The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 99: The vault had changed

It was no longer just a chamber of relics and ruin. It breathed. With every step Beckett took deeper into the darkened corridors, the walls seemed to exhale against him. Cold air kissed the back of his neck, a whisper, a warning, or maybe the breath of the stone itself.

Celeste’s light orb hovered above his shoulder, casting warped shadows across the jagged walls. Behind him, Camille muttered words in a dialect Beckett couldn’t place. Not ancient Spellbinder, not Latin. Something raw. Elemental.

Her voice wasn’t steady. It trembled as if her tongue warred with something beneath her skin.

"I don’t think she should be here," Beckett murmured, glancing over his shoulder.

Celeste ignored him. "She must be. It’s calling her."

They reached the end of the vault, the place where time had not touched the stone. A half-collapsed altar jutted from the center, covered in runes that bled light when Camille approached. Beneath it, something pulsed.

A heartbeat.

Beckett knelt, fingers brushing away decades of dust. The pulse was faint, but undeniable. Then, the ground beneath the altar groaned, shifted, and split, revealing a shallow cavity lined with obsidian.

There it was.

A stone. No larger than a closed fist, shaped like an embryo curled in sleep. But it glowed, not with flame or light, but life.

"Don’t touch it," Celeste ordered sharply.

Beckett recoiled. "Didn’t plan to."

Camille stepped forward. The stone’s pulse doubled. The veins on her wrists shimmered faintly, as if silver threads threaded beneath her skin.

Celeste began chanting, hands weaving sigils into the air. Beckett stood, watching the patterns shift and knot like living ink.

"What does it say?" he asked quietly.

Celeste didn’t speak at first. Her mouth parted. Her eyes widened.

She translated aloud, voice flat. "The womb is the gate. The child, the war."

Camille dropped to her knees. Her breath hitched. Her hands trembled.

Beckett moved to catch her, but she shoved his arms away and screamed. It wasn’t a scream of pain, it was a release. Like something buried had finally found a crack in the earth.

"I’ve felt it," she cried. "For weeks." freeweɓnøvel.com

The air crackled. Every relic in the vault buzzed with a sound just out of reach. Camille’s fingers reached for her stomach, her skin blazing with invisible fire.

"Something inside me beats that isn’t mine."

Celeste’s hands froze in the air. "Then it’s true. She’s carrying the seal."

Beckett blinked. "The seal? You mean, "

Celeste’s voice dropped to a whisper. "Not a child. A war."

Camille curled on the cold stone, shaking violently. Tears bled from her eyes, but not clear. They shimmered. Like stars. Like memory.

Celeste knelt, placing a hand over Camille’s heart. "She’s splitting again. Her twin soul can’t house this alone. Not anymore."

The stone pulsed once. Then dimmed.

The vault went silent.

Magnolia stood at the edge of the threshold, pale, her hand gripping the doorframe for balance. "What... did I just feel?"

Rhett was behind her, panting from the sprint. His eyes locked on Camille, the glow in her chest, and then the stone in Beckett’s palm.

He spoke, his voice hoarse. "What is that?"

"The secret," Celeste answered, her tone flat. "The one Luna buried when she split Camille’s soul in two. The heartbeat? It’s the future... and it’s already begun."

The stone pulsed again. This time, everyone felt it. A hum in their bones. A rhythm ancient as breath.

Camille whispered, "It’s inside me."

No one dared ask what it was.

Then the stone cracked.

Not with a shatter, but a fracture line that glowed from within. Like something inside was waking.

And Camille screamed again, this time with a voice that wasn’t hers.

Magnolia’s breath caught mid-step. The stone cracked again in the vault below, but the sound barely reached her ears. Something else had taken hold, something rooted in her blood, older than memory.

Her knees buckled, but she didn’t fall. Instead, she froze, eyes wide and glassy. A silver haze blanketed her vision, pulling her under before she could scream.

In a blink, the chamber vanished.

She stood in a field of ash.

Blackened trees clawed the sky like broken fingers. Smoke curled from shattered temples and scorched effigies. The scent of charred flesh choked the wind. The world was silent, no birds, no breath. Only fire.

Then came the screams.

Hundreds of them. Women. Men. Children.

The vision split open like a wound, and Magnolia stumbled into it.

She was not herself.

She saw through another’s eyes, felt her heart hammer against fractured ribs, tasted copper at the back of her throat.

Ahead, a red-haired woman ran barefoot through the ruins, blood trailing down her thighs, clutching her swollen belly. Her face, so familiar, was twisted with pain and fury.

Camille.

But not this Camille.

This one was primal. Her hair wild, soaked in ash and sweat. Her nails cracked from clawing through rubble. And behind her, creatures with glowing eyes and twisted spines hunted like shadows reborn.

Magnolia reached for her, screamed her name, but her voice didn’t travel. She was trapped. A passenger in a memory that wasn’t hers.

The woman fell to her knees beneath a crumbled statue of Luna. Her breath hitched. Her fingers dug into the dirt.

And then, she began to chant.

Blood soaked the earth. Runes carved themselves around her womb.

"Bind the gate... to the womb. Lock the war in flesh. Let her sleep."

She screamed one final time, and the sky split open.

A silver beam shot down from the moon, searing the fields with light. Every creature hunting her disintegrated into dust.

And then... silence.

Everything stilled.

The woman collapsed. Her breath faint. Her eyes wide.

She whispered, "Forgive me, sister."

Magnolia jolted awake with a cry. Her body convulsed. Rhett caught her before she hit the ground.

"Magnolia!" he shouted, shaking her. "What did you see?"

She gasped, still clutching her chest. Her eyes were drenched in tears she hadn’t realized she shed.

"I saw the massacre," she choked out. "I felt it. Camille... she... she carried it. The seal. The war."

Celeste’s face paled. "You accessed blood memory."

"What does that mean?" Rhett asked.

"She stepped into a locked past. A memory buried in their bloodline. Only those connected by the seal can see it."

Magnolia wiped her eyes with shaking fingers. "There was a red-haired woman, pregnant. Looked like Camille. She died to lock it away. And now Camille carries it again."

Rhett stood slowly, his face hard. "Then we’ve been lied to."

Celeste’s lips pressed tight. "Or kept safe."

Camille stirred on the vault floor, the stone glowing in her palm.

"I remember now," she said weakly. "She was me. Or part of me. She gave herself to bind the war... and now it wants out."

The stone pulsed once more, slow, steady, like a ticking clock.

Only it wasn’t counting time.

It was counting down.