The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 75: The Pact of Dust and Fire

Magnolia!"

His voice cut through the darkness like a blade. Rhett’s feet pounded across wet leaves and twisted roots, his breath visible in the freezing air. The cracked moon, still crimson and fractured like stained glass, glowed faintly behind a thick fog curling over the cliffs.

He saw her silhouette stumbling ahead, barefoot, blood streaked down one thigh, her hair wild and tangled with moss and ash.

"Don’t, follow, me!" she yelled without turning back.

But Rhett didn’t stop.

He’d followed her through warzones. Through Syndicate traps. Through his own guilt. He wasn’t stopping now, not when she was breaking.

When he caught up to her, she had fallen to her knees at the cliff’s edge, the jagged rock beneath her glowing faintly as if the earth itself remembered the fire that had once slept inside it.

"Magnolia," he breathed, kneeling beside her. "Talk to me."

She didn’t look at him.

Instead, her arms clutched her sides as if holding something in, something threatening to rip through her ribcage.

"I saw the end, Rhett," she whispered.

He said nothing.

"I saw Savannah in chains. I saw you kneeling to Sterling." Her voice cracked. "And me, I became something else. Something that tore the moon."

Rhett placed his hand over hers gently, and the heat between them sparked faint gold.

"You’re not that," he said softly. "Not yet. And not ever, if I have anything to say about it."

She finally looked at him.

There was no softness in her eyes. No fragile girl. No Luna-to-be.

There was fury. Confusion. Power.

And somewhere beneath it, fear.

"You don’t understand," she said. "Camille... she’s not Camille anymore. She’s something ancient. That scroll, it bled into me. It showed me a world where we lose. Where I lose myself."

Rhett nodded slowly.

"Then we fight it."

Magnolia laughed bitterly, the sound edged and wild. "And if it’s inside me?"

"Then I’ll fight it too."

A silence stretched.

The broken moonlight caught the red bruises on her collarbone and the tears in her dress. His eyes moved down her trembling arms, to the hands that had conjured the scroll’s power, and lingered on her palms, scarred, blistered, still glowing faintly with golden veins.

"I’m scared, Rhett," she said.

"I know."

She looked down. "You should leave me. Before it’s too late."

He reached forward, cupped her face. His callused thumb traced her jawline.

"No. If you fall, I fall with you."

"No, Rhett, "

"If you burn," he said, voice low and grave, "then I will burn the world to bring you back."

Her breath hitched. His promise had not been poetic. It was a declaration. A vow.

And something in the bond between them responded.

A heat bloomed between their chests. A golden thread spun between their ribs and coiled like wildfire, wrapping around their hearts. Magnolia gasped as her spine arched, eyes wide.

She felt it.

The pact.

The primal exchange of soul for soul.

"You just did something," she whispered, fingers tightening around his.

"So did you."

And then she kissed him.

It wasn’t soft. It was desperate.

Their mouths crashed, tangled with breath and heat and a thousand things they’d never said. His hands gripped her waist, hers curled into his hair. The cliffs trembled beneath them. Fire crackled across the rocks as the bond snapped into permanence.

Not magic.

Not fate.

Choice.

When they pulled apart, their foreheads touched, their breaths mingling.

"We need to leave," she said.

"We will," he replied. "But first, "

His hand reached for her back, and froze.

A sharp cold pulse cut through the night.

He turned his head slowly.

Behind them, partially obscured by mist, stood Sterling.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t blink.

He simply watched.

Magnolia stiffened. "He saw."

Rhett rose slowly, positioning himself between her and Sterling.

But Sterling didn’t move. His eyes were unreadable. In his right hand, something shimmered faintly.

A rune.

An old one.

One that hadn’t been seen since the Syndicate’s blood oath days.

"Run," Rhett whispered.

Magnolia stood, her legs shaky.

"He’s not here to fight," she muttered.

"No," Rhett agreed. "He’s here to bind."

And suddenly the bond they’d just formed began to pull, tighten, heat from within. Rhett clutched his chest. Magnolia screamed, falling again.

Sterling’s mouth finally moved.

"Now I know what to break."

Then he vanished into mist.

The cliffs trembled once more.

And the ground beneath Magnolia cracked.

Camille opened her eyes to silence.

But it was not the kind of silence that calms.

It throbbed, slow, heavy, ancient.

Like a heartbeat buried beneath the world.

She lay on the cold stone floor of the ruined temple, her dress clinging damp to her skin, threads of golden embroidery darkened with blood and soil. Her chest rose and fell slowly. Once.

Then again.

She blinked.

A second heartbeat.

One that didn’t follow the rhythm of her own.

It echoed inside her, like footsteps in a forgotten corridor.

She sat up slowly, each muscle in her back trembling like a bow drawn too long. Her fingers trembled as they reached toward her chest, and she pressed her palm over her sternum.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

Her own.

And something else.

Something older.

"I’m still me," she whispered aloud, though her voice barely held shape.

But the moment she said it, the silence cracked, like a lie breaking its own bones.

The wind stirred through the ruins. Old banners, tattered and forgotten, flapped overhead. Moonlight spilled through the broken dome, bathing the altar in silver dust.

Camille stood.

The shift in her bones was subtle but profound. Her heels made no sound as they met the stone. Her shadow moved a fraction slower than her body.

And her eyes, once pale hazel, now shimmered with a faint burnished violet.

She felt... taller. Sharper.

She didn’t know what she had become.

But it wasn’t just her anymore.

Her gaze flicked to the back of the ruined sanctuary, where something called to her. A whisper in a tongue she’d never learned, yet understood with terrifying clarity. It said:

"Come."

Drawn forward, she moved through the temple like water. No hesitation. No fear.

Every step whispered of memory, of purpose, of blood shed and bones raised from ash. The Syndicate had always hidden the truth behind crowns and chains. But here, beneath the surface, lay something they’d buried.

And it had waited.

In the shadows behind the altar, where moss grew thick on marble and the air felt older than time, Camille saw her.

An old woman knelt on cracked stone, her long white braids trailing like roots, her skin dark as bark, her eyes closed as if in prayer. She was dressed in ceremonial robes that bore no sigil, only dust and tears of gold.

She looked up.

Her eyes opened, milk-white and clear.

Camille stopped. "Who are you?"

The woman smiled.

"You ask like a girl."

Camille tensed. "Then answer me like a queen."

A silence passed between them, electric and holy.

Then, slowly, the old priestess bowed her head.

"My Queen," she said, her voice like rustling leaves and breaking waves.

The ground beneath Camille seemed to breathe.

"I don’t understand," Camille murmured.

"But you do," the woman replied, rising slowly. "You feel the hunger. The heartbeat that is not yours. The throne waking beneath your skin."

Camille’s breath caught.

She did feel it.

Not hunger for food. Not for power.

But for claim.

For reckoning.

"You were made for a role," the priestess said. "Sterling never knew what he was binding. Rhett does not yet see what he will burn. Magnolia may tear the sky, but you will decide what remains when it breaks."

Camille stepped back. "I didn’t choose this."

The woman’s eyes softened. "The tide does not ask the moon where to go. Some truths choose you."

A low hum rumbled from beneath the floor.

The old priestess extended a hand, and from the dark emerged an ancient object, smooth black stone, polished by time, and pulsing with dim red veins. A circlet. Cracked, but intact.

The original Luna’s crown.

Before the Syndicate twisted it.

Before the titles.

Before the betrayal.

Camille’s hand hovered over it.

"I’m not ready," she whispered.

"No," the priestess said. "But the world is."

Camille touched the crown.

And the heartbeat inside her surged. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com

Visions flooded her:

, Rhett, his arms bound in chains of flame, looking at her not with hatred, but grief.

, Magnolia, standing at the broken gates of the capital, her wolf form crying in agony as her claws tore into familiar flesh.

, Sterling, smiling, hands bloody, as Camille stood beside him, crowned, yet crying.

Then,

A shadow behind all shadows.

A god with no name.

A throne of bone.

And Camille upon it.

She tore her hand back, gasping.

The crown fell with a sharp clang, but the sound echoed like thunder.

She turned to run,

But the priestess held her arm.

"You’ve already crossed the veil," she said. "The second heartbeat will not leave you now."

Camille met her gaze, trembling.

"Then tell me what to do."

The woman smiled again. "You already are. That heartbeat? That is not your prison."

"What is it, then?"

"Your second chance."

Camille clenched her fists.

The moonlight intensified above them.

Something in her shifted, again.

And this time, she didn’t resist it.

She stood straighter. Eyes fiercer.

And when she looked at the priestess again, she didn’t see a guide.

She saw a subject.

"I need answers," she said. "And I need to know how to stop what’s coming."

The woman bowed her head once more. "Then take your throne."

Camille stepped toward the altar.

She did not crown herself.

But the air bent around her like acknowledgment.

And outside the temple ruins,

The sky darkened.

A second moon, black and veined with crimson, began to rise beside the broken one.

A second heartbeat.

A second queen.