The Tharchiate Codex Novels & Stories

Her chest tightened. She wasn’t ready for all of it. But part of her wanted it anyway. “I need to know more,” she said. “About what happened here. About what I did.” Lucan reached into his coat and pulled out a weathered book wrapped in a dark velvet cloth. He placed it on the stone beside her. “The Dream Codex,” he said. “It’s what’s left of your spellbook. Or Sariah’s, rather.” Seraphina opened the cloth with care, her fingers tracing the faded pages. Symbols danced across the paper—some familiar, some utterly alien. But the minute she touched them, they stirred inside her.

“If this thing is tied to me, then I need to understand it. Not because you expect me to fix it—but because it’s already part of my life.” Thalanor studied me carefully. Then he inclined his head. “Very well.” He waved a hand, and the far wall shifted, revealing a sealed door etched with familiar symbols. “The inner archives,” he said. “Records even the council avoids.” Fenrir’s eyes widened slightly. “Those are forbidden.” “Yes,” Thalanor replied. “Which is why we’re running out of options.” My pulse quickened as I stared at the door. Fear twisted in my chest, but beneath it, something else stirred.

I stepped over them slowly, scanning the shelves that still stood. "You’re looking for it", my wolf said. "You think it survived." “It has to have,” I breathed. “It always does. I should have take it with me the last time.” And then I saw a glimpse of black under a collapsed beam. I knelt, hands trembling slightly as I cleared the debris. The cover was scorched, but intact. The Codex Lunaris. I exhaled shakily, brushing soot from the silver sigil pressed into its spine - a crescent cradling a thorn. The mark of the Moon’s chosen line. Mine line.

But even she had warned me that not all truths were meant to be archived. And Maeve? She deserved to know. She’d risked more than most. But this wasn’t about suspicion anymore. This was about proof. Dangerous proof. And I wasn’t ready to share it. Not until I understood what it meant. Instead, I retrieved my personal codex, a slim, unassuming volume bound in Nyx-threaded leather and sealed to my blood. It opened only for me. And even then, only when I meant it. I slid the compiled sigils into its center fold, murmured the anchoring spell, and pressed my hand flat to the page until the ink bled and shimmered, sinking beneath the surface.

The title, embossed in deep crimson, read *The Bondage Codex: A Victorian Manual of Restraint and Ecstasy*. “Tonight’s text is more demanding,” he said, voice low and smooth as he opened the book. The pages shimmered faintly as if alive. “It requires full physical compliance. The ink will bind you, and it grows tighter when you make sound. You will read the instructions aloud while I follow them precisely. Do not stop reading, no matter how desperate you become.” My thighs pressed together instinctively. “Yes, Mr. Thorne.” He guided me to an antique rolling library ladder fixed against one of the taller shelves. “Climb three steps and turn to face me. Arms raised and gripping the sides.”

The sky above tore again, Script rained down, not chaotic, not broken, but ordered. Lines like rules, Lines like laws. The rewritten must not exist in multiplicity. The child of a paradox belongs to the origin. The throne cannot remain unbalanced. Kael’s eyes widened. “They’re quoting the Codex Archaic.” Ashen snarled. “That thing was destroyed.” The crowned one’s eyes glinted. “Only in your story.” Liora took a step forward. “You sat on something that wasn’t yours.” “No,” the figure said. “I sat on what you refused to claim.”

The stairs ended at a massive iron door etched with the First Duke’s seal: a wolf's head trapped in a cage of thorns. I focused on my "Sight." The darkness peeled back. The crypt wasn't just a graveyard; it was a map. Millions of shimmering, grey threads woven into the stone walls, all of them vibrating with a low, sub-harmonic hum. These were the echoes of every Thorne who had died carrying the shadow. “Ting.” The Archivist didn't appear in his usual grey rags. He appeared as a projection of light, his form flickering like a dying candle. He looked weaker here, beneath the mountain.

My heart thundered. I slipped on the gloves, per Esteban’s instructions, and began pulling files. It was called The Codex—an unmarked archive buried beneath Julian’s security stack. If what Esteban had uncovered was true, it wasn’t just Jeff’s empire documented here. It was a manual on how to build one from scratch. Names. Routes. Codes. Shell companies. Payment systems. Extortion algorithms. Bribes. Even death orders. Every monstrous thing he’d ever done, catalogued like some digital gospel.

This was the only thing that he had carried here from the past along his precious memories. An imperishable dao heart that would brave through a million deaths and still remain unchanged through the endless tides of time and its merciless tribulations. “Affirmative, host.” The system took three breaths to comb its rich database for a fitting cultivation manual per the request of Tristan. “BOINK!” Eternal Will Codex – the ultimate inheritance of the Ancient Natives called the Edurus who dwell in the Frozen Plateau. “A good name. Now let me see if its teachings are a match to its lofty title.” Tristan muttered as he read the contents of the manual.

“Where’s the second document?” Vincenzo entered then, holding up a thin leather-bound book. “This was hidden in the crypt vault under false architectural files. Matteo nearly missed it.” Lucien opened the cover. Inside were only seven pages. But the first words made his blood run cold. Codex Custodia. “Latin,” he whispered. “‘The Guardian’s Code.’” The pages outlined a system—ancient, covert, spanning centuries. The Marchesis, it said, had long served as keepers of a ledger not just of assets, but of vows. Political marriages. Secrets traded between royal houses. Military locations. Even blackmail material on sovereigns and church leaders alike.