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Chapter 16: The Deadline
Last Updated:
2025-03-04 00:10:28
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The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 17: A Razor Between Allegiances
And yet, the file was heavy in my hands, even being nothing but paper. My fingers hovered above the photograph of Jameson Calloway, the weight of my choice sitting on my chest like a rock.“You’re hesitating.” Elias’ voice was smooth but had an undercoating of sharpness to it. He knew what he was doing, exactly.I raised my eyes to his and maintained an impassive expression. “I didn’t know the Council killed its own.”Elias brought his hands together on the table, tilting his head some. “Jameson is not one of our own anymore. He betrayed us.”I choked on my own bitterness rising in my throat. “How?”Silence stretched between us. Elias didn’t respond immediately, and that told me all I needed to know. This had nothing to do with Jameson being a threat. This was about control. About me.“You want me to do this without knowing the whole story?” I asked, my voice steady.Elias offered a smile, but it was a cold one. “I expect you to trust us.”Maxwell scoffed beside me. “That’s not how tr
Last Updated : 2025-03-04The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 18: Identity, Poetry, and Suspense – The Price of Lies
I drove in silence. The weight of what I was about to do hung around my chest like a vice, each breath a little more difficult to take. It had been a straightforward plan—convince the Council that I’d killed Jameson without really doing it. But the execution? That was when things got dangerous.”Maxwell was sitting next to me, his jaw clenched, arms folded across his chest. He hadn’t spoken much since we’d left Jameson’s safe house, his silence weighing on me more than any fight we might have had.I was the one who finally broke the stillness. “Say something.”Maxwell didn’t look at me. “What do you want me to say, Lena? That this is a great plan? That I wouldn’t expect it to explode in our faces?”I seized the steering wheel more tightly. “We don’t have an alternative.”His laugh was grim and humorless. “We always have options. You just keep selecting the ones that might kill us.’”I sighed, the weight of the world settling deep into my bones. “I’m trying to protect him, Max. And mys
Last Updated : 2025-03-04The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 19: Shadows in The Dark
The burden of my deception rested heavy in my breast, against my ribs like iron. Perhaps it was because I had walked away from the Council’s headquarters alive, but the truth was watching me everywhere, plowing its way towards its moment to unravel.Maxwell’s words reverberated in my brain. You’re not going to be able to run from this forever.He was right. But I wasn’t running. Not yet.What game was I playing where the only way to win was to last long enough to change the rules.The car ride back to the estate was quiet. Maxwell squatted in the passenger seat, arms crossed, his jaw clenched so tight that I feared he would shatter his teeth. He hadn’t said a word since we’d left the Council, and I didn’t know if that was because he’d been furious with me or afraid about what lay ahead.Eventually, I realized I could no longer bear the quiet.“Say it.”Maxwell didn’t move.“Max,” I pushed. “Just say what’s on your mind.”His voice was low, his fingers tightening against his biceps. “Y
Last Updated : 2025-03-04The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 20: What You Pay for Betrayal Part 1
My father’s words loomed over me like storm clouds. Now, we wait. And we prepare for the moment the Council learns what you’ve done.”I wanted to think that I still had time — a couple of days at least, maybe weeks, before Elias or the others began suspecting the story I had fed them. But deep down, I knew better.I was not only playing with fire.I was on the edge of a blade, waiting for the surely inevitable slip.Maxwell walked back and forth across the length of the study, his agitation evident in each of his paces. My father was standing near the fireplace, arms crossed, eyes on me. My mother remained silent, her fingers clamped around the edge of the chair, her face unreadable.No one had said anything for a few minutes. The silence was suffocating.“Please move,” Maxwell spun, his voice serrated. “So what’s the plan, Lena?”I took a deep breath, trying to control myself. “We keep the lie alive. Until the Council is convinced Jameson is dead, we have the upper hand.”Maxwell gav
Last Updated : 2025-03-04The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 21: What You Pay for Betrayal Part 2
Jameson’s words hung in a lead ball in my gut."They disappeared."I let my breath out and concentrated on holding my hands still. “So you mean to tell me the only person who ever tried to take down the Council is dead?”Jameson nodded. “Vanished without a trace.”I shook my head, the frustration simmering under my skin. “Then how do you know they existed at all?”Jameson leaned against the crates, arms crossed. “Because I knew them. And because they left behind something the Council couldn’t quite erase.”Maxwell, who had remained silent until this point, now broke her silence. “Which is?”Jameson shot a glance at him and then at me. “A journal. Notes. Plans. Everything they learned about the Council’s secrets before they vanished.”Inside me, hope flickered, momentary and brittle. “And you have it?”Jameson’s mouth shifted to a not quite smile. “Not exactly.”I narrowed my eyes. “Then where is it?”Jameson sighed. “That’s the problem. They hid it somewhere safe from the Council befo
Last Updated : 2025-03-04The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 22: Into the Hollow
It was still dark when we left that morning.Jameson had given us just the barest facts — enough to reacquaint ourselves with the idea that Black Hollow was the kind of place you didn’t just pick off a map. It was a town erased from the record, that few spoke aloud, muttered between those who trafficked in secrets.A place of disappearance.Maxwell gripped the wheel tightly and set his jaw. He hadn’t said much since we’d made the decision to go, but I could feel his unease in the way he gripped the steering wheel, in the way his eyes flicked to the rearview mirror every couple of minutes, as though he was expecting something to be following us.Jameson sat in the back, his face a mask.I gazed out the window as the surrounding scenery faded from city streets to long stretches of highway lined with forest. The farther we traveled, the more the world began to dissolve around us, as if we were moving into something unreal.“How much farther?” I asked finally.Jameson glanced at his watch
Last Updated : 2025-03-04The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 23: The Town That Watches
With each footfall, the burdens of Black Hollow weighed heavy on me.We walked back to the car without talking, all of us contemplating whatever went through our minds. The napkin Marion had handed me was weighed down with more than its size, holding an address that was a warning as much as a destination.I glanced at Maxwell. His shoulders were tight; his jaw was clenched. He had fought against coming here from the start, but now that we were in Black Hollow’s grip, I could see he was on edge in a way I’d never known before.Jameson walked a step behind, but his calm demeanor held deeper waters. He knew more than he had spoken. I could feel it.“We have to be careful,” Jameson finally said, his voice low. “The thing here… things don’t work as they should.”Maxwell scoffed. “Yeah, no kidding. The road moved to let us in.”Jameson nodded. “That was the easy part.”I paused in my steps and turned to him. “What aren’t you telling us?”Jameson paused and then released a sigh. “This town…
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A woman entered, her hood low over her face. She hurried, ghosting through the tables and slipped into the booth directly across from us.I didn’t even have time to respond before she talked.“You shouldn’t be here.”Her voice was low, rough. She pulled aside her hood to show sharp features, dark eyes with something unreadable in them.I studied her. She seemed young — late twenties, maybe — but there was an age to her gaze that belied her face.1“For you know who we are,” I said cautiously.She scoffed. “I know who he is.” Her gaze flicked to Jameson. “And if he brought you here, you’re desperate.”I clenched my jaw. “I need the journal.”She laughed briefly and without humor. “Of course you do.”Jameson exhaled. “Well, listen, we don’t have time for games. The Council—”“I know about the Council,” she said, her voice sharp as glass. “You think I’m not aware of why my parents went missing? Why did I have to spend my whole life running?”I hesitated. “Then you see why we need the jour
Last Updated : 2025-03-04
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The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 156: The Mirror Gate
Words in a language none of us had ever spoken but all understood.“Come home, Gatekeeper.”I stepped into the dark. And it welcomed me.Not with warmth but with recognition. The shadows curled around my boots, not pulling me down, but carrying me forward, a quiet reverence in their movement. It wasn’t a fall. It was a descent controlled, precise. As if this place had been expecting me all along.The world above vanished in an instant.No light, no sound. Just pressure. Like the air here had weight. Like memories were embedded in it. I felt them—fragments of thought, of pain, of sacrifice—all whispering around me like a thousand voices buried beneath layers of time. None loud enough to understand, but all too present to ignore.And then, just ahead, I saw it.A gate—not made of stone or metal, but pure energy. It pulsed like a living thing, veins of crimson and gold coursing across its surface. It wasn’t shut. It wasn’t open. It waited.“Gatekeeper,” a voice echoed, not around me, but
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 155: The Breach Beneath
Silence had weight. It wasn't just the absence of sound—it was the pressure of dread before something snapped. That silence hung heavy in the sanctuary, where the second seal now glowed faint red, pulsing like a heart buried too deep in the stone.I stood before it, my hands trembling not from fear alone, but from the ripple of ancient magic churning through the floor, creeping into my bones.“She tricked us,” Nima whispered, her voice raw with disbelief. “She tricked all of us. Even you, Lena.”“I know,” I said.Maxwell leaned against a cracked pillar, one arm pressed to his ribs where Elara had thrown him. “This isn't the end,” he said. “It’s the real beginning, isn't it?”“I think it always was,” I murmured.Barin slammed his fist into the stone. “We should’ve killed her when we had the chance. We had the chance.”“No,” I said flatly. “We had an illusion. Elara wasn’t trying to win. She was buying time. She’s not the villain. Not entirely.”Maxwell’s gaze sharpened. “What are you s
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 154: Ashes in the Veins
The aftermath should have felt like a victory. But it didn’t.The sanctuary lay broken, cracked from the battle, the magical veins of the earth still pulsing weakly underfoot. Smoke drifted lazily in the air, the tang of blood and burnt magic too thick to ignore. Survivors moved like ghosts, patching wounds, retrieving bodies.I sat on the cold stone steps of the ruined central hall, numb, staring at my shaking hands. Maxwell hovered close, never letting me drift too far, but giving me space I didn’t know how to fill.“What now?” Nima asked softly, kneeling beside me. Her face was grimy, streaked with dried blood, her eyes bruised from exhaustion.“Now?” I said the word hollow on my tongue. “Now we bury the dead. And we wait.”“For what?” Barin asked, joining us, cradling a broken arm against his chest.“For the next monster,” I said, without a shred of humor.Maxwell shifted, his body taut with tension. “They’ll come,” he said. “Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next month. But the
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 153: The Price of the Gate
The ground buckled under the weight of the creature stepping from the breach, its horns scraping the edges of the broken sky, its very presence warping the sanctuary’s magic like a disease. Every breath it exhaled filled the air with a thick, choking fog that tasted of ash and endings.Maxwell tightened his grip on me, shifting his stance defensively. “Lena, we can’t fight that.”I struggled to sit upright, every nerve screaming in protest, the knife wound burning like an open brand against my side. My magic was dim, a flickering candle in a hurricane. I knew, deep down, he was right. We couldn’t fight it. Not like this.Not head-on.The creature spoke again, its voice layered with a thousand echoes. "You were meant to shepherd my arrival, Gatekeeper. Instead, you squandered the blood. You squandered the keys."Maxwell turned to me, his face pale but determined. “What is it talking about?”I coughed, each word tearing out of me. “The Crown... the Vault... they were... distractions. Th
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 152: Shattered Lines
The roar of the Firstborn creatures tore across the sanctuary like a living wave. They moved with terrifying grace, shadows with jagged edges, mouths full of teeth too many for any natural being. Their bodies twisted in ways that defied logic, like they had never been meant to walk in a world bound by rules.I barely had time to raise a shield before the first impact hit. Magic flared around us, an unsteady wall of golden light. Maxwell was already at my side, slashing at the nearest creature, his blade singing as it cut into the darkness. But they weren’t easy to kill—every wound sealed almost immediately, the monsters adapting, growing stronger with each blow.“We can’t hold them!” Barin shouted from somewhere to my left, his arms coated in blood—some his, some not.Nima and Elara worked furiously at the boundary, their chants weaving more layers of protection, but the creatures shredded through them like paper. I knew it then. This wasn’t a battle we could win by brute strength.We
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 151: The Crown and the Cost
The magic snapped like a whip through the circle.For a moment, it felt like the sanctuary itself recoiled from what we were trying to do, as if even the earth knew the risk we were taking. But we held the line—Maxwell, Barin, Nima, Elara, and the others—all of us linked not just by magic, but by sheer, desperate will.The vault below the sanctuary pulsed like a second heartbeat, slower and heavier than the First Door, but no less ominous. As we chanted, the bindings on it began to fray, golden threads unraveling into the night air.And then, A crack.Not from the ground this time. From the sky.Lightning forked across the heavens, but it wasn't the natural blue-white of a summer storm. It was black, threaded with red, like the sky itself was bleeding. A smell like burning iron filled the air.Something else had arrived. Something not from our world.Barin staggered, clutching his head. “They’re coming!” he gasped.“Focus!” I shouted, forcing my magic into the next seal layer.Nima’s
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 150: When the Earth Breaks Open
For the first time in my life, I felt powerless.The heartbeat beneath the earth had grown faster, stronger, until the ground vibrated constantly, as though the land itself were straining against invisible chains. Around us, the sanctuary’s wards pulsed weakly, flickering like candle flames caught in a hurricane. Every instinct in my body screamed that the Harbinger’s arrival wasn’t the end of the nightmare—it was the beginning.Maxwell stood beside me, staring into the darkness beyond the tents. His face was a perfect mask, but I knew him too well. I could see the tension in the set of his shoulders, the fear he would never voice unless forced.“We’re not ready for this,” Barin muttered, pacing back and forth. “We built defenses against armies, assassins, the Council’s damn enforcers—but this?” He shook his head violently. “We can’t fight myths, Lena.”“We’re not fighting myths,” I said, my voice hoarse but certain. “We’re fighting the consequences of lies too old to be forgotten.”I
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 149: Whispers of the First Door
For a long time, no one moved.Lior’s body lay unnaturally still, the black veins receding slowly as if whatever force had animated him had finally burned itself out. The silence pressed into my ears like a physical weight, and all I could hear was the wild hammering of my own heart.Maxwell knelt cautiously, checking Lior’s pulse even though we all knew there would be none. “He’s gone,” he said grimly, standing and wiping his hands on his trousers like he could scrub away what he had just witnessed.I stepped closer to Lior’s body, forcing my legs to obey even as every part of me screamed to turn away. My fingers itched to summon my magic, to scan deeper, but something in my gut warned me against it. Whatever had been buried in Lior, whatever had just been unleashed, it had been old. Purposeful. A ticking time bomb planted within him long before he ever set foot inside our sanctuary.Barin's voice broke the suffocating quiet. “First Door?” he said, his tone raw, full of confusion and
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 148: The Door in the Blood
The Seal wasn’t just breaking.It was opening.I could feel it deep inside my chest, pulsing to a rhythm I hadn’t known was mine until now—a calling that wasn’t spoken in words, but written into my bones.Maxwell gripped my arm. “Lena. Talk to me. What’s happening?”I struggled to find my voice. “The Seal... It’s not just a lock. It’s a beacon. It’s been waiting for me. Not to keep it closed—” my throat tightened, “—but to complete it.”Barin burst into the tent, panting hard. “The eastern sentries just reported—cracks. In the ley lines. They’re... bleeding magic. Wild magic.”Bleeding.The word hit harder than it should have. As if something sacred was hemorrhaging, and I could feel every drop slipping away.Maxwell swore under his breath, pacing. “We don’t have time. You have to decide. Now.”But how could I decide?If I answered the call, if I embraced the destiny written into my blood, I risked becoming something else—something not entirely human. Not entirely mine. But if I refus
