Valmont Series - Inheritance Code

Chapter 8.2 - The Unranked Sovereign

Always there. Never announced. Never challenged.

He passed through security layers that should've stopped him.

Accessed zones even Sovereign Laureates required formal clearance for.

And somehow, the system never blinked.

Cassian Dantes had no visible rank.

Technically—he was Sovereign-tier.

But no one believed he merely belonged at the top.

He existed above it.

A theory lingered—rarely spoken, but known:

He'd hidden his Prestige markers.

Sovereigns could override visibility...

But no one else ever did.

Because in Avalon, Prestige was status.

Visibility was dominance.

And hiding your rank?

That was power you didn't need to prove.

Cassian never proved anything.

And no one asked him to.

Not out loud.

Some believed he'd bypassed the system entirely.

Others swore the system had bent for him.

But the strangest part?

No one had ever seen him rise.

He was simply—already there.

And in Avalon, that made him the most dangerous presence of all.

Her breath caught.

Not from fear. From recognition.

Only now did she notice their proximity—

how her body, without asking, had closed the space between them.

Not out of courage. Not even defiance.

Just... something quieter. Older.

Drawn by a gravity she hadn't named.

Not charm. Not warmth.

But something colder. Magnetic. Unspoken.

The kind of presence that made others hold back—

and somehow made her step forward.

He wasn't watching her like someone curious.

He looked at her like someone who had already found the fracture—

and wasn't surprised it was there.

The others had dissected her.

The Council tested, calculated, disputed.

Every glance carried weight—

as if her presence required credentials she hadn't submitted.

Some were amused.

Not cruel—just entertained.

As if she were a flicker, not a flame.

A curiosity bound to correct itself.

Even praise felt conditional.

Measured. Tentative.

As if they were waiting for the glitch to collapse under its own anomaly.