The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 42: The Wolves after the Door

"She was seen crossing the southern slope at dawn," Beckett said, his breath coming fast as he walked beside Rhett, boots slicing through frost that hadn’t melted in three days. "Alone. No escort. No cloak."

"She’s not thinking straight," Rhett muttered, eyes narrowing as they passed the old watchtower. "Camille wouldn’t just disappear not now."

"She didn’t disappear," Magnolia said, catching up with them near the forest edge. Her voice was tight, controlled, but the worry behind it was raw. "She walked out the front gate in full view of the guards and told them she needed to feel what it meant to breathe without walls."

Rhett slowed. "How long ago?"

"Two hours."

He stopped.

So did Beckett.

"That puts her past the boundary slope," Rhett said, calculating. "If she kept walking "

"She’s in the Hollow," Magnolia finished.

They didn’t speak for a moment.

The Hollow was a low valley carved into the base of the southern ridge, layered in mist even at high noon, forgotten by most except for the wolves who remembered what had happened there during the last rebellion the wolves who never came back out.

"She’s not armed," Magnolia added.

"She doesn’t need to be," Beckett said. "If something wants to kill her, it’s already dead."

They moved quickly now, through the low trees, past the broken wards Camille had deactivated weeks ago. The forest felt like it was watching them. Not listening watching. The trees leaned closer. The wind didn’t blow. It breathed.

"She’s not here to die," Rhett said as they reached the ridge line.

"No," Magnolia agreed. "But she’s looking for something that should’ve stayed buried."

They found her ten minutes later, standing in the middle of a clearing, head tilted slightly toward a patch of moss-covered stone. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t speaking. She was just... still.

"Camille," Rhett called.

She didn’t turn.

Not until Magnolia approached slowly, boots soft on the damp soil. "We’re with you," she said gently. "But you can’t do this alone."

Camille finally looked up. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes those eyes were full of something older than grief.

"I didn’t come here to find anything," she said. "I came to listen."

Rhett moved closer. "To what?"

She pointed to the earth.

"I heard her."

Magnolia’s throat tightened. "Caelia?"

Camille nodded.

"I stood here when I was seven," she said, voice distant. "I don’t remember how I got here. But I remember the sound. The hum beneath my feet. The pull in my chest like my blood remembered something my mind couldn’t."

Beckett stayed at the edge of the trees, arms crossed, watching.

"And now?" Rhett asked.

"Now I know what she was trying to show me."

She knelt, placing her palm flat against the stone.

A vibration shivered through the ground.

Rhett’s jaw locked. "We shouldn’t be here. Not if the seal’s active."

"It’s not a seal," Camille said quietly. "It’s a door."

Magnolia stepped closer. "A door to what?"

"Memory," Camille whispered.

And then the ground opened.

Not violently not with noise or smoke or sudden collapse.

It just... parted.

Like something breathing out after holding its breath for a thousand years.

Below, a staircase spiraled into blackness. Cold air swept up like fingers brushing the nape of Rhett’s neck.

"This wasn’t in any record," Beckett said.

"It wouldn’t be," Camille replied. "They built the cradle rooms over these tunnels. They layered their secrets."

Rhett looked down the stairs. "You want to go in?"

Camille stood slowly. "I have to."

"Then we all do," Magnolia said.

Together, they stepped into the darkness.

The walls were smooth stone, etched with markings older than the Keep. Not words not quite. More like impressions. Scenes. A wolf with two shadows. A circle made of teeth. A hand reaching toward fire, not away from it.

As they descended, the air grew colder, heavier. Camille led, her steps sure, her breath steady, as if her body remembered the way long before she did.

After nearly ten minutes, the passage opened into a chamber lit by a dim blue glow radiating from the floor itself. The center of the room held a pedestal cracked, worn, and empty. But what surrounded it drew all their eyes.

Mirrors.

Hundreds of mirrors.

Each one facing inward, framing the pedestal like a halo.

"Reflections," Camille said.

"Of what?" Magnolia asked.

Camille approached one and touched the glass.

Her own face looked back.

But not as she was.

Not quite.

Younger. Markless. Innocent.

Then another blink and the image shifted.

Same face. But eyes black. Hair floating as if underwater.

Then flames.

Then bones.

Then nothing.

She pulled her hand back.

"These aren’t just mirrors," she whispered. "They’re memories."

Beckett reached out to touch one, but Rhett caught his wrist. "Don’t."

"They’re only memories," Beckett said.

"No," Camille said, turning. "They’re anchors."

"To what?" Rhett asked.

Camille turned to the center pedestal.

"To what came before."

And the moment she said it, a sound echoed through the chamber not a voice. A pulse.

A heartbeat.

The mirrors shivered.

And one by one, began to show faces no one had ever seen wolves with seal marks that shimmered, vanished, returned. Eyes too old. Smiles too broken. Voices that whispered names that didn’t exist anymore.

"We found the cradle’s root," Camille said, barely breathing.

"And it remembers all of us."

"Don’t touch anything else," Rhett said sharply, his voice echoing through the mirror-lined chamber.

Camille didn’t look at him. She was still watching the pedestal. The soft hum of magic stirred the air, curling around her like smoke. The surface of the mirrors continued to shimmer not with reflection, but with memory.

"They’re not just showing the past," she said softly. "They’re responding to presence."

"Then they’re alive," Beckett said, his voice uncertain, hovering just above a whisper.

"They remember," Magnolia added, stepping closer, her gaze darting between the shifting glass. "They’ve been waiting."

"For what?" Rhett asked.

"For her," said a voice none of them recognized.

They turned sharply.

A woman stood at the far end of the chamber. Pale hair, robes soaked in frost, a mark across her face that wasn’t fresh old and silvery, a bond scar long sealed. She didn’t move closer. Her hands were empty. Her stance, calm.

"I don’t know you," Camille said, stepping forward, spine straight, voice controlled.

"You wouldn’t," the woman replied. "But I know you. I saw your face in the waters the day you were born."

Magnolia moved subtly to Camille’s side. "You’re from outside the Keep."

The woman tilted her head. "I am from before the Keep."

Rhett narrowed his eyes. "That’s impossible."

"Is it?" the woman asked, smiling faintly. "And yet here we are. In a room that shouldn’t exist. Beneath a stronghold that was never supposed to crack."

Camille took one step forward. "Why are you here?"

"I was called," she said. "By the same pulse that drew you. The bond remembers itself. It draws its fragments together when the time comes."

"The time for what?" Camille asked.

"For division," the woman said, eyes glowing faintly now. "And rebirth."

Beckett looked between them. "Who are you?"

The woman turned toward him and said a single word.

"Caelia."

The room went still.

Even the mirrors stopped shifting.

"No," Camille said, voice low. "That’s not possible."

"I was never just one," Caelia said, moving slowly around the room. "The bond fractured me a long time ago. You are a shard of that fracture. A reflection. But now the mirrors are closing."

Magnolia grabbed Camille’s arm. "This feels like prophecy."

"It’s not," Caelia said. "It’s consequence."

Rhett moved forward. "If you’re really Caelia, then tell us what did they create in that cradle chamber? What did they bury down here?"

Caelia looked at Camille.

"I thought they created me," she said. "But they didn’t. They created the idea of me. The root of the bond is not obedience. It’s memory. But the Keep turned it into control. They turned us into experiments. Mirrors of loyalty and pain."

She stepped to the pedestal and placed her palm on the stone.

The entire chamber trembled.

The mirrors ignited not in flame, but light. White, cold light that pulsed from the glass like the pounding of a second heart.

"You feel it?" Caelia asked, voice vibrating. "This is the true cradle. And it is awake."

Camille stepped forward slowly. "If it’s awake, what does it want?"

Caelia met her eyes.

"It wants what all forgotten things want," she said.

"To be remembered."

The light flooded brighter not blinding, but fierce. Each mirror showed a face not just Camille, not just Caelia, but wolves long lost. Names that had vanished from the records. Faces buried in lies.

Beckett’s jaw tightened. "This... this will destroy the Keep."

"No," Caelia said. "It will reveal it."

Rhett stepped beside Camille. "Do we stop it?"

"We can’t," she replied. "It’s already started."

A low rumble echoed through the floor. The pedestal cracked down the center, and from its core rose a thin strand of silver thread glowing, humming, suspended in the air.

Caelia whispered, "The original bond."

Camille didn’t blink.

She reached for it.

As her fingers brushed the thread, every mirror burst not into shards, but into mist. The images dissolved, and in their place, a ring of wolves appeared spectral, translucent, glowing faintly.

They knelt.

Not to Camille.

To the thread.

To the bond.

And then they vanished.

Leaving the room empty.

Except for Camille.

And the light still clinging to her skin.

Caelia stepped back.

"I’ve given you what you came for."

"What do I do with it?" Camille asked, her voice shaking for the first time.

Caelia smiled.

"You decide."

She turned and walked toward the wall.

And disappeared into the stone.

No door.

No passage.

Just gone.

The thread remained, coiled around Camille’s fingers, pulsing slowly like a heartbeat.

Magnolia placed a hand on her shoulder.

"We take it to the council," she said.

"No," Camille replied. "We take it to the wolves."

And the cradle beneath the Keep pulsed once.

Then went quiet.