The Forgotten Pulse of the Bond-Chapter 83: Beckett’s Blood Price

The vault’s air was thick, alive with magic and history. Dust swirled in beams of light that filtered through ancient cracks in the stone ceiling. Beneath their boots, runes carved in old tongues pulsed faintly, as though remembering what had once been sealed here.

"This place is wrong," Celeste whispered, her violet eyes darting to the shadows.

Beckett stepped forward anyway, jaw tight. "Or it’s exactly right."

He touched the door with the back of his hand. It didn’t burn. It breathed. Warm, like skin.

"Did you feel that?"

Celeste hesitated, then reached out herself. The moment her fingers brushed the surface, the runes on the door brightened to a searing blue. A low hum filled the chamber.

"It’s responding to you," she muttered.

Beckett frowned. "No. It’s testing me."

The vault groaned.

From within the deep carvings came a voice. Not spoken aloud, but pressed directly into Beckett’s mind.

Blood of the bound. Blood of betrayal. Prove thy right. Pay thy price.

He staggered back. Celeste steadied him.

"What did it say?"

"It wants blood," Beckett replied, his voice hoarse. "Not just any blood. Mine."

He pulled a blade from his belt. Clean, silver. Unenchanted. Human.

"Are you insane?" Celeste grabbed his wrist. "You don’t even know what it will do."

"It knows who I am," he said quietly. "It’s calling me out. That means something."

Her fingers tightened around his wrist. "You’re a fool if you think this thing has honor."

"Then let it take what it wants."

He cut deep.

The blade bit across his palm. His blood spilled onto the runes.

And it wasn’t red.

It shimmered. Silver.

Celeste gasped. "No. That’s not possible."

The runes reacted instantly. The moment the silver touched them, they flared white-hot. The vault door shuddered. Groaned. Cracks bloomed along its edge.

"You’re not fully Syndicate," Celeste said slowly, stepping back as though he were some kind of weapon.

"Apparently not," Beckett muttered, swaying slightly.

"Then what are you?"

He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

Because the door opened.

The chamber beyond was not made of stone.

It was bone.

Walls of fossilized ribs. A floor of vertebrae. A ceiling stitched with skulls.

The magic here didn’t hum. It screamed.

Celeste covered her nose. "This is no vault. It’s a tomb."

Beckett stumbled forward, half-drawn by an unseen pull.

The air thickened. Shapes began to form in the shadows. Pale, robed figures. Eyes closed, arms folded.

"Spirits," Celeste whispered. "Syndicate elders. Bound to the bone."

Then, a whisper, low and cruel, seeped from the stone.

Traitor’s son.

Beckett flinched.

Blood that betrayed blood. Not born of the line. Not worthy of the rite.

"Shut up," he hissed. "I came for the truth."

Then take it," the spirits hissed, rising like smoke. But truth has cost.

The closest ghost reached out, brushing Beckett’s brow. Images flooded him, a woman with silver hair, human eyes. His mother. Crying. Pleading. A child born under a crescent moon.

Then came the blade. The judgment. A life spared by mistake.

"No," Beckett whispered. "It can’t be."

Your mother was human. Your father a traitor. You are neither. You are both.

He dropped to his knees, heaving.

Celeste ran to him, kneeling beside him.

"Don’t listen. This place is poison."

"It’s truth," he choked. "I was never meant to lead. I was meant to die."

Celeste grabbed his face. "Look at me. You’re alive. That means you choose who you are. Not them."

She lies.

The spirits swirled faster, their robes rippling like water.

Your blood is wrong. Your heart is false.

Celeste drew her dagger. "You want a fight?" she snapped. "Try touching him again."

Light burst from the blade. The spirits recoiled.

Beckett groaned. The silver in his blood still burned, pulsing with magic not his own.

"Get up," she said, pulling him to his feet.

The room began to collapse.

Bones cracked. The ceiling fractured. The spirits screamed.

"Run!"

They sprinted toward the vault entrance as bone crumbled behind them.

Beckett stumbled. Celeste caught him again, dragging him out just as the vault door slammed shut with a boom.

Silence.

Only their ragged breaths remained.

Celeste looked at his hand. The cut was gone.

But the silver stain remained.

"You were meant to find that," she said quietly.

He stared at the door. "Now I know why they never let me near this place."

Celeste put a hand on his shoulder. "Then maybe it’s time you stop trying to belong to them."

His voice was hollow. "Then who do I belong to?"

From behind them, a voice answered.

"To the ones who bleed truth, not legacy."

They turned.

Sterling stood in the corridor, cloaked in black.

And he was smiling.

"You don’t have to do this tonight," Celeste said quietly, her voice tight with concern. "The tome’s not going anywhere."

Magnolia didn’t lift her gaze. "It called to me. The blood magic, the Luna script, it’s inside me now. I have to know what it wants."

"That’s what I’m afraid of," Celeste muttered.

The tome’s ancient leather bindings creaked as it opened on its own, flipping past weathered pages until it landed on a spread inked in dark red symbols. A wolf’s head intertwined with moons. Words written in a forgotten dialect she somehow understood.

The room held its breath.

Magnolia whispered, "A balance binding spell."

She stood, her fingers trembling as she repeated the chant under her breath, a melody like wind curling through pine trees. The runes on the page glowed softly, and then the air around them shifted. Static. Pressure. Beckett sat up, alarm sharpening his face.

"Mags, stop. You don’t know what that’s tied to."

Celeste rose, her body tense. "Beckett’s right. Some of these spells aren’t meant to be recited aloud. Especially not by someone still discovering their lineage."

Magnolia’s eyes were unfocused now. The room faded around her as the magic surged. A rush of memory, visions of hooded figures, women standing beneath eclipsed moons, their wolves glowing silver, chanting with voices of smoke.

One woman had Magnolia’s face.

Her knees buckled. Energy slammed through her like a wave.

And then her wolf surged forward.

Not in a graceful transformation, but a violent explosion. Her bones cracked, her scream torn apart by a deep growl as her form shifted uncontrollably. Fur rippled out, her jaw elongated. The magic in the room howled.

She was no longer herself.

The beast tore across the chamber, fangs snapping, claws carving into stone. A guard outside the vault rushed in. Too fast. Too close.

A flash of red.

The guard fell, his chest ripped open, blood pooling like spilled ink.

"Magnolia!" Celeste shouted, rushing toward the wolf. "It’s the curse, stop fighting it!"

But the wolf didn’t hear. Only rage, fear, confusion. The magic had broken something loose, something wild and ancient buried in her bloodline.

Celeste chanted a counterspell, her hands glowing with Luna fire. "Inara tu’mel, harkan dosha, "

The wolf froze.

Then staggered back, shaking, growling low.

"Magnolia, look at me. Come back," Celeste’s voice was softer now, pleading.

The wolf snarled, but her eyes flickered. Brown, then gold. Then tears.

Her body trembled. The shift reversed, slower this time, her frame crumpling to the floor, naked and shaking in the pool of warm light.

Celeste knelt, pulling a cloak over her.

Magnolia’s voice was hoarse. "I didn’t mean to... I didn’t know... It was supposed to bind balance, not break it."

"You’re a Spellbinder," Celeste said softly, brushing sweat-matted hair from her brow. "The curse runs in your veins. If you don’t learn to control it, it will consume you."

Beckett, pale and shaken, watched them with wide eyes. "That wasn’t just a spell. That was an awakening."

Magnolia gripped Celeste’s wrist. "Then teach me. Please. Before I hurt someone else."

Celeste nodded slowly, though her own hands trembled. "We start now. No more secrets."

Above them, the floor cracked slightly, just a breath of sound, but it echoed like a thunderclap.

They weren’t alone.

Something had heard the curse awaken.

And it was coming.