Title: Ashthorn Logline: Kaelen, a low-tier train
Author:unloginuser Time:2025/04/05 Read: 3032Title: Ashthorn
Logline:
Kaelen, a low-tier trainee haunted by a violent exile, must survive an elite combat school on a warring planet to unlock her hidden strength and protect the girl she’s forbidden to love.
Plot Summary (Spoilers Included – ~500 words):
Kaelen Vey is Level 17—embarrassingly low for someone her age. Her scars run deeper than her ranking though, thanks to a messy exile five years ago that left her permanently outcast from her native Sector. Now, she’s been forcibly re-enrolled at Thorne Institute, one of the harshest combat academies in the orbiting city-state of Irix, known for its brutal instructors and unforgiving rules. It’s one of the last schools left untouched by the planetary wars brewing across Eilavyn, a terraformed planet ruled by factions of gifted beings who wield Veilcraft—a set of inherited powers tied to emotion, memory, and blood.
Thorne’s training system is brutal: every mistake costs you Levels. Missing a class, failing a spar, hesitating in a battle sim—all punishable. And those who fall below Level -50 get purged. Erased.
Kaelen tries to lay low, planning to pass quietly, graduate, and leave. But when she’s paired in combat with Rae Sorrin, a high-Level prodigy with a cold streak and a reputation for making her partners disappear, everything changes. Rae is sharp-tongued, dangerous, and impossible to ignore—and worse, she sees right through Kaelen’s masks.
What starts as a slow-burning rivalry grows into a forbidden connection neither can afford. Romantic ties between trainees are outlawed, especially between former exiles and ranked elites. But Rae’s curiosity about Kaelen’s past deepens, as does Kaelen’s need to protect Rae from the political machinations brewing at the school’s highest levels.
Meanwhile, the planetary rebellion Kaelen thought she escaped is bleeding into the academies. Underground factions are recruiting from the inside. Thorne isn’t neutral anymore—it’s a front. And some of the harshest instructors are secretly training elite students for a classified war project called Silent Doctrine—a military experiment designed to weaponize unstable Veilcraft users like Kaelen.
As Levels rise and fall, alliances break, and traitors are unmasked, Kaelen’s exile begins to look less like punishment and more like setup. She has to decide: escape before the war arrives, or stay and fight for a place in a world that never wanted her.
By the final act, Kaelen and Rae uncover the truth about Silent Doctrine—that it aims to sacrifice lower-Level students as test subjects in a final Veilcraft weapon. With Rae stripped of her rank and Kaelen rising to Level 800 after unlocking a rare, once-banned form of Veilcraft called Threadweaving, the two lead a small rebel cell inside Thorne and expose the school’s secrets.
The story ends with the fall of Thorne Institute’s leadership, but not the war. Rae and Kaelen escape together, but their path forward is uncertain—just a stolen ship, a hacked navsystem, and a galaxy that still wants them dead.
Genres:
Fantasy, Romance, Science Fiction, LGBTQ+, Action, Rebellion
Language:
English
Originality:
100% original. Not fanfiction, not poetry, not a short story. First published after Jan 1, 2023. Owned solely by author (you).
Target Word Count:
Minimum: 50,000 words
Format: Long-form, novel
Structure: Linear chapters with clear level progression and world-building through character experience.
Ashthorn
Chapter 1: Level 17
The hum of the training sim vibrated through Kaelen’s bones, a low thrum mirroring the anxiety in her chest. Level 17. A pathetic number, even for a scrub like her. Five years ago, she’d been a promising student in Sector 7, until the exile. The memory, a searing brand, flickered – the crimson stain of her brother’s blood, the accusing eyes of the Council, the hiss of the transport ship’s engines pulling her away from everything she knew.
Thorne Institute, a brutal academy orbiting the war-torn planet Eilavyn, was supposed to be her penance. Escape disguised as rehabilitation. She just needed to survive the year, graduate, and disappear again. Simple. Except Thorne wasn’t built for simple souls. Every mistake – a missed parry, a late arrival, a single moment of hesitation – chipped away at your Level. Fall below -50, and you were purged. Erased.
Her sparring partner, a hulking brute named Jax, swung a training blade. Kaelen dodged, the rusty metallic tang of fear coating her tongue. She’d always been better with strategy, with manipulation, not raw brute force. That was why she’d survived the exile, why she survived Thorne so far. She wasn’t strong, but she was adaptable.
Chapter 5: Rivalry’s Bloom
Rae Sorrin was everything Kaelen wasn’t: a prodigy, Level 400+, with a cruel grace and eyes that saw straight through her carefully constructed facade. Their mandatory sparring session was less a fight and more a psychological war. Rae, with her icy precision and lethal Veilcraft – a power tied to her sharp intellect – pushed Kaelen to her limits. The friction between them sparked, a dangerous, forbidden heat that defied Thorne’s rigid rules against romantic entanglements, especially between an exiled Level 17 and a high-ranking elite.
“You’re hiding something, Vey,” Rae said one evening, her voice a low whisper in the dimly lit training room. “And that’s more interesting than your pathetic Level.”
Kaelen’s carefully built wall crumbled a little. Rae’s curiosity, her refusal to dismiss her as just another low-tier trainee, was both unnerving and strangely… comforting.
Chapter 15: Silent Doctrine
The rebellion on Eilavyn had seeped into Thorne’s gilded cage. Whispers of Silent Doctrine, a classified war project, echoed through the hushed hallways. Kaelen and Rae, their unlikely alliance forged in shared danger, discovered the horrifying truth: Silent Doctrine was using low-Level students as test subjects for a terrifying new Veilcraft weapon.
The revelation ripped through Kaelen. Her exile wasn’t punishment; it was preparation. She wasn’t just a survivor; she was a weapon waiting to be unleashed. Her own Veilcraft, a rare, once-banned ability called Threadweaving, that allowed her to manipulate the very fabric of reality on a small scale, was the key.
Chapter 25: Threadweaving’s Fury
The final confrontation was a maelstrom of betrayal and bloodshed. Instructors turned on each other, loyalties shattered, and Rae, stripped of her rank by the treacherous headmaster, fought alongside Kaelen. Kaelen, her Level now soaring to an unbelievable 800 after unleashing the full extent of her Threadweaving, ripped apart the Silent Doctrine program, exposing its horrors to the rest of the Academy.
The fight left Thorne in ruins, its leadership exposed and overthrown. But the war on Eilavyn raged on. Kaelen and Rae, battered but unbroken, escaped on a stolen transport, their future uncertain, their love a defiant flame against the encroaching darkness. They had a stolen ship, a hacked navsystem, and a galaxy that still wanted them dead. But they had each other. And that, for now, was enough.
(Note: This is a skeletal outline. A full 50,000-word novel would flesh out these plot points significantly, developing characters, world-building, and exploring the nuances of their relationship and the political landscape of Eilavyn.)
