The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 26: A Shadow in the Ranks

The forest outside Blackmist was no longer just trees and fog.

It was a war camp.

Tents had been raised in the moonlight, their canvas walls marked with sigils of protection. Wolves from lesser packs, guards who had defected after Camille’s escape, and even old bloodlines disillusioned by the Council now gathered here, loyal not to titles, but to truth.

And at the center of it all stood Magnolia.

She wore black now.

Not mourning.

Warning.

The fire crackled in the center of the command circle as Beckett strode in, boots muddy, jaw tight. Magnolia was speaking to Elara over a map of the ancient outposts when she caught sight of his face.

It wasn’t just tension.

It was something worse.

"Talk," she said.

Beckett didn’t wait.

"We have a leak."

The map curled at the edges from the sudden stillness.

"Who?" Elara asked.

"Not confirmed," Beckett said. "But word of our location made it back to the Keep less than six hours after we moved."

Magnolia stiffened. "I vetted every wolf here."

"You vetted their history," Beckett said. "Not their fear."

She nodded slowly, processing. "How much do they know?"

"Enough. Our supply routes. Our schedule. Camille’s next movement."

Magnolia’s mouth tightened. "So the Council has ears."

"Or worse," Beckett said. "A voice."

That night, Magnolia called a quiet council.

Not in the open fire circle.

In a hollow beneath the cliff edge, where the moss muffled sound and the air sat still.

Elara. Beckett. Rhett.

And two of the wolves from Camille’s recovery team.

"There are only two people who handled all the intel," Magnolia said. "One was you, Beckett."

He gave her a withering look. "If I was the traitor, we wouldn’t be standing here."

"The other," she said, turning, "was Isla."

A rustle outside.

A scent on the wind.

Then a scream.

Magnolia was the first to move.

She sprinted through the trees, eyes flaring silver, her boots silent on the frost-covered ground.

When she reached Isla’s tent, it was already torn open.

And Isla was gone.

They found her near the river.

Barely breathing.

A blade at her side.

And a symbol carved into the bark above her an ancient sigil of the Bone Pact.

"She wasn’t the leak," Beckett said quietly. "She found the leak."

Magnolia crouched beside her.

"Who?"

Isla coughed once.

Blood on her lips.

Then she whispered:

"Someone who swore to protect you."

That night, Magnolia didn’t sleep.

She stood by the northern cliff, watching the stars blur through cloud cover. The forest was too quiet.

Rhett found her there just before dawn.

"We’ll find them," he said.

"We have to do more than that," she replied.

She turned to him.

"I have to break them first."

Camille Returns with a New Ally

Camille returned at dusk.

No scouts saw her approach. No warning came from the ridges. Just a sudden shift in the wind like the forest had drawn breath. The encampment near the eastern ridge fell still, the quiet so sharp it pierced deeper than any howl.

Magnolia stood by the fire circle, her coat lined with frost, her hand resting idly near the hilt of her blade. She looked up the moment the trees began to move not violently, not unnaturally, but reverently. The pines bowed slightly, and the branches whispered without sound.

She felt it first her sister’s presence.

Not through the bond, which had gone quiet since the rite but through the air itself.

Camille stepped out of the treeline.

And she wasn’t alone.

Magnolia took a step forward, her hand still near the hilt.

Beside Camille walked a figure cloaked in black and silver. Tall. Hooded. Each step he took seemed to darken the earth beneath him for half a second too long. The robe shimmered like starlight caught in rippling water. He moved like a shadow with purpose.

Beckett emerged from the tent nearest the ridge and froze halfway.

His voice was rough. "That’s not a wolf."

Camille raised a hand. "He’s not."

Beckett reached for his blade anyway. "Then he doesn’t walk in unchallenged."

But Camille only said, "He walks with me."

The stranger pulled back his hood.

And the world tilted.

He had silver eyes not like the seers, not like Ashriel. These were deeper. They reflected no fire, no light, no moon. They reflected memory.

And pain.

Elara stepped into the clearing, her robes fluttering around her like shadows made flesh. The moment she saw him, she stopped short. Her breath caught in her throat.

"No," she whispered. "That’s not possible."

"You know him?" Magnolia asked quietly.

Elara moved forward slowly, as if crossing through a dream. "He was one of the Four Gatekeepers. The Watchers of the Final Seal. I thought they died when the first gate fell."

Camille spoke then. "He didn’t."

The stranger bowed slightly. "Ashriel was not the first to fall," he said. His voice was wind and stone and grief. "Only the last."

The camp gathered quickly.

Word spread like wildfire: Camille had returned. With something someone older than anything recorded in their bloodline tomes.

The stranger didn’t give a name.

He didn’t need one.

They called him the Keeper.

He sat by the central fire, unmoving, unmoved. When he spoke, wolves who had never bowed before dropped to their knees, unbidden. His presence frayed the seams between time and breath.

"He remembers," Camille said, sitting beside him. "Everything Ashriel forgot. Everything I saw in fragments."

Magnolia stood across the fire, arms crossed.

"What do you want from us?"

The Keeper looked at her.

"I want nothing," he said. "But the grief does. It is waking."

Beckett narrowed his eyes. "You’re saying the essence wasn’t just memory. It’s alive?"

"No," the Keeper said. "Not alive. Not sentient. But ancient magic can mimic will. And if it finds enough vessels, enough echoes..."

He looked into the flames.

"It becomes."

They spoke deep into the night.

The fire burned low, but no one moved to stoke it. No one dared blink.

The Keeper told them of the First Gate, buried beneath the ruins of the Shadowlow Valley. A place sealed by the first Luna herself where the gods mourned their dead and bound their grief in steel.

"There was a weapon," he said. "A blade forged not to kill, but to remember. To cut through lies and leave only truth."

Elara’s brow furrowed. "That sounds like "

"The Soul Fang," he finished. "Lost to time. But not destroyed."

Camille stood then. "That’s why the essence bound to me. It wasn’t just to awaken memory. It was to lead us there."

Magnolia was silent for a long moment.

Then, "You knew this when you left."

Camille nodded. "The vision showed me the path. I had to find him to unlock the rest."

"Where is it?"

Camille looked at her.

And smiled faintly.

"Beneath the grave of the first Luna."

It rained that night.

Soft. Cold. Relentless.

Magnolia stood beneath the awning of her tent, watching the fire hiss and die.

Camille stepped beside her, arms folded, the mark on her chest faintly glowing beneath her shirt.

"You’re still angry," Camille said.

"I’m still protecting what’s left of us."

"I didn’t leave to betray you."

"No," Magnolia said. "But you left me with the fallout."

Camille was quiet a moment.

Then, "Do you remember when we were girls? And you took the blame when I broke Father’s telescope?"

Magnolia didn’t smile. "He never fixed it."

"I know," Camille said. "But you didn’t let me shatter for it. You absorbed the punishment. Like you always do." freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

Magnolia turned to her.

"I’m not sure I can anymore."

Camille touched her arm. "You don’t have to."

They stood in silence as the rain soaked the earth, and the fire finished dying.

The next morning, the camp prepared to move.

Rhett returned from a scouting mission with two warriors from the outer watch.

"They’re moving," he said.

"Who?" Beckett asked.

"The Council. Thirty warriors, east flank. They’re going for the Valley too."

Magnolia frowned. "How do they know?"

Elara answered. "They don’t. But they feel it. The bond web is shaking. Something deep in the bloodlines is pulling everyone toward the source."

Magnolia looked to Camille.

"To the Fang."

Camille nodded.

"And we have to reach it first."