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Chapter 36: The War Inside Me
Last Updated:
2025-03-11 01:01:31
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A heavy silence settled in the room that lingered.We had a plan — well, the rough outline of one. Find the tethers. Break them. And maybe it saved me. the thing in me is separable.Simple in theory.Impossible in practice.Because none of us knew what would happen if we started messing with the bindings that had contained this thing for centuries. None of us knew if we were letting something far worse out than what the Council had become.But we didn’t have a choice.I pressed a hand to my temple, attempting to forget the associate dull ache that had been developing since I’d tapped into her—the Guardian standing before me. And she was still there, still waiting, curled in the darkest places of my mind, her whispers crashing in and out like a song half-remembered."They betrayed us. They do not merit your mercy.'I clenched my jaw. Not now.Maxwell was looking up at me, his mouth a hard line, his fists squeezing and unsqueezing at his sides, like he was waiting for something — some i
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The heavy weight of what I had seen in the vision still followed me. It stuck to my skin like frost, burrowing under my bones, so that every step I took was increasingly loaded and heavier. I knew where the tethers were located. I knew where to go.But to know and to do were two completely different things.We sat in the darkened study, city map laid out before us. Flame flared from a few candles sprinkled along the perimeter of the table, their dim light the only radiance in the chaste place. Maxwell stood with his arms crossed, his jaw set, and Soraya leaned over the map and traced the locations with a gloved finger. Jameson, pacing and tapping his boots impatiently against the hardwood floor.I was at the center of all this, crushing under the weight of expectation.“The ruins,” Soraya said, tapping the first mark on the map. “They’re ancient. Ancient by the standards of the Council itself. If a tether exists, it’s buried deep.”“And the catacombs,” added Jameson. “No surprise. Tha
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The first tether was the destroyer, I should have felt lighter.It didn’t.If anything, I’d felt heavier, like something clinging to my spine, tightening its grip with every breath. I could still hear the echo of the scream of the monolith in my skull, vibrating in the vacancy between my ribs.But there was no time to reflect on it.The catacombs were next.We stood peering into the ruins, where the air still crackled with the remnants of violently torn magic. Jameson squatted beside the shattered monolith and ran his fingers over the jagged remains.“Well, that was terrible,” he grumbled. “One down. Two to go.”Maxwell stayed beside me, his hand hovering above my arm as though he was anticipating I’d just fall down. I hated the way he was looking at me — like I was fragile, like I was slipping between his fingers and he couldn’t stop it.I wasn’t fragile.Not yet.The only one who seemed happy was Soraya. She breathed out, shaking her hands as if she could still sense the energy we h
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For a moment, silence—a thick, heavy, absolute silence. Not the hush of quiet, but the weight of a thing unseen, watching, waiting.Then, the air shifted.A gust of stale, frigid air traveled down the cramped tunnel, reeking of damp earth and something metallic — old blood, perhaps, or the aftereffects of long-ago death.Instinctively I reached for Maxwell’s hand, our fingertips grazing. He didn’t flinch, only tightened his hold. Solid. Steady. A tether to something real.Soraya muttered a spell, and something like a spark flickered to life in her palm, telling the jagged stone walls of the catacombs. The tunnel ahead was long and winding, and it disappeared into darkness. Old runes had been carved into the walls—some ancient and few, others wearing out over time, others glowing ever so softly, as if the castor still remembered what its purpose was.Jameson let out a low breath. “Well, this is horrifying.”Soraya didn’t look up. “Focus.”“I am focused. I’m just also acknowledging that
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It exploded into chaos in the tunnel.As if ink bled through paper, shadows swirled from the stone, coiling into something. They weren’t wraiths. They weren’t even alive.But they were hungry.As one of the figures lunged toward us, its form shimmering in and out of existence, Maxwell shoved me behind him. His sword tore through it, a clean passage — only for the shadow to twist around the blow, reknitting itself in an instant.Jameson swore. “Oh, that’s not fair.”Already Soraya was in motion, her hands weaving spells in the air. An outward pulse of energy slammed into the beasts and pushed them away. The tunnel shuddered with the impact, flakes of rock showering down from the ceiling.“Move!” she snapped.We ran.The catacombs went on forever, with a thick air of something ancient and observing. The shadows poured out behind us, silent but unyielding, their motions unnatural — jerking, skipping along the walls and floor as if they weren’t tied to the same rules as us.I felt them in
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"Lena!"But I couldn’t answer.Because I was no longer just Lena.I could feel her.The Guardian.She was no longer just a whisper from the fringes of my mind — she was here, enveloping me, inside me. The crumbled tether had lanced something free, and now here she wasn’t lurking in the shadows.She was taking.“You have resisted me long enough.”Her voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. It curdled around my ribs, slid into my bones like it had always been there.I gritted my teeth. “I didn’t rent myself out per you.”She chuckled."Oh, little Guardian. You still believe this is your decision?”A jolt of energy hit me like a gunshot, throwing me off my own balance, warping the air around me. I inhaled sharply, collapsing my hand on my head as visions hit me —Fire.Smoke.A desolate city consumed by darkness. Figures who kneel before a throne carved from bone, their faces raised in awe, in terror. One figure loomed over them all, power twisting around her body like a second skin.Me
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The second tether was lost, but the fight wasn’t over.I still felt the Guardian, coiled deep inside my bones, waiting. She wasn’t screaming anymore. She wasn’t pressing up against me.She was watching.I didn’t know what was worse.Behind us lay the wreckage of the catacombs, the shattered altar. A residue of magic in the air was almost audible, as if it hummed through the walls, shivering in my ribs. The heaviness of what we had done — what we were about to do — bore down on me.Only one tether remained.And it was in the center of the Council’s stronghold.No more hidden ruins. No more lost catacombs.This was their domain. Their seat of power.And we were just about to burn it to the ground.Maxwell hadn’t said anything since I awoke.Not really.Not in the way that mattered.He was watching me as if he thought I might explode at any moment, his eyes keen, guarded. Like you were waiting for the moment I wasn’t me anymore.It was killing me.At the edge of the city, we had stopped
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My eyes locked on the final tether, the black stone pulsing in the center of the room like a second heart.It was waiting for me.It knew me.It had been constructed to contain her—the Guardian buried in my bones, seducing my mind, punching my ribs like she was just waiting for the right moment to burst out.“This is the moment, little Guardian.I clenched my jaw. No. This is my moment.The others were waiting. Watching.Maxwell was nearest, hand hovering near his blade as if he were bracing for something to go wrong. Jameson fidgeted, fingering his dagger’s hilt. Soraya showed no reaction, magic thrumming around her in the air.Nobody spoke.Because they were waiting for me.To see whether I’d break the tether—Or if it would be me who broke.I choked and looked over at Soraya. “What will happen next if we destroy this?She hesitated. That wasn’t a good sign.Maxwell’s jaw tightened. “We don’t know.”I pressed a quick breath between my teeth. “That’s not an answer.”Jameson laughed h
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
