he office hangs suspended—skybound, silent.

  Floor-to-ceiling windows unveil a canvas of drifting galaxies, stars spilling their light across the black like spilled paint on silk. The room hums with presence. A desk of ancient wood and crystal anchors the center—sleek, sharp-edged, alive with faint pulses of divine circuitry. The air is electric with ozone, tinged with orchid. It smells like authority. Time does not pass here; it circles.

  Ishtar stands near the glass, outlined in the quiet glow of stars. A stylus rests between her fingers—stopped mid-mark, forgotten. The report in her other hand dangles, loose and limp.

  Because it wasn’t there a moment ago.

  The Codex appears—not summoned, not opened, simply... there.

  No flash. No ritual. No sound.

  One blink it’s absence, the next—it occupies the space above the conference table like it was born to rule it.

  The air stutters. Lights twitch.

  The boardroom’s hum fractures.

  And the Codex falls.

  A sound like thunder wrapped in velvet swallows the silence.

  Grant flinches. His shoulders snap tight, breath caught sharp in his throat.

  He didn’t call it. None of them did.

  But it came for him anyway.

  He steps forward—cautious, reluctant. One hand reaches. Fingers graze the cover—dark leather etched with vein-like channels, twitching faintly beneath his touch.

  It reacts.

  A jolt. The Codex jerks in his grasp, like it resents being held. Like it remembers something he’s long forgotten.

  Then—motion.

  Pages snap open of their own accord. Glyphs spill across parchment like fleeing prey, fast and frantic, glowing with every frantic pulse.

  A beat.

  Then another.

  Rhythmic. Steady.

  A drumbeat.

  A heartbeat.

  Ishtar doesn’t breathe.

  Across the room, she watches—spine rigid, eyes wide, soul tightened. Her grip on the stylus cracks; her nails draw blood through the skin of her palm.

  He doesn’t know.

  He doesn’t know what he’s waking.

  He doesn’t see what’s already looking back.

  Too soon, her thoughts hiss. Too eager. Too raw.

  And far, far too late to stop it.

  A blank page stares up at them, the first leaf, bare and waiting like it’s dared to be touched. Then it flips—sharp, decisive—slamming flat against Grant’s palm.

  The sound hits like a whip-crack.

  So does Ishtar’s breath, sharp in her throat.

  He flinches. A ripple moves through his arm—a sudden spasm, the kind that always comes before something worse. Then comes the hiss, low and tight through clenched teeth.

  She knows that pain.

  Numbness that isn’t numb. That slow, crawling burn.

  His hand jerks. A curse follows. Blood wells. Then drips.

  Her eyes narrow.

  It doesn’t splatter.

  It moves.

  Red coils slither across his knuckles like snakes tasting the air—intentional. Curious. Alive. His blood remembers him. Remembers the room. The Codex.

  And it answers.

  Ishtar steps forward—half a pace. No farther. Her instincts scream. Stop it. Intervene. But something older than fear freezes her spine. A whisper slithers through her bones: Wait.

  She watches—still, silent—as the blood vanishes beneath his skin. He gasps. His sleeve tears beneath his grip, and what lies beneath—

  She blinks.

  The markings aren’t tattoos.

  They’re ancient. Bestial. Black coils twist across his forearm like serpents in firelight. Once crimson. Now burned into him. They pulse with his heartbeat—steady, rhythmic, claiming.

  She can smell it now.

  Magic. Old and thick. Melded with flesh.

  The Codex has made its mark.

  Her voice escapes before thought catches it. A whisper. “No…”

  Then she sees it—hanging in the air before him, shimmering like an illusion, like a promise.

  [Would you like to Sync with the Codex of Gil’Jedalon?]

  

  She moves.

  Fast.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Wait—!”

  Too slow.

  His fingers twitch. His eyes lock forward. Hard. Resolved.

  She’s seen that look before. Not bravery. Not recklessness.

  A man who’s burned before.

  And still walks into fire.

  He selects.

  Light explodes.

  The Codex screams.

  Her heart slams into her ribs like it’s trying to get out.

  The room folds inward. The walls groan as something massive presses in from nowhere—no wind, no voice, just pressure. A silent roar. The runes carved into the walls blaze to life, one by one, blue fire racing in circles. Grant stands at the center—bathed in flickering azure, frozen in the eye of it.

  And in that flicker—Ishtar sees.

  A shadow behind his eyes that isn’t his. A flicker of memory that doesn’t belong to this lifetime. A tether stretching out of him, vanishing beyond the veil of this world.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

  The Codex wasn’t supposed to wake.

  That legacy wasn’t supposed to choose.

  And if it did—it shouldn’t have been him.

  Her thoughts coil into a snarl.

  Damn you, Mother.

  The seal is broken.

  The Codex is bound.

  And there’s no going back.

  Grant Calloway—reluctant farmer. The outsider. The man with no roots in this world—

  He now carries a legacy older than empires.

  The Beast Lord’s blood burns in his veins.

  And the Codex of Gil’Jedalon has spoken.

  Ishtar stands barefoot on the marble floor, the cold surface slick beneath her toes—a sharp contrast to the slow-burning anxiety building behind her sternum.

  Grant Calloway—rumpled, earth-worn, out of place in a realm of divine legislation and living constellations—stands in the heart of the boardroom, eyes locked on the floating glyphwork pulsing across the holoprojector wall. The lights dim around him.

  The system’s tone chirps once.

  He exhales. His gaze drifts toward her—uncertain, exhausted, quietly trusting. Her heart doesn’t flutter. It clenches.

  She nods, even though everything in her says: Don't.

  The Codex floats between them, weightless and watching.

  It begins to change.

  In an instant, the ancient book unspools in midair, twisting, stretching—its spine cracking like bone, pages folding inward like petals. Leather becomes metal. Runes burn into its shape, ancient and alive, etching symbols with impossible precision.

  A vambrace. Gold and silver. Gleaming. Divine.

  Animals crawl across its surface in miniature relief—bear, dragon, wolf, tiger, and more. He doesn’t recognize them. But she does. She knows what it means.

  “Holy shit,” he mutters, breathless. “A freaking Transformer.”

  The humor barely touches the tension.

  Then the temperature drops.

  Light dims. The walls tremble. A low-frequency hum builds behind her ribs, like something is clawing its way into the room through the skin of reality.

  And then—

  It arrives.

  A massive, spectral figure blossoms out of the vambrace in a rush of swirling parchment and smoke. Its presence crushes the air. Towering. Shifting. Elemental. Its form coils with black ink and gold-etched glyphs, and from within the ink, two radiant eyes burn into her.

  “Hello, daughter.”

  Ishtar's blood freezes.

  The smug ease she always wears—gone.

  “…Gaia?” she breathes.

  Zen, who’d been doing absolutely nothing of use (as always), slowly begins to sidestep toward the exit like a cat slinking away from a broken vase.

  “Really, love?” Gaia's voice is velvet-wrapped iron. Amused. Dangerous.

  “Hello, Mother,” Zen mutters, smoothing his jacket like he didn’t just try to flee.

  Gaia turns her eyes to Grant, and the pressure in the room sharpens, becomes personal.

  “And you… Beast Lord. Would you claim what was lost?”

  He hesitates, caught mid-breath.

  “…I don’t exactly know what I lost.” He glances between them. “Other than, y’know, my life.”

  Ishtar almost laughs. Almost.

  “Ah… so you do not remember?” Gaia croons.

  Ishtar’s heart stutters.

  Don’t do this. Not now.

  She doesn’t get the words out.

  The vambrace flares. Grant stumbles.

  His eyes go glassy.

  Then—

  He breaks.

  He’s pulled under like a drowning man, gasping silently as the visions flood him. A battlefield. Endless screams. Beast-lords dying in pools of fire and rot. The sky burning red. The soil drinking blood. Titans clashing.

  And that voice.

  “Do you remember any of it?”

  He collapses to one knee. His lungs hitch. His face pale.

  No, no, no.

  Ishtar lunges to him, light flaring from her palms. Her hands find his shoulder, warm and steady. She pours herself into the touch.

  “Grant—stay with me.”

  He shudders, breath catches. Her light anchors him. She feels it. He’s tethered. But barely.

  Zen just adjusts his sleeves with all the urgency of a man browsing tea.

  “Mother… is this really necessary?”

  Gaia doesn’t reply.

  She presses.

  The air cracks.

  Pressure floods the room. Gravity inverts.

  Ishtar is ripped from Grant’s side—flung like a ragdoll across the boardroom. Her back hits a column hard. Breath knocked out. Her head rings.

  She crumples to the floor in a mess of tangled hair, bruised ribs, and sharp regret.

  “Silence,” Gaia says.

  Her voice echoes across the walls—ancient and final.

  “I will deal with you two shortly,” she continues, tone turning venomous, seductive. Her gaze returns to Grant. “In the meantime… Have fun, Beast Lord.”

  And then the world…

  Goes black.

  Again.

  The silence afterward is total.

  No stars. No boardroom. No Ishtar. No light.

  Just darkness.

  But Grant’s still aware.

  And something else is watching him now.

  Something even Gaia fears to name.