Trial Of Ascension Novels & Stories

And I release my jaw, and take a slow breath then let it out. "Better," Mark says. "Now I am going to try again. Do not react." "Caleb never loved you." I hold still. My heart pounds in my chest, but I keep my face neutral. I keep my hands open and I keep breathing. Mark watches me for a long moment. "Good. Not perfect, but good. We will keep practicing until you can hear his name and feel nothing." "I do not know if that is possible." "It is possible. People do it every day. Soldiers, survivors and anyone who has been through hell and decided to keep living." He leans forward. "Third lesson: predicting attacks. Stand up."

Alex lounged beside him, his posture casual but his eyes sharp. The orchestra shifted into a slow waltz. Lights dimmed, focusing on the stairs. I stepped into the glow. Silence fell, heavy and suffocating. Halfway down, my eyes met Percy’s. The bond roared back to life, tearing through me. His control cracked. The air around him thickened. Elijah waited at the bottom, hand extended, eyes gleaming with triumph. I looked at it, then stepped past him, my skirt brushing his shoes. “I can walk myself, Elijah,” I said.

The gavel fell for the final time. “The charge of parasitism is confirmed.” Screams rose and fell around me. I could imagine them struggling to escape, only to be dragged back into their seats, stripped down to their true forms, and crushed inside the extraction device. I had no interest in listening to those filthy sounds any longer. I pulled out my earpiece. Taking Megan’s hand, I walked away, step by step. Thank goodness for the Trial of a Parasite. If it didn’t exist, how else could I have found justice?

I felt something tearing inside my head, trying to break through a wall I never knew existed. The Priestess's voice, cool and imperious, cut through to me. "Princes! The Rite of Ascension begins! Claim thy Lady!" I looked up, the pain overridden by a surge of adrenaline. The three huge auras of Zilo, Klaus, and Zack no longer stood afar. They moved, fast, closing in on the circle.

But queens do not get the luxury of nearly. “I am not something that can be taken,” I say. “I will walk into that Trial on my own feet.” The envoy watches us with unsettling patience. As if this outcome was never in doubt. Perhaps it wasn’t. “When?” I ask her. “Three nights from now. Under the Ascendant Moon.” Too soon. Deliberately so. “Prepare yourself,” she adds. “The Trial does not measure strength.” “What does it measure?” Her gaze deepens. “Truth.”

The world beyond our wards shifted too, I felt it like muscle memory returning to a limb long unused. Thresholds would open again. Hunters would return. And something far older was turning its gaze fully toward us. I stood at the window, watching fog curl through the valley, and allowed myself one steadying breath. “Let them come,” I murmured. Behind me, I felt Kael, Ren, and Azrael close ranks without a word. This wasn’t a siege anymore. It was an ascension trial. And I would not fail it.

You have passed the true trial. I looked up at her through my tear-blurred eyes. 【The Blood Moon Trial has never tested your ability to kill and betray. It tests whether, in the face of utter desperation, you can hold onto the love and bonds in your heart, whether you possess the courage to sacrifice yourself for your family.】 The Moon Goddess's voice was filled with approval. 【The selfish, who would harm their own kin to save themselves, were devoured by the blood moon the moment they betrayed. Only you, with your sincerity, your refusal, and even your final sacrifice, have proven that your soul is worthy of my blessing.】

*This is why we survived. But Ravel's shout shatters the vision. "Kelly! Don't-!" She's too late. --- **The Communion** The throne's light floods me, fusing with the static. The Bastion's roots surge into my veins, its memories becoming mine. I see the garden's birth-a cosmic entity forged to nurture, twisted by mortal fear into the Bloom, the Seeds, the Hunger. Alaric kneels, tears in his eyes. "It's chosen you. The first **Ascendant**."

Probably because they didn’t want us gossiping during Trials, she teased, and I laughed quietly, the sound strange and fragile after so much pain and silence. For a moment, I felt safe. I was finally not alone. But the warmth didn’t last. The air shifted again, colder, thicker this time. The ground beneath us trembled and the miasma began to slither back in from every direction. My smile faded. Naryssa? I called through the link. Do you feel that? Yeah, she answered. It’s The Miasma. I heard from an Ascendant that the best way to clear your path is to—

The heat, the hunger, the way desire twined into her divinity like roots into stone. And now it was waking too. "Aria," Selene said gently, pulling her in close even as the heat from her body scorched her hands. "You're not ascending — yet. Your body's trying to, but it's split. That's why it's not complete. Your succubus blood — it's activating too." "No," Aria whimpered. "I don't want it — I don't —" "I know. But it's part of you. You don't have to fight it right now. Just hold onto me."