The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 33: Camille Vanishes

The Keep slept.

Its old bones groaned quietly under the weight of frost and silence. Somewhere in the western wing, a shutter creaked. In the east tower, a candle sputtered out. And in the small, dim room Camille shared with Magnolia, a thread snapped.

It wasn’t audible.

Not to most.

But Magnolia heard it in her chest. A tug. A chill. The kind that pulled your soul forward before your body even caught up.

She bolted upright, breath fogging in the cold.

Camille’s bed was empty.

She didn’t panic.

Not yet.

The blanket had been folded down not kicked off, not tossed. Deliberately turned, like the way Camille always did when she rose early for council training. Only there was no training scheduled. No breakfast shift. No prayer hour.

And no boots by the door.

Magnolia stood, heart already pounding. Her bond mark buzzed under her skin faint, distant, like a string stretched thin. freeweɓnovel.cøm

She crossed the room quickly.

Camille’s cloak was gone.

So was her dagger.

And on the pillow: a dark smear.

Blood.

Fresh.

"Camille?" Magnolia whispered, even though she knew.

She was gone.

The bond was still there but faint, like someone speaking from behind a wall too thick to hear.

Magnolia was already strapping on her boots before her mind fully accepted it. She yanked her coat from the chair and flew down the stairs, barefoot on cold stone, ignoring the fire in her ribs.

She didn’t knock when she reached Elara’s door.

She kicked it open.

Elara was already awake.

She sat at her table in a threadbare robe, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, ink dried on her wrists. She looked up at Magnolia without surprise, only with a sharp inhale.

"She’s gone," Magnolia said.

"I know."

Elara stood slowly.

"The wards cracked," she added. "Three of them. She took blood to break the last."

"Why didn’t you stop her?"

Elara’s eyes were too tired to argue.

"I tried. She masked herself."

Beckett arrived half-dressed, pulling on a shirt and buckling his sword. "The outer guards said they saw movement before dawn."

"She didn’t want to be found," Magnolia muttered.

"No," Elara said. "But she left blood. That’s not carelessness. That’s a message."

"Where would she go?"

Beckett frowned. "North."

"Why?"

"Because that’s where the bond thins."

The northern ridge was black with trees and shadow. The blood trail began near the western fence line, where Camille had likely scaled the old watch wall. There were no footsteps at first, only a small patch of crimson at the edge of the moss.

Magnolia dropped to one knee and touched the soil. Still damp.

"She left less than two hours ago," she said.

"She knew we’d come after her," Beckett muttered.

"She wanted us to," Elara corrected. "That’s worse."

They followed in silence.

Camille had left a deliberate trail enough signs to follow, but never enough to catch her. Drops of blood. Bent grass. A piece of torn cloth hanging from a low branch.

"She’s sleepwalking again," Beckett said.

Magnolia shook her head. "No. This is too precise. She’s awake."

They passed a hollow stump, and Elara slowed.

Her hand shot out to stop Beckett. "Look."

In the snow ahead, a pattern had been burned not carved, not stamped. Burned into the frost.

A rune.

One they hadn’t seen in over twenty years.

Elara paled. "She’s heading for the seal stone."

Beckett’s grip tightened on his blade.

"That’s suicide."

Magnolia didn’t flinch.

"No," she said. "It’s calling her."

The seal stone was ancient.

Buried beneath the hollow of a blackwood tree, its surface had once glowed with golden bond lines, forming a circle of protective magic meant to keep the gate beneath it locked.

It no longer glowed.

It smoked.

Beckett knelt beside it, fingers hovering.

"This was intact yesterday," he said. "Elara, you checked it."

"I did."

"What could’ve done this?"

Magnolia didn’t speak. She knelt at the opposite side, eyes locked on the rune still etched into the stone’s face now scorched.

"She didn’t just disable it," she murmured. "She overwrote it."

Elara stepped closer. Her boots crunched against charred leaves.

"This stone was connected to the first gate. The original entrance."

"She’s heading for it," Magnolia said.

Beckett stood.

"She’s not alone, is she?"

Elara hesitated. "No."

The forest felt different now.

Wrong.

Trees leaned at strange angles. The light filtered wrong through the canopy. Every step farther from the Keep pulled at their bones, as if the bond magic woven into their blood was thinning with the ground beneath it.

"She’s walking into a void," Beckett said.

"No," Elara said grimly. "She’s leading something out of it."

Magnolia felt it then the tremor in her chest. Not the bond. Not Camille.

Something else.

She looked up.

And saw the birds fleeing.

Hundreds of them. Black wings against gray sky.

Beckett drew his sword. "Move."

They ran.

The trail was burning now.

Not in fire in energy.

The frost ahead had melted in perfect spirals. Camille’s steps had ignited runes along the path, some too old to be remembered, others thought lost.

"She’s been here before," Elara said. "Maybe not in body. But her blood has."

They reached the second stone just as it cracked.

Magnolia fell to her knees.

"Camille "

The stone burst into light.

And something passed through them.

A shadow.

It wasn’t Camille.

It was wearing her shape.

Beckett lunged forward. "Where is she?!"

The shadow screamed a high, keening sound that burned in their ears. Then it vanished.

Gone like wind.

Magnolia stumbled back.

"She’s opening the path," she whispered.

"She doesn’t know what she’s doing," Beckett snapped.

"Yes," Elara said. "She does."

They stood in silence.

And then they ran again.

Toward the cradle.

They found him just before sundown.

Rhett stood beside the old marker stone, the one shaped like a wolf’s head. His cloak was torn, his eyes hollow.

He didn’t speak at first.

Magnolia stepped forward.

"You knew."

His jaw clenched. "Yes."

"You saw the cradle. The journal."

"Yes."

"And you didn’t tell her?"

"I didn’t want it to be true."

"You let her walk into this blind "

"I let her live," Rhett snapped. "Because I thought maybe she could be more than what they made her."

"You thought wrong."

Beckett grabbed him by the collar.

"Where is she?"

"She’s going to the threshold," Rhett said. "The one beneath the final cradle."

"And what’s waiting there?" Elara asked.

Rhett turned, eyes haunted.

"A gate."

"To what?"

He looked straight at Magnolia.

"To whatever they put inside her when they called her Caelia."

Magnolia’s breath hitched.

"You read the whole journal?"

"Yes."

"And you still kissed me?"

"Yes."

"You coward."

He didn’t argue.

He only said: "I still love her."

Magnolia stared at him.

"She’s not a girl anymore."

"I know."

"She might not even be alive after this."

"I’ll go with her anyway."

Elara stepped between them.

"We don’t have time to fight."

Beckett released Rhett.

"What’s the path?"

"Through the lower tunnels," Rhett said. "Past the third gate."

Elara drew a rune on the ground.

It glowed.

"The seal’s thinning."

"Then we run."

Magnolia looked up at the horizon.

And whispered, "Hold on, Camille."

"We’re coming."