On The Day of Ashen's Birthday
When I woke up I reached for nothing out of habit — the previous mornings had always been empty by the time I surfaced, her side of the bed already cold, composure fully assembled and deployed somewhere in the building before I opened my eyes.
My hand found something soft instead.
The sensation registered before my eyes opened — warm, rounded, the specific texture of something that very much did not belong to a bedsheet. I came fully awake in approximately one second, Her Ass.
Lyris was lying with her head on my chest, her black hair spread across my shoulder, watching me with those crimson eyes from approximately six inches away with the expression of someone who had been awake for a while and had been waiting to see exactly what happened when I noticed.
My hand was very clearly on her.
"The entire night was not enough for you," she said, "that you need to continue in your sleep as well?"
"That was not intentional," I said.
"Your hand disagrees," she said.
I looked at my hand. My hand did not look particularly apologetic. I moved it. "I apologize. I was not awake."
"You do not need to apologize," she said, and her voice carried something entirely different from the tone she used in offices and corridors. Warmer. Unhurried. "If you want to go another round this morning I am willing."
"Hmm? why the Sudden Change?" I asked;
"Happy birthday," she said.
I remembered that it Was my Birthday today.
"Thank you," I said, still orienting.
"Twenty years old," she said. "The Academy enrollment age. A complete coincidence, I am sure."
"A convenient one," I said.
She looked at me for a moment. The morning light was coming through the window at a low angle, catching the edge of her hair, and she was wearing the unguarded expression she only had in this room in these hours — the one that was the real version underneath all the others.
"I do not have a gift prepared," she said. "I considered it and found that most things felt insufficient or impractical. Books you have already borrowed and Cultivation resources you have acquired through other means." She paused. "So I decided to offer the only thing that seemed appropriately direct."
I looked at her.
"I am your gift this morning," she said. Simply. Without performance. "If you want it."
I looked at her for one more moment — at the composure that was fully present even in the offering of something that was entirely personal, at the crimson eyes that were watching me with the specific quality they had developed over the past weeks, at the particular Lyris-ness of delivering a birthday gift with the same precise directness she delivered everything else.
"Yes," I said. "I want it."
She nodded once and closed the distance.
"Yes," I said. "I want it."
She nodded once and closed the distance between us, her lips meeting mine in a slow, tender kiss. I could taste her desire, her passion, and it made my heart race with anticipation.
She pulled back slightly, her hands resting on my chest as she looked down at me. "I want you," she whispered, her voice soft and intimate. "I want to be yours, completely."
I cupped her face in my hands, my fingers tracing the delicate lines of her skin. "Then you have me," I said, my voice rough with emotion. "Completely."
She smiled, a soft, radiant smile that took my breath away. She leaned down, kissing me again, this time with more urgency, more passion. Her tongue danced with mine, twining together in a sensual dance that made my head spin.
She pulled back again, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. "I want you to touch me," she said, her voice low and husky. "I want to feel your hands on my skin, your lips on my body."
I nodded, my hands sliding down her back, my fingers tracing the curve of her spine. She arched into my touch, her body responding instinctively to my every movement.
I rolled onto my side, pulling her with me, my hand trailing down her back to grip her hip, pulling her flush against me. She groaned, her head falling back as I pressed against her, my hardness rubbing against her softness.
"I want to taste you," I said, my voice low and rough. "I want to feel you on my tongue, in my mouth."
She shivered, her body trembling with desire. "Then taste me," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Please, Ashen, taste me."
I moved down her body, my lips trailing fire across her skin. I kissed her neck, my tongue flicking out to taste her salt, her sweat. She moaned, her hands tangling in my hair, pulling me closer.
I continued my journey, kissing and licking my way down her body, my hands roaming freely, exploring every inch of her perfect skin. She writhed beneath me, her body responding to my every touch, every caress.
Finally, I reached my destination, my face buried between her thighs, my tongue licking slowly over her swollen folds. She cried out, her hips bucking against my face, desperate for more.
I licked her slowly, deliberately, my tongue exploring every inch of her wetness. She moaned, her hands fisting in my hair, her body trembling with pleasure.
"Ashen," she gasped, her voice breaking with desire. "Oh, Ashen, please..."
I continued, my tongue flicking over her clit, teasing her, driving her wild with pleasure. She thrashed beneath me, her body writhing, her moans filling the room.
Finally, she came, her body convulsing, her walls clamping down around my tongue as wave after wave of pleasure washed over her. I continued to lick and suck, cleaning her with my tongue, savoring the taste of her.
When she finally came down, I looked up at her, my eyes filled with desire, with love. She smiled down at me, her expression soft and warm, filled with affection.
"Your turn," she said, her voice husky with pleasure.
I nodded, rolling onto my back, pulling her with me. She straddled me, her wetness coating my hardness as she lowered herself onto me.
"Yes," she moaned, her eyes closing as she sank down onto me, enveloping me completely. "Oh, Ashen, yes..."
I groaned, my hands gripping her hips tightly as she began to ride me, her movements slow and deliberate, her body responding instinctively to my every thrust.
I could feel her tightness around me, her walls squeezing me, milking me with each downward thrust. I could feel myself getting closer, the pressure building inside me with each movement of her hips.
"Lyris," I growled, my voice hoarse with need. "I'm going to come."
She nodded, her eyes still locked on mine, her smile growing wider. "I know," she said, picking up the pace. "Let go, Ashen. Let yourself feel it."
I did, my body tensing, my hips bucking wildly as I came, my release exploding through me in wave after wave of pure pleasure. She rode me through it, her body milking me for every last drop, her own orgasm crashing over her moments later.
We lay there, panting heavily, our hearts racing, our bodies still joined. She collapsed on top of me, her head resting on my chest, her body still trembling with the aftermath of our shared pleasure.
We stayed like that for a long time, neither of us moving, neither of us needing to say anything. The morning light filtered through the windows, casting a soft, golden glow over everything, a perfect backdrop for this perfect moment.
Finally, she lifted her head, her eyes meeting mine. "Happy birthday," she said, her voice soft, filled with warmth and affection.
I smiled, reaching up to brush a strand of hair off her face. "This is the best gift I could have asked for," I said, my voice equally soft, filled with gratitude and love.
She leaned down, kissing me softly, tenderly. "Me too," she whispered against my lips. "Me too."
Afterward I lay there while she dressed and thought that turning twenty in this world was considerably better than most of what turning twenty had looked like in the previous one.
[ Host, the Patriarch's office has sent a summons. This morning, when convenient. ]
'Define convenient,' I thought.
[ I believe in this context it means soon, Host. ]
I got up.
The Patriarch was standing at the window when I arrived, which was different from every previous meeting where he had been behind the desk — a deliberate shift in positioning that Facial Reading read immediately as something less formal than authority. He looked like a man having a conversation rather than conducting an assessment.
He also looked like a man who was managing something internal with the careful economy of someone who has had practice at it. The Void Sovereign return damage was not visible but it was present in the slight economy of his movements.
"Ashen," he said. "Sit."
I sat.
"The Academy," he said, turning from the window. "Lyris has enrollment nominations for this cycle. She has informed me she intends to use both of them."
"She told me yesterday," I said.
"Good." He looked at me directly. "I want you to go with her."
I looked back at him. "House Varkus has members with more standing, more cultivation development, and longer history with Lyris than I have. Any of them would serve that function more credibly."
"Standing," he said, "is not what I am looking for." He crossed to his chair and sat — carefully, I noticed. "Lyris has been to the Academy before in an administrative capacity. She knows the political landscape. What she does not have is someone beside her whose primary interest is her specifically rather than the house." He looked at me steadily. "The members of this house who would accompany her are representing Varkus interests. You would be representing something different."
"You are trusting someone you just met few days ago?" I said. "With something that matters to you."
"I am trusting my daughter's judgment," he said. "She chose you and She does not choose carelessly." A pause. "And she wants you there. That is sufficient for me."
I thought about it for a moment — genuinely, not performing consideration. I had been planning to use the nomination regardless. I needed the Academy for the same reasons anyone needed it — information, contacts, understanding of how this world's power structures actually functioned at the level below the surface. The Patriarch's request changed nothing about that calculation.
But it changed the framing of what I would be walking in as.
"I agree," I said.
He nodded once.
Then the door opened.
The Matriarch was not someone who opened doors without purpose. Every time I had seen her she had been present precisely where presence was required. She came into the office now with the specific unhurried quality of someone who has already decided what the conversation will contain and is simply arriving at the appropriate moment.
She looked at her husband briefly — some communication passing between them that was entirely invisible to anything except thirty years of shared attention — and then she looked at me.
"Ashen Carven," she said. "I do not believe we have spoken directly."
"We have not," I said.
"Sit down, dear, I am not here to intimidate you." She took the chair beside her husband's desk with the ease of someone who had sat in that chair ten thousand times. "I wanted to meet you properly before the Academy. My husband has his methods of evaluation." She glanced at him briefly. "I have mine."
"What is yours?" I said.
"I watch," she said. "And I listen. And occasionally I walk past rooms late at night when I cannot sleep." She looked at me with the specific quality of someone delivering information they have been saving. "Lyris's room, for instance. Last night, around the third hour."
I said nothing.
"She is not a quiet person when she is genuinely comfortable," the Matriarch said, with the composure of someone discussing weather. "We have not heard that from her in a very long time." She tilted her head slightly.
Beside her the Patriarch was looking at the ceiling with the expression of a man who had decided he was not participating in this particular thread of conversation.
"I will take that as a compliment," I said.
"It is one," she said. "Consider it my birthday gift." She stood — the conversation apparently complete on her end. "My husband asked you to accompany Lyris to the Academy. I am asking you to make sure she enjoys it. She has spent a great deal of her life being competent instead of happy. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive." She looked at me for a moment. "That is all."
She left.
The Patriarch looked back from the ceiling.
"You have my sympathies," he said, which was the most human thing he had said to me across three conversations.
"It was not that bad," I said.
"Give it time," he said.
I walked back through the main house thinking about the Matriarch's specific category of terrifying and arrived at the east garden study to find the system waiting with a notification that had apparently been queued since the contract sealed.
[ Host, the Deathbound Covenant contract with Azrael has been formally registered at the soul level. Skills and effects are now fully active. ]
[ Deathbound Covenant — Azrael, Angel of Death ]
[ Contract Type: Soul-Level Pact ]
[ Authority Granted: Sanctioned Reaper Status ]
[ Host becomes recognized by Death itself as an agent ]
[ All undead, death-aspect, and soul-based entities cannot attack Ashen unless he attacks first ]
[ Death's Recognition ] – Passive (Rank B)
[ All undead and death-aspect entities treat Ashen as neutral unless provoked ]
[ Soul Drain efficiency +40% on dying or heavily injured targets ]
[ Cannot be targeted by instant-death abilities ]
[ Ashen Soul ] – Passive (Rank B)
[ Ashen's soul becomes partially death-aspected ]
[ Poison, curse, and disease effects reduced by 50% ]
[ Resurrection after death possible once per month (Azrael personally retrieves host's soul) ]
[ Soul cannot be stolen, bound, or corrupted by abilities below Divine rank ]
[ Soul Mark ] – Active (Rank B | Cooldown: 12 hours)
[ Mark 1 target within 50 meters ]
[ Duration: 48 hours ]
[ Effects on marked target: ]
- Soul Drain efficiency: +50%
- Ashen tracks them through any terrain
- If target dies by ANY hand during mark:
Ashen receives 60% of their XP + 1 random skill
[ Gravewalk ] – Active (Rank B | 2/day | Duration: 15s)
[ Step halfway into the realm of the dead: ]
- Intangible to all physical attacks
- Pass through walls, barriers, people
- See Death Echoes — visions of how each
person in range is most likely to die
[ On exit: anchor one Death Echo to slightly nudge fate in that direction ]
[ Visual: Ashen becomes translucent, eyes glow pale gold ]
[ Reaper's Dominion ] – Active (Rank A | 1/week)
[ Creates a 30-meter death field for 20 seconds: ]
- All enemies: -50% healing, -30% stats
- All undead in range: immediately controlled by Ashen
- Dying enemies: Soul Drain activates automatically
- Enemies at 10% HP or below: instant reap possible
[ Azrael's presence felt by all Gold rank and below — causes instinctive fear ]
[ Azrael's Judgment ] – Ultimate (Rank S | 1/month)
[ Summons Azrael's physical manifestation for 10 seconds
[ Azrael targets ONE being Ashen designates: ]
- If target has heavy karmic crimes:
INSTANT DEATH — soul collected, no revival possible
- If target is innocent:
Azrael refuses and penalizes Ashen
[ After judgment: all enemies within 50 meters receive Death's Gaze debuff for 24 hours (-40% all stats, cannot be healed above 50% HP) ]
[ Visual: Sky darkens, black wings span the horizon, one pale hand descends ]
[ Note — Killing innocent people without cause will result in karmic backlash. The covenant recognizes intent. ]
I read through it twice.
The offensive gap was not closed — Leviathan was still the answer for that, still waiting in my inventory but Azrael's Judgment was S rank and targeted the specific category of people I intended to eventually use it on. People with heavy karmic crimes. People who had done things that the universe had already catalogued.
I thought about the Otherworlders. I thought about the note that said *soul collected, no revival possible.*
I closed the notification and put it aside for later.
I had other things to deal with first.
The summons arrived through a junior staff member who looked uncomfortable delivering it — a folded note in formal household script assigning me to receive and attend an incoming guest of significance arriving before midday.
I read it twice.
I was not staff. The Patriarch had said that explicitly to the entire senior servant cohort three days ago. I had no assignment function in this household. Whatever this was, it had not come through any channel that made sense.
[ Host, this assignment does not appear in the household task registry. I cannot find any record of it being issued through standard channels. ]
'I know,' I thought.
I folded the note and walked to Lyris's office.
She was at her desk when I came in and she looked up with the expression she had developed for my unannounced arrivals — not surprise anymore, just a slight adjustment of attention. I crossed to her desk and leaned down and kissed her once, brief and easy, the way people do things that have become routine.
She looked at me afterward with the expression of someone recalibrating slightly. She was still not entirely used to that being a normal thing that happened.
"Good morning again," she said.
"Good morning," I said, and placed the note on her desk. "Explain this."
She looked at it. Then she looked at it more carefully. Something shifted in her expression — the processing face, but with an edge underneath it.
"I did not issue this," she said.
"I know," I said.
She stood up and went to the door and called for her another personal attendant. The conversation that followed was short and specific — who issued this, through which channel, which staff member signed off. The attendant came back with answers in under ten minutes.
Three senior servants. The same three who had brought the formal complaint to the Patriarch. They had issued the assignment through a secondary household channel that bypassed the formal registry and then quietly left the building for the morning.
"They knew a significant guest was arriving," Lyris said. Her voice was very even. "And they assigned you to receive her without telling you who she was, without briefing you on protocol, and then removed themselves from the building so there would be no one to correct the situation."
"So that when something went wrong," I said, "I would be the one standing in the receiving hall without context."
"Yes," she said.
I thought about that for a moment.
"Who is the guest?" I said.
Before she could answer we heard the front doors open.
The maid's voice arrived first — carrying through the main corridor with the specific volume of someone who has decided that volume is appropriate.
"How dare House Varkus fail to provide even a single properly assigned attendant for Lady Aelith Valerius — "
Then a second voice, quieter, with the specific quality of someone who has been managing that maid for a long time and has developed efficient methods for it.
"Serin. That is enough."
Lyris was already moving. I fell in beside her.
We came into the main receiving hall to find a young woman standing in the center of it with the composure of someone who is entirely unbothered by the situation her maid is currently creating. Blue hair — a deep shade that caught the light differently from every angle, worn with the casual precision of someone who does not need to try. Eyes that were doing a rapid and intelligent survey of the room before she had been in it for thirty seconds.
She saw Lyris and her expression changed entirely — something genuinely warm arriving underneath the composure.
"Lyris," she said. "It has been too long. Your household is as dramatic as I remember."
"Aelith," Lyris said, and there was something in her voice I had not heard before — the specific warmth of something old and trusted. "I apologize for the reception. There was a miscommunication with the staff."
"There always is," Aelith said, with the breezy certainty of someone who has attended enough noble houses to have formed firm opinions about their internal politics. Her eyes moved briefly to me — a quick, intelligent assessment that took in more than it appeared to — and then back to Lyris. "You can explain the miscommunication later. For now — " she opened her arms slightly — "come here."
They embraced with the ease of people who had done it a thousand times.
I stood slightly to the side and thought that Lyris's childhood friend was someone who noticed things quickly and was being careful not to show how much she had already noticed.
Then I heard footsteps behind me.
I turned.
The senior servant — one of the three, the oldest of them, the one who had led the formal complaint to the Patriarch — was walking toward me across the receiving hall with his chin up and the specific expression of someone who has decided they are going to use this moment for everything it is worth.
He stopped in front of me.
And slapped me.
The sound of it carried through the hall.
"How dare you," he said, loudly, for the room. "You were assigned to receive this guest and you left her standing unattended in the entrance. You have embarrassed House Varkus in front of — "
I had already done the calculation before his second sentence finished.
This man had been in this household for decades. He was going to be believed over me in any formal dispute about what had happened. He had chosen this moment — Lyris's oldest friend present, the receiving hall, maximum witnesses — with the specific intelligence of someone who had been planning it.
He had also just slapped me in front of Lyris and Aelith Valerius.
That last part was the one that settled it.
I slapped him back.
Once, open-handed, across the left side of his face.
Then the right.
The hall went completely silent.
"I know your names," I said, my voice holding a level of steadiness that betrayed nothing of the riot in my chest. "I know which three of you issued that assignment, and I know you were long gone from the building by dawn. I've traced the complaint you sent to the Patriarch; I've seen exactly how you've been building toward this since the east garden study was first assigned." I stepped into his space, forcing him to acknowledge that I wasn't just some girl playing at politics. "I am twenty years old, and this is my first noble house. You saw a target you could move like a chess piece and discard the moment the positioning paid off." I let the silence hang between us, heavy and cold, until the realization finally hit his eyes. "You thought wrong."
He was staring at me with the expression of someone whose prepared script had just stopped being relevant.
"What you did not account for," I continued, "is that leaving Lady Aelith Valerius unattended in that entrance reflects on this house. Not on me. I was given a fabricated assignment with no briefing and no context. The failure of reception falls on whoever pulled themselves from the building to make sure that happened. Which was you." I looked at him. "You tried to use me as a shield for your own scheme and then slap me in public when it was time to place blame. That does not work."
Lyris stepped forward.
"Forty years," the servant said. His voice had found a different register — not the performance now, something rawer underneath it. "I have served this house for forty years and you are asking me to accept — "
"I am not asking you anything," Lyris said. Her voice had the quality of something that had passed composure entirely and arrived at something colder on the other side. "You are dismissed from House Varkus. Effective now. Please do not make this more difficult than it needs to be."
He looked at her. Something moved across his face — the specific expression of a person realizing the calculation they made was wrong at the foundation and not just the surface.
"Lady Lyris — "
"Now," she said. Quietly. That was worse than volume.
He left.
The hall held its silence for another moment. Then Aelith, who had been standing to the side of the room since my first slap with the expression of someone watching something considerably more interesting than she had expected to find on a courtesy visit, made a small sound.
It was not quite a laugh. It was the sound of someone deciding not to laugh and only partially succeeding.
[ Aelith Valerius — POV ]
*Interesting.*
*She had known Lyris Varkus for eighteen years. She had seen Lyris handle family politics, court situations, house disputes, two attempts at formal betrothal, and one incident at the Kingdom Summit that had required Aelith to personally pull her away from a conversation that was about to become a diplomatic incident.*
*In all of that time she had never seen Lyris Varkus step forward for anyone.*
*Not forward. Toward. The specific movement of someone who has stopped calculating whether to intervene and has simply moved.*
*The human was twenty years old. Standing in a noble receiving hall with a handprint on his face that he was ignoring completely, talking to a senior servant like someone reading from a list of verified facts. No performance. No status claim. Just information delivered in the specific tone of someone who had already decided how the situation was going to resolve and was now narrating it to the other party for their convenience.*
*Lyris had told her nothing in the letters. Not one word.*
*She was going to need to know considerably more about this person before the Academy started.*
Lyris turned to Aelith with the composure fully reassembled — impressively fast, I noted.
"I apologize again," she said. "The reception was — "
"The reception," Aelith said, "was the most entertainment I have had in three months." She looked at me with those quick intelligent eyes. "You must be the reason Lyris has been writing shorter letters. She used to fill four pages. Recently I am getting two paragraphs and a signature."
"I am Ashen Carven," I said.
"I know who you are," she said. "I did not know what you were like." She looked at Lyris. "You should have warned me."
"About what?" Lyris said.
"That he was going to be interesting," Aelith said simply. She looked back at me. "Come to the office with us. I have questions and Lyris will answer none of them honestly so I will need primary sources."
She walked toward the corridor as if she had been in this building yesterday.
Lyris looked at me with the expression she wore when something had happened that she had not planned for and was still processing.
"She was always like this," she said. Not quite an apology.
"I noticed," I said.
"Come," she said. And something underneath the composure was almost amused. Almost. "And Ashen — happy birthday."
"If You say it Like then You should be ready to Give me my Gify too." I said
"You're Greed knows no Bound" She said with smile.
I followed them both toward the office and thought that turning twenty in this world had considerably more variety than I had expected from the morning.