Not while his mind was still a war zone of conflicting loyalties. But his hand moved on its own, fingers curling around the edges of the smooth white card.
No magic. No visible script.
Until he bled.
A thin drop slid down his thumb from where a nail had dug in too deep. It smeared across the card's surface—so small, so accidental—and the world twisted.
The card pulsed once. Then twice.
And then it unfolded like a door.
Julien's vision went dark. His ears rang with something—a name—but he couldn't quite grasp it.
He was standing—not in his room—but in a garden.
Moonlight poured over marble paths and silver-blue trees. A woman knelt at the edge of a reflecting pool, her back to him. Long white robes. A crest shaped like a flame curled within a circle—the ancient Deton mark, not the version used today.
She turned.
Her face was his.
Or nearly. The same silver eyes. The same sharp cheekbones. But regal, untouched by time. Older, wiser.
She smiled at him sadly. And spoke:
> "If you're hearing this… then the blood remembered you."
> "My name was Aureline Deton. The last to awaken the Ciphered Flame."
> "And you—you, my heir—carry what I sealed in flesh, in soul. They tried to erase it. Burn it from the bloodline. But fire remembers."
> "You were born under the false crest, but you are mine."
The garden around them flickered—splintered—and fire bloomed from the pool behind her.
She stood tall, proud, unburning in the inferno.
> "Unlock the flames, Julien. Or the Empire will."
The vision shattered.
Julien gasped, flinging the card from his hands. It hit the wall, rebounded to the floor—glowing faint gold now, no longer blank.
A memory. A message.
A bloodline inheritance.
His hands trembled. Not from fear. Not entirely.
From confirmation.
He wasn't just some orphan. He wasn't just Julien Deton. He wasn't even just Alex, the transmigrator.
He was something designed—a vessel shaped by fire, memory, and ancient rebellion.
And someone else knew it.
Because as the last glow faded from the card, another message scrawled itself across the back in new gold script:
> "You have been activated."
> "Others are coming."
Elsewhere…
In a chamber high above the Capital, Lady Therin Deton stood before a silent holo-screen, her expression unreadable. The report flickered in the air—energy signature identified in the old Deton encryption matrix.
> Subject: Julien Deton.
Status: Active.
Cipher inheritance: Confirmed.
Authorization: Hunt begins.
She turned to her advisor.
"Send the hounds. Quietly."