Home / Paranormal / The Blood Bound Legacy / Chapter 23: The Town That Watches

Share

Chapter 23: The Town That Watches

Author: Anala
last update Last Updated: 2025-03-04 21:32:03

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…
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 176: The Breaking Sky and the Voice Beneath

    And then the stars above them began to fall. Not gently. Not like wishes. Like judgment.Flaming, raw slashes across the heavens, tearing the sky into burning scars. One after another, the stars collapsed from their constellations, crashing not into the earth, but into memory. The ground didn’t shake, but their minds did. Visions hit them like lightning strikes: flashes of other lives, other timelines, moments that could have been or never should have been.Isolde dropped to one knee as the images poured through her. She saw herself standing at a child’s grave, one hand pressed to the cold soil, her other hand ablaze with power she no longer controlled. She saw cities under her protection… or her rule? The details twisted together. She saw Sariah on the throne. She saw Jalen in chains. And in all of them, she was alone.“No,” she whispered. “No, no—this isn’t real.”Beside her, Sariah clutched her head, her face contorted with pain. “They’re showing us futures,” she gasped. “Futures t

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 175: The Throne’s Voice

    The world didn’t break. It folded.Reality didn’t shatter like glass under pressure; it bent, rippling like silk dragged through water, seamless and wrong. Isolde staggered backward, every nerve in her body screaming as the energy radiating from the throne piece in Jalen’s hand cracked open the boundary between thought and form.She heard the voice again, but this time it didn’t feel like it came from the outside. It unspooled within her, lacing through the gaps in her spine, coiling around the fragile trust she’d built in herself.Let her bleed. Let her choose. Or let her kneel. It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.Sariah reached out, grabbing Isolde’s wrist. Her grip was tight, but her eyes were full of questions, not rage. “What is this? I thought it was calling me.”Isolde’s voice was a breath above a whisper. “It’s not calling you. It’s testing me.”Sariah blinked. “Why?”“Because I left something behind when I walked away,” she answered, her throat raw with realization. “Not ju

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 174: When Silence Begins to Bleed

    For a long time, neither of them moved.Isolde stood still as stone, her fingers relaxed but ready. Her breathing was even, but her pulse beat at the base of her throat like a war drum she couldn't ignore. She didn’t need to reach for her power; it was already awake, alert, flickering just beneath the surface like a sleeping storm roused by tension in the air. Sariah’s presence didn’t press against her like an enemy’s; it circled her like a question, unanswered and insistent.Across from her, Sariah stood tall, her face unreadable, but her posture not unkind. There was nothing reckless about the way she held herself. If anything, her restraint was what worried Isolde the most. People who wanted power usually telegraphed their hunger. Sariah radiated something colde,r certainty. And certainty was always more dangerous than ambition.“You don’t look like what I expected,” Sariah said finally, her voice low and even.Isolde tilted her head slightly. “And what did you expect?”Sariah shru

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 173: What Walks Toward Us

    The sun was beginning to set again when the tremor hit.Isolde stood just beyond the outer perimeter of the Citadel, watching as the wind moved against itself, curling unnaturally along the grass and stone. A low hum vibrated through her bones, a frequency she hadn’t felt since the Fold had split open, an unmistakable signal not of collapse, but of convergence.It wasn’t the Citadel reacting to her anymore. Something else had crossed its attention.Cael was already at her side. “You feel that?”She nodded slowly, her gaze locked on the skyline. “Something’s approaching.”His eyes narrowed. “More Council agents?”“No. This doesn’t feel political.” She turned slightly, pressing her palm to the stone beneath her feet. The pulse that answered was sharp, deliberate, almost rhythmic. “It’s someone Fold-touched.”Cael’s voice dropped. “You mean like you.”“No.” She turned toward him. “Not like me. Worse.”Before he could ask, she stepped back toward the Citadel, whispering an incantation low

  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 172: The Fire She Brought Back

    The wind outside the Hollow Citadel had changed.Cael knew it before he even saw her silhouette return, strolling across the broken plain. He had been pacing the outer ring for hours, each breath caught between hope and dread, refusing to believe that she had gone somewhere he couldn’t follow—somewhere not even love could reach.Now she was here. But the weight in her stride told him something had followed her back.Isolde approached, her hair tousled by a wind that didn’t touch anything else. Her eyes weren’t glowing, but they shimmered faintly, like something vast had looked into them and left its mark without needing to stay.He didn’t speak until she was close enough to hear a whisper. “What did you see?”She didn’t answer right away. Her gaze swept the landscape, the Citadel now looming behind her like a forgotten god. She looked older, not in her skin, but in her silence.“Isolde,” he said again, stepping closer.She finally looked at him. “I saw what I could be if I stopped bei

  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 171: Crown of Silence

    The throne shimmered with cold power, each edge of it cut from a shadow deeper than night, and though it sat silent and still, it felt like it was listening. Isolde stood just a few feet away from the other version of herself—the one with silver eyes and a voice made of glass and fire—trying not to show how badly her hands were shaking.The silence between them stretched too long, and then the other spoke, calmly, almost kindly. “You’re not here to defeat me. That’s not how this works. You’re here to decide if you still believe in who you are.”Isolde stared at her. “I know who I am.”“No,” the woman said, smiling faintly. “You know who you were when you were still fighting. But now? Now that the war is over, now that you’ve survived—what are you without the pain?”The question burrowed deeper than it should have. Not because she didn’t have an answer, but because she hadn’t asked herself that yet. Her entire life, she’d defined herself by what she’d escaped, what she’d resisted. But

  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 170: The Contender’s Door

    When Isolde stepped out of the room, she was different. Not taller or stronger—but whole in a way she hadn’t been for years. The child’s presence remained—not beside her, but within. Like breath. Like pulse.Jalen watched her return with cautious wonder. “Which door?”“The one I never knew existed,” she said. “And the only one that matters.”He smiled faintly. “Then maybe you’re ready.”She looked at him. “Ready for what?”“For the door you didn’t open,” he said, pointing behind her.She turned and froze.A new door had appeared. One that hadn’t existed when she entered. And across its surface were seven mirrored faces. Each of them has hers. Each of them is smiling.The kind of smile that wasn’t about joy.These weren’t expressions of peace or nostalgia. They were masks, taunting, knowing, sharpened with teeth barely concealed behind lips that curved too perfectly. Each face on the door shimmered with a slightly different shade of her: one had eyes dark as obsidian, another wore bloo

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 169: The Door That Shouldn't Exist

    She didn’t move at first. Just stood there, staring at the hallway of doors that Jalen had conjured or perhaps revealed. Each door was carved from memory, formed from moments she hadn’t dared revisit in years. The handles shimmered like polished bone. The names etched into the surfaces were old and sharp and too familiar.Her father. Her grandmother.A version of herself that had never survived the Fold.And one door, farthest down the line, held no name at all. Just a mirror where the name should be.Jalen watched her with that same strange, soft intensity. “They’re not illusions,” he said. “Not projections. These are real imprints. Pieces of your life, held here. What you forget, the Hollow remembers.”She turned slightly. “Why? Why keep these here like relics in a shrine?”He smiled—thin and tired. “Because forgetting is worse than death. Because what we abandon doesn’t die. It waits. This place is proof.”“I never abandoned them,” she said quietly. “I survived.”“That’s the excuse

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 168: The Door That Knew Her Name

    They reached the gates at dusk.No doors. Just an archway, cracked and crooked, standing as if the stone had always waited for her to walk through it. No guards, no barriers. Just silence. The kind that wasn’t empty.but holding its breath.Isolde stood still at the threshold, one foot just over the edge. She stared at the arch and felt it staring back, even without eyes. She could feel the recognition of the stone, the air, the thin line between reality and whatever this place had become. They knew her, the way a scar knows the blade that made it.Cael waited behind her, not speaking, not urging. He understood the weight of moments like this. Sometimes the hardest step isn’t into danger—it’s into memory.She could still hear the voice from the Fold, echoing behind her eyes. “You were not chosen—you were fitted.”She had fought gods. Resisted the destruction of time and self. She had survived being a vessel. And yet the thought of what waited behind that arch chilled her more than the

Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status