Chapter 20: The Hound's Oath

Modern Timeline - Saint Lorraine Academy

The black dog's shadow stretched unnaturally long under the sodium lamps, its amber eyes reflecting centuries of star maps. When the new Spiritborn tripped over her bullied classmate's backpack, the creature caught her elbow with jaws that left no teeth marks – only frostbite patterns matching Caelum's ancient war scars.

"Did Professor Voss send his pet to babysit?" Amberleigh kicked a soda can at it, the aluminum freezing mid-air. "Tell your master even quantum hounds can't–"

The dog's growl resonated at 1521 Hz – the exact frequency of Aztec death whistles. Students clutched their ears as the sound triggered ancestral memories of sacrificial temples.

Ancient Timeline - 1600s Prague

Caelum knelt in Isolde's alchemical forge, his blood crystallizing into a lupine homunculus. "You'll guard her incarnations," he whispered to the quicksilver creature, "but never interfere. When the 500th cycle completes..."

The homunculus howled through spacetime, embedding itself into the curse's quantum framework as an autonomous failsafe.

Modern Revelation - Library Archives

Lynette discovered 17th-century bestiaries depicting "Isolde's Hound" – a guardian forged from a prince's regret. The marginalia glowed under UV light:

"The hound is both warden and prisoner,

Bound to witness what it cannot prevent,

Its howls etch warnings in time's parchment,

Until love and duty find alignment."

When she touched the illustration, the dog materialized with Caelum's pocket watch in its jaws – set to a countdown matching her lifespan.