THE LOST HEIR OF THE IMMORTAL WAR GOD

Axton Vail had lived seventeen years without once being called by his full name...not by family, not by teachers, not even by the servants who pretended he didn't exist when he passed them in the halls of Vail Manor.

Mistake. That's what his half-sister called him.

It. That's what his half-brother preferred.

Nothing. That's what his stepmother's silence said louder than words ever could.

The room they'd given him wasn't really a room. More like a storage closet someone had cleared of boxes and called mercy. Eight feet by six. A cot that smelled like mildew and broken promises. One blanket...thin enough to read through if you held it up to the light, which Axton had done exactly once before deciding some truths were better left unexamined.

The walls were stone. Cold. The kind of cold that seeped into your bones and made a home there, until you forgot what warmth felt like.

He sat on the edge of his cot now, three in the morning, listening to the sound of laughter drifting up from the floors below. His stepmother was throwing another party. Cultivators from across the city, drinking wine that cost more than Axton's entire existence, discussing politics and power and all the things people with futures talked about.

Axton picked at the bandage on his left wrist. The wound underneath had been there for three weeks. Should have healed by now...even without cultivation, normal people healed. But the cut remained, weeping slowly, the edges dark in a way that didn't seem quite right.

He'd stopped showing it to people. The school nurse had gone pale when she'd seen it. Muttered something about "checking the records" and sent him away with painkillers that didn't work.

The laughter downstairs crescendoed. Someone had made a joke. Probably Castor...his half-brother had inherited their father's charm along with his talent for cultivation. Golden pins at seventeen. Unprecedented, the clan elders said. A prodigy.

Axton had been tested twelve times.

Twelve times, the cultivation stones had shown nothing. Null. Empty. A genetic dead end in a world where power was measured in Qi and legacy was written in the stars.

He stood, knees cracking...too young for that sound, but his body had learned to ache early...and moved to the single window. Narrow. Barred on the outside, though no one had bothered explaining why. To keep him in? To keep something else out?

The city stretched below, a carpet of lights that made the darkness between them seem deeper. Greyhollow. Modern skyscrapers next to ancient temples. Technology and cultivation woven together like threads in cloth that didn't quite match but had learned to coexist anyway.

Somewhere out there, people were living. Really living. Not just surviving the space between one humiliation and the next.

Axton's phone buzzed.

He picked it up, screen cracked from when Castor had "accidentally" knocked it out of his hand last week. No name on the notification. Just a message.

Your presence is required at the Bloodstone Altar. Ceremony begins at moonrise, three days hence. The family has made their preparations. Failure to attend will be interpreted as unwillingness to exist. Come alone. Come ready. Come knowing this: we have always known what you are.

Axton read it twice.

Then three times.

Then sat back down on the cot, very slowly, because his legs had stopped working properly.

Bloodstone Altar.

He'd never heard the term before. A search on his phone returned exactly nothing...not a single result, which was impossible in an age where everything was documented, archived, cross-referenced.

The family has made their preparations.

His hands started shaking. Not fear, exactly. Something older than fear. Something that lived in the genetic memory of prey animals who'd learned that certain sounds meant death was close.

We have always known what you are.

What he was?

Axton looked at his wrist again. At the wound that wouldn't heal. At the blood that had started, over the past few days, to look less red and more... something else. Darker. Almost black when the light hit it wrong.

He should run. Pack the nothing he owned and disappear into the city. Greyhollow was big enough to lose yourself in. Plenty of people did it. Fell through the cracks between the mortal world and the cultivation one, became ghosts that everyone knew existed but no one acknowledged.

But.

We have always known what you are.

You don't send messages like that to people who don't matter. You don't threaten mistakes with ceremonies. You don't prepare for nothing.

Seventeen years of being invisible. Seventeen years of wondering what he'd done to deserve this life...the hunger, the cold, the casual cruelty that passed for normal in Vail Manor.

What if he hadn't done anything?

What if he'd just been?

The scar on his wrist pulsed. Once. Faint. Like a second heartbeat trying to sync with his first.

Axton stood again, this time steadier. Moved to the window. Looked out at the city and the darkness between its lights.

Three days.

He could run.

Or he could find out what he was.

The choice should have been obvious.

Morning came with the smell of breakfast he wouldn't be invited to eat.

Axton waited until the sounds of the household had settled into their daily rhythm...Seraphine's voice giving orders to the staff, Castor's footsteps heavy with the confidence of someone who'd never doubted his place in the world, Elira's laugh like wind chimes made of knives.

Then he made his way downstairs.

The Manor was beautiful in the way mausoleums were beautiful...marble floors that reflected infinity, tapestries that depicted cultivation legends from ages past, furniture that probably cost more than most people earned in a lifetime. Everything perfect. Everything cold.

The dining room was at the east end of the manor, floor-to-ceiling windows that caught the morning light and made it dance. The table could seat twenty. Today it held three.

Seraphine sat at the head, her beauty the kind that made people forget to breathe. Pale skin. Dark hair pulled back in a style that probably had a name Axton didn't know. Robes of deep blue silk with silver threading...cultivation robes, enchanted with protection arrays he could almost see if he squinted.

Castor sat to her right, golden pins glinting on his collar. Eighteen years old, but he carried himself like someone who'd already conquered worlds and was simply waiting for everyone else to acknowledge it. Broad-shouldered. Handsome in the way heroes in stories were handsome. Currently eating eggs like they'd personally offended him.

Elira sat across from him, sixteen and already mastering the art of cruelty that required no cultivation at all. Pretty in a way that would be called beautiful in a few years, once the baby fat finished melting away. She saw Axton first.

"You're blocking the light, mistake," she said, not looking up from her plate.

The word hung in the air like spoiled milk.

Castor laughed...the kind of laugh that wasn't really about humor. More like a reflex. "Mother, do we have to watch it eat?"

Seraphine's fingers paused on her teacup. For a moment...just a heartbeat...Axton thought she might defend him. Might say something. Anything.

Then she set the cup down with a soft clink.

"Axton," she said, voice smooth as frost. "The kitchens have leftovers."

Not join us.

Not there's a place for you.

Just the kitchens have leftovers, like he was a stray dog they'd agreed to tolerate as long as he remembered his place.

Axton had stopped bleeding inside a long time ago. Or so he told himself. But there were mornings...mornings like this...when he wondered if the reason his wounds never healed was because some part of him was still waiting to be saved.

Stupid, really.

"Of course," he said. Kept his voice level. Gave nothing away.

He turned to leave.

"Oh, Axton?" Seraphine's voice stopped him. "Clean your room today. We'll be having... guests soon. Important guests. I'd prefer they not know about..." She gestured vaguely in his direction. "...this situation."

This situation.

That's what he was. A situation to be managed.

"Of course," Axton repeated.

He left before his face could betray him.

The kitchens were warm, at least. Cook...an older woman whose name Axton had never learned because no one had ever bothered to introduce them...left a covered plate near the back door. Cold rice. Yesterday's vegetables. A piece of bread that had gone slightly stale.

He ate standing up, because sitting felt like claiming space he wasn't entitled to.

The food tasted like nothing. Everything tasted like nothing lately. Even hunger had become background noise.

He was halfway through the rice when Cook bustled in, arms full of fresh ingredients for whatever elaborate meal Seraphine had planned for her important guests. She saw Axton, startled, nearly dropped a bag of... something expensive, probably.

"You're still here," she said. Not unkindly. Just factual.

"I'll go."

"No, I..." She set down her burden, looked at him properly. Really looked, in a way most people didn't. Her eyes caught on his wrist. The bandage had come loose slightly, showing the wound beneath.

Her face went carefully blank. "That needs proper care."

"It's fine."

"It's not fine. That's..." She stopped herself. Shook her head. "Never mind. Not my business."

But her hands trembled slightly as she went back to her work.

Axton finished his rice in silence, rinsed the plate, left it to dry, and slipped out the back door before anyone else could see him and remember he existed.

Greyhollow Academy sat in the center of the city like a crown jewel someone had forgotten to polish. Modern architecture...glass and steel and clean lines...wrapped around buildings that predated the Divine-Mortal War. The old parts were stone, covered in cultivation arrays that hummed just below the range of hearing. The new parts were designed to look impressive on brochures.

The students were divided into two groups, though no one said it explicitly: the Awakened and the Null.

The Awakened...those with cultivation talent...wore colored pins on their uniforms. Bronze for beginners. Silver for intermediate. Gold for prodigies like Castor.

The Null wore nothing. Just standard uniforms. Just normal.

Just less.

Axton had learned early not to make eye contact. Not to take up space. Not to remind anyone he existed unless absolutely necessary.

It mostly worked.

Mostly.

Fourth period was physical education, which meant combat training...practical application of Qi manipulation for the Awakened, basic self-defense for everyone else. They shared the gymnasium, but the space might as well have been divided by walls of iron.

Coach Vern...a grizzled former cultivator who'd lost his pins in some war Axton didn't know the details of...stood at the center of the mat. "Pair up. Sparring drills. Remember: control, precision, restraint. I see one more broken nose this month, and everyone runs laps until graduation."

The Awakened paired with Awakened. The Null paired with Null. It was an unspoken rule, enforced by nothing but shared understanding that mixing the groups ended badly for the ones without power.

Axton moved toward the back of the Null group, hoping to blend, to disappear, to...

"Vail."

He froze.

Coach Vern was looking at him. Everyone was looking at him.

"You're with Kraven today."

The gymnasium went quiet in the way crowds did when they smelled blood about to be spilled.

Zephyr Kraven stood at the front of the Awakened group, golden pins glinting on his collar. Tall. Lean muscle wrapped in casual arrogance. Dark hair, darker eyes, and a smile that suggested he knew several things you didn't and found your ignorance amusing.

He was also the second-ranked student in their year. The first was Castor. They hated each other with the intensity of people who saw their own ambition reflected and found it wanting.

"Problem, Vail?" Zephyr asked, already moving to the center mat.

Axton could feel everyone watching. Could feel the weight of their expectations...this would be humiliating, probably painful, definitely something people would talk about for weeks.

"No problem," Axton said, and stepped onto the mat.

Zephyr stretched casually, making a show of loosening muscles he didn't really need to loosen. "Don't worry. I'll go easy on you. Wouldn't want to break the school's charity case."

Laughter rippled through the Awakened group.

Coach Vern raised his hand. "Standard rules. First to yield or first to leave the mat. Begin."

Zephyr moved.

Fast...not inhumanly fast, but faster than Axton could react. A blur of motion that resolved into a fist aimed at his ribs.

Axton tried to dodge.

Failed.

The impact drove the air from his lungs, sent him stumbling back, nearly off the mat.

"Come on, Vail," Zephyr said, not even breathing hard. "At least pretend to fight back."

Axton straightened. Raised his hands in a basic guard position they'd learned in first year. Knew it wouldn't help. Knew this entire exercise was designed to remind him...and everyone else...where he stood in the hierarchy.

Zephyr struck again. Palm-strike to the shoulder. Sweep kick to the ankle. Elbow to the...

Axton's vision flickered.

Just for a second.

The gymnasium overlaid with something else. Somewhere else. A battlefield. Corpses in armor he didn't recognize. The smell of copper and ozone and...

Zephyr's fist connected with his jaw.

Axton went down. Tasted blood. Copper and something darker, something that made his teeth ache.

He should stay down. Should yield. Should...

The wound on his wrist burned.

Axton stood up.

Zephyr's expression shifted. Confidence to confusion. "You should be unconscious."

"Sorry to disappoint."

Axton wiped his mouth. The blood on his hand was darker than it should be. Almost black in the gymnasium's fluorescent lights.

Zephyr saw it too. His eyes narrowed.

Then he shrugged. "Your funeral."

He attacked again...faster this time, harder, putting real force behind the blows. A combination that would have hospitalized someone without cultivation protection.

Axton's body moved.

Not consciously. Not with skill or training.

Just... moved.

He blocked the first strike...barely, his forearm screaming protest. Dodged the second by millimeters. The third caught him in the ribs again, should have cracked something, but...

The pain felt distant. Theoretical.

Axton's vision flickered again.

The battlefield. The corpses. The man in the storm-cloud robes standing at the center of carnage, face hidden behind a war mask...

Coach Vern's whistle pierced the air. "That's enough!"

Axton blinked. The gymnasium snapped back into focus.

He was still standing. Zephyr was breathing hard...actually exerted, which never happened during training. And everyone was staring.

Not with mockery.

With something else.

Something that looked almost like fear.

"Get checked by the nurse, both of you," Coach Vern said, voice carefully neutral. "Class dismissed."

The crowd dispersed slowly, reluctantly, like they'd been robbed of a conclusion they'd been expecting.

Zephyr straightened his uniform, golden pins catching the light. Looked at Axton for a long moment.

"What are you?" he asked quietly.

Axton didn't have an answer.

The nurse's office smelled like antiseptic and old paper. Nurse Chen...a middle-aged woman with silver pins hidden beneath her white coat...sat behind a desk covered in forms and half-drunk tea.

She looked up when Axton entered. Her expression went carefully blank.

"Vail. Again."

"Again," Axton agreed.

She gestured to the examination table. "Sit. Let me see."

Axton sat. Peeled off his shirt...bruises already forming across his ribs, purple-black against pale skin.

Nurse Chen pressed her fingers to his side, and Qi flowed...soft, diagnostic, the kind of cultivation that didn't hurt. She frowned.

"These should be broken."

"They're not."

"I know they're not. That's the problem." She moved to his jaw, where Zephyr's punch had landed. More frowning. "You heal wrong, Vail."

"I don't heal at all. The cut on my wrist..."

"I remember." She pulled back, crossed her arms. "You should see a specialist."

"I can't afford..."

"I know. I'm just saying what I'm supposed to say." She turned to her desk, scribbled something on a form. "Here. Excuse for next class. Go home. Rest. And Vail?"

He paused at the door.

"Whatever you are," she said quietly, not looking at him, "be careful who finds out."

Axton didn't go home. Couldn't face the Manor yet. The message about the Bloodstone Altar sat in his phone like a ticking bomb, and going back meant acknowledging it was real, meant making a choice...

He went to the rooftop instead.

The school's roof was technically off-limits, but the door had been broken for years and no one had bothered fixing it. Students came up here sometimes to smoke, to skip class, to pretend they were somewhere else.

Right now, it was empty.

Axton sat on the edge, legs dangling over the side, five stories of nothing between him and the concrete below. The city spread out in all directions. Modern and ancient. Mortal and divine. A world that had learned to hold contradictions without collapsing.

He pulled out his phone. Read the message again.

We have always known what you are.

"What am I?" he asked the city.

The city didn't answer.

But something else did.

A voice...not out loud, but inside his head. Deep. Old. Layered with echoes that sounded like steel on steel.

A mistake, it whispered. A weapon. A war that ended but never really died.

Axton stood up fast enough to make his vision swim.

"Who..."

Soon, the voice said. Three days. They'll try to kill you at the Bloodstone Altar. They'll fail. And then you'll understand what your blood has always known.

"What does my blood know?"

How to end gods.

The voice faded like smoke in wind.

Axton stood there, alone on the rooftop, hands shaking for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.

Below, the city continued its day. People living. People dying. People caught between.

And somewhere in the Manor, his stepmother was preparing for guests. For a ceremony. For an ending that was supposed to look like mercy.

Axton looked at his hands. Ordinary. Scarred. Human.

Then he looked at his wrist. At the wound that wouldn't heal. At the blood that had started to look wrong.

Three days.

He could run. Disappear. Become nothing in a city full of nothing.

Or he could go to the Bloodstone Altar. Could find out what he was. Could...

The scar pulsed.

Once.

Twice.

Like a countdown.

Or a war drum.

Axton smiled...not a happy smile, but not entirely resigned either. Something in between. Something that felt like choice.

"Fine," he whispered to the voice that was probably his imagination, probably stress, probably nothing. "Let's see what I am."

The wind picked up, carrying the smell of distant rain.

And in the back of his mind, buried beneath seventeen years of survival and silence, something very old opened one eye.

Finally, it thought.