Start Here to Read The Shadow Lineage: Ashborn
Table of Contents/Reading Order
The Shadow Lineage
Ashborn - Lucy Greydell
This is a story about selection.
About what happens when institutions claim the power to decide who is worthy—and refuse to explain their criteria.
Ashborn is a serialized work of speculative fiction focused on ritualized evaluation, public judgment, and the psychological consequences of surviving systems designed to appear impartial. Advancement is scarce. Failure is quiet. Success carries its own cost.
If you are looking for escapism, this may not be that story.
If you are interested in power, legitimacy, and what people do to one another inside closed systems, you are in the right place.
What This Story Is (and Is Not)
This story is:
sequential and cumulative
concerned with institutions, hierarchy, and control
driven by rivalry created through scarcity
uninterested in simple heroes or moral clarity
This story is not:
episodic
lighthearted
interested in reassuring outcomes
built around exposition or lore dumps
Speculative elements exist to apply pressure, not to decorate the world.
How to Read
Begin at Chapter 1. Read in order.
Each chapter assumes knowledge of the previous one. Skipping ahead will flatten the stakes and distort character decisions.
You can find the full reading order here:
From Chapter 7 onward, the full chapters are only available on Patreon.
The author, writing under the pen name Lucy Greydell, holds graduate degrees in theology and business, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in entertainment business.
This background informs the story’s focus on ritual, authority, and institutional legitimacy—but the work stands on its own.