Monarch of Dust and Bones: Reborn as Trash in a World Ruled by Women

Kaine Ajulo was not popular, but he was rarely alone.

Wherever he moved, silence followed—collected in the creases of robes, tucked behind slow blinks and half-conversations interrupted by his arrival. Not fear. Not quite awe. Something quieter. Curiosity wrapped in calculation.

No one knew where he came from. They knew only what the House whispered: that the boy who read too much had been allowed into Vault Three.

Vault Three was not forbidden. Just... filtered.

A narrow path for the few boys deemed capable of service higher than bed-warming or archive fetching. It was a test, like everything else. A chamber of dead tongues and slow knowledge, built not to teach but to observe who was willing to learn anyway.

Kaine learned anyway.

He wasn't the fastest. Wasn't the strongest. But he remembered. Every symbol. Every pause in ritual breathwork. Every phrase with more weight than ink could carry.

He learned by noticing what the House tried to erase.

He had begun compiling a list.

Not names—those changed too easily. Not titles—those belonged to the women above him.

No, what Kaine kept were patterns. Who nodded when another spoke. Who always arrived two minutes late. Who asked questions when none were needed, and who stayed silent when everything was burning.

It was slow work. Gentle. Like pressing your ear against the floor of a sleeping beast and trying to hear its dreams.

But it was working.

They were watching him now.

The summons came in the form of a red thread. Tied, without explanation, to the end of his sleeping mat.

He followed it.

Through two closed gates and three halls he'd never walked, until he stood outside the Chamber of the Outer Librarian.

He was twelve.

He'd never spoken to a Matron directly.

But he wasn't afraid.

He knocked once. Bowed. Waited.

"Enter," came the voice. Old, dry, but not unkind.

Inside, the room smelled of dust and logic. There were no candles. Only light from a Ki globe suspended in water—its glow slow and deliberate.

Matron Lurien did not rise.

She sat at a long desk, surrounded by scrolls with no titles.

Her eyes were like wind-smoothed stone.

"You're the one from the pattern logs," she said. Not a question.

Kaine inclined his head.

"I've read your annotations," she continued. "You misinterpret harmonic recursion. But your counter-structure is... interesting."

A pause.

Then:

"Why did you write it?"

He didn't rush the answer. He never did.

"I wanted to see if the shape still held meaning once its source was forgotten."

Lurien watched him, motionless.

"And did it?"

Kaine met her eyes for the first time.

"Yes," he said.

She tilted her head. Just slightly.

"Most boys in this House seek to impress. You do not."

"I seek to understand," he said.

Lurien tapped a single finger against the scroll in front of her. It made no sound. But Kaine felt something move beneath the surface of the conversation.

"Understanding is dangerous."

"So is ignorance."

A silence.

Then, the smallest trace of a smile. Not warmth—acknowledgment.

"You may return," she said. "Vault Three will remain open to you."

He bowed again, slower this time.

As he turned to leave, she added:

"One day, you will be tested not for what you know—but for whether you can be made to forget it."

He didn't answer.

But the words stayed with him.

Long after the doors closed. Long after the silence resumed.

That night, Kaine returned to the dormitory without speaking. He lay still. Watched the ceiling. Counted his breaths backward from one hundred.

He didn't dream.

But before sleep took him, he pressed two fingers against the inside of his forearm and whispered into the dark:

"Alec. If you're still listening… she saw me. Not all of me. But enough."

Still no response.

But something in the air felt less empty.