The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 96: Magnolia’s Awakening

Magnolia stepped forward, her breath catching in her throat. Her reflection stared back at her, eyes hollow, lips chapped, bruises blooming across her collarbone like crushed violets. She didn’t remember how she got here. She only remembered the dream.

The voices. The fire.

"Is this what it means to awaken?" she whispered, barely hearing herself over the pounding of her heart.

From the shadows, Celeste emerged without sound, her long white cloak trailing behind her like smoke. "You followed the pull, didn’t you?"

"I didn’t even know I was walking," Magnolia muttered, kneeling by the pool. Her fingers hovered above the water. "It called me."

"The Moon remembers its daughters," Celeste said quietly. "Even the ones who were never meant to return."

Magnolia looked up. "Tell me the truth. All of it."

Celeste’s features were carved in hard lines, no softness left in her except the moonlight glazing her cheek. She folded her arms.

"You are not just descended from Luna spellbinders. You are the first to survive the Blood Reversal."

"What is that?"

Celeste tilted her head. "A ritual. Forbidden. Ancient. One that fuses bloodlines long separated. Your ancestors were burned, their blood cursed, but someone preserved a fragment. And someone, " her eyes narrowed, "brought it into you. I suspect Rhett knows."

Magnolia stood. "Why wouldn’t he say anything?"

"Because the truth is a crown of thorns. And once you wear it, you bleed."

A cold breeze swept through the chamber. The vines shivered. The moon pool rippled once, then again, though nothing touched it.

The floor hummed.

Magnolia’s knees buckled.

Visions poured into her skull like molten silver, searing, relentless, and cruel. She saw them, women cloaked in blue fire, hands lifted in defiance as they chanted in a tongue older than the forest. Behind them, pyres blazed. Ash swirled. And in the center of the storm stood a girl, hair matted with blood, eyes burning gold, chanting, chanting, until her throat tore.

Magnolia screamed.

The floor cracked.

Celeste rushed forward, but she stopped at the edge of the moon pool. "Don’t touch the water!"

Too late. Magnolia fell, face first, into the pool.

The water wasn’t cold.

It was scalding. It pierced through skin and bone and memory. It didn’t just burn, it unmade. Her scream drowned in the depths.

The chamber shook.

Glyphs burned into the stone walls, flickering with silver fire.

Celeste whispered a prayer under her breath, her hands clutched to her chest. "She’s crossing the veil... oh gods, she’s crossing."

Inside the pool, Magnolia’s eyes flew open. She wasn’t underwater anymore.

She was standing in the ashes of her ancestors.

All around her: ruins. Charred wood. Silent ghosts. A woman stood atop a cliff, her body torn open, her heart ripped out. Another woman, her double, was stitching it back in with strands of moonlight.

"Who are you?" Magnolia cried out.

The stitched woman looked up.

"I am you, little spark." novelbuddy.cσ๓

Then the visions shattered.

Magnolia jolted awake, gasping, soaked through, lying flat on the stone floor. Her body trembled. Celeste’s hand was gripping hers.

"Magnolia," she whispered. "Look."

She did.

Two perfect glyphs had burned themselves into her palms. One was shaped like a crescent moon split by lightning. The other, a wolf’s eye pierced with a star.

Celeste drew back in horror.

"That’s... not possible."

"What do they mean?" Magnolia rasped.

Celeste rose, her face pale. "You carry both paths now. War and power. Peace and ruin. You are no longer just heir to the spellbinders."

She paused.

"You are heir to the Luna Requiem."

Magnolia pushed herself up, muscles aching. "That’s why it hurts. That’s why I dream of fire."

A distant howl broke through the silence.

Celeste snapped her gaze toward the shattered dome. "They know."

"Who?"

Celeste turned to her, eyes glowing faintly. "The ones who buried that relic. The ones who burned your bloodline to keep the secret dead. They’ve felt you awaken."

Outside, the wind turned violent. The moon vanished behind a roiling wall of clouds.

Magnolia looked at her hands again, at the symbols she didn’t understand but could feel. Her blood thrummed with energy. Her skin stung with invisible heat. Her mind raced with images she couldn’t place, wars, thrones, a child with eyes like hers drowning in darkness.

"I need to speak with Rhett," she said quietly.

Celeste didn’t move.

"You can’t."

"Why?"

"Because he’s already made a pact. And you... may not be who he’s fighting for anymore."

Magnolia’s breath caught. "What did he do?"

Celeste closed her eyes. "He called the Silent Council. He’s going to war. And he didn’t include you."

Magnolia took a trembling step back. "Why would he keep me from, "

"Because he fears you now."

The room spun. Magnolia clenched her fists. The glyphs on her palms pulsed in response, faintly glowing.

"I’m not a monster," she whispered.

Celeste didn’t answer.

Instead, she turned and walked toward the crumbling archway. "Not yet."

Magnolia stood alone, her wet hair dripping onto the stone, her breath fogging the air.

Above her, the last remaining shard of moonlight bled red.

And then, behind her, she heard a voice that didn’t belong to Celeste. A voice that didn’t belong to anyone she knew.

"Well, well, little fire," the voice rasped. "Awake at last."

Magnolia whirled around.

No one was there.

Only the pool. Rippling.

And her reflection, smiling back at her with eyes that weren’t hers.

The chains clinked softly, too soft for the rage boiling behind them.

Camille sat on the cold stone floor of the inner sanctum beneath the estate, wrists bound by silver-infused cuffs that shimmered in the moonlight spilling through the domed skylight above. She had asked for the bindings, begged for them, even. Now, kneeling in her pale linen gown soaked in sweat, she wondered if she’d made a mistake.

Rhett stood just beyond the circle etched into the floor, arms folded, face unreadable. His broad shoulders filled the room with an invisible weight. Every muscle in his body looked wound tight, a storm waiting.

"Say it again," he commanded, voice low, tense.

Camille didn’t lift her head. Her raven hair clung to her cheek, matted to the tear-streaked skin. She could feel the other self beneath her skin, pressing, writhing like something caged too long.

"There’s something in me," she whispered. Then louder: "A twin soul... or maybe a trapped one. I don’t know anymore. But it’s there."

Rhett exhaled slowly, stepping closer to the edge of the circle.

"You told me it started after the burning of the glyph chamber. That the voices came back."

"Not voices," she said, her own trembling echo. "One voice. Mine. But not mine. Like it’s lived before me. Or beside me."

He crouched, letting the firelight catch his amber eyes. "Possession?"

Camille flinched. "Not possession. I’m not... taken. She’s part of me. But... older. Darker. She remembers things I shouldn’t."

The chamber held its breath.

Rhett reached forward, careful not to cross the spell-forged line. "I need proof, Camille. The council won’t believe theory. And I can’t protect what I don’t understand."

Camille raised her head. Her lips trembled. Her irises, usually an earthy hazel, shimmered suddenly, deep violet for a heartbeat.

Her voice dropped, unfamiliar.

"Would you like proof, Alpha? Shall I whisper the night your mother begged for death? Or the name of the cousin you let live though he drowned your brother’s wolf?"

Rhett recoiled.

Camille blinked, and the light vanished from her eyes. She gasped and stared at him, lips parted, horrified. "I didn’t mean to, "

He stood abruptly. "That wasn’t you."

She nodded slowly. "No. It was her."

The fire in the braziers flickered violently as if reacting to the shift in presence.

Rhett paced a step, then another, jaw clenched. He hadn’t wanted this to be real. Camille was... his anchor. The girl who reminded him what gentleness looked like in a world full of teeth. And now, there was something else behind her smile.

"What does she want?" he asked at last.

Camille looked away. "Not blood. Not control. Just to be heard. But she’s growing stronger. I can feel her even when I’m not asleep. When I’m angry, she whispers. When I’m touched, "

She stopped.

He looked at her sharply. "When you’re touched?"

Camille’s cheeks flushed. "Sometimes when you’re near."

Silence again.

"You asked me to bind you. What were you hoping to stop?"

Camille curled her knees to her chest. "Her smile. She smiles when I cry. Like she enjoys watching me fall apart. Like she’s waiting for me to surrender."

Rhett exhaled through his nose, trying to steady the tremor crawling up his spine. He walked to the wall and pressed his hand to a hidden compartment, withdrawing a Luna blade no longer than a kitchen knife, ceremonial, yet deadly.

Camille’s eyes widened. "You said you wouldn’t, "

"This isn’t for you. It’s for whatever’s inside. If it tries to take over."

Her body went rigid. "Then test it. Ask her something only the Old Ones would know. Something sealed. Something sacred."

Rhett hesitated. Then:

"The forgotten twin of Fenra, Luna’s first daughter. What was her name before the scrolls erased it?"

Camille tilted her head. A slow smile curved across her lips, too cold to be hers.

"Veyda," she answered, voice lilting and ancient.

Rhett froze.

Only two High Council members knew that name.

He stepped backward. The room shrank around him. "So it’s true."

Camille’s smile faded. Her head dropped again. "I warned you."

He turned away, heart hammering. What did it mean? That she held ancestral memory? That Luna’s line had split and returned in Camille’s blood? Or that something darker was resurrecting itself through her skin?

Camille raised her head. "You said you’d stand by me. Even broken. Even haunted. Does that promise still count if I’m both?"

Rhett turned. His face, no longer stone, softened.

"I don’t know what you are, Camille. But I know what you mean to me. And I will find a way to shield you, even from yourself."

She wept without sound.

Behind them, the runes on the chamber wall pulsed a faint blue. The temperature dipped. The chains rattled without touch.

And from Camille’s lips, a soft hum rose, a lullaby not of this era.

Rhett stared, the blade still in hand.

The hum turned to words in a lost tongue.

And the fire in the room died.