Whispers Beneath the Stone

Magnolia barely slept.

She sat in the corner of her room long after midnight, the velvet pouch clenched in her hand, pulse thrumming like a heartbeat against her skin. Whatever this relic was whatever magic lingered in its threads it wasn't benign. It felt… aware. And hungry.

Just before dawn, she left her quarters, the estate cloaked in stillness. Not a soul stirred. Not even the guards. They must've rotated shift convenient. Or orchestrated.

She didn't go to Rhett. She didn't trust the silence that followed his every step. There was something about his calm lately that didn't feel natural. As if he was keeping something buried just beneath the surface.

Instead, she headed underground.

Beneath the east wing, past the abandoned wine cellars and ancestral catacombs, lay the oldest chamber in the entire estate: the Vault of Luna Stones.

The door hadn't been opened in decades. Not since Rhett's mother sealed it after the death of the last official Luna.

Magnolia placed her palm against the ancient etching on the arch two crescent moons bound by a line of blood. Her wolf shifted inside her, pushing against her skin.

The stone trembled.

Then it opened.

Cold air rushed out, thick with the scent of bone dust and moss. Torches lit on their own, casting an eerie glow across the narrow passage.

She stepped inside, breath tight.

The chamber was circular, carved from black rock. Stone pedestals lined the walls, each etched with the name of a past Luna. Some bore claw marks, others bloodstains that had never faded.

In the center stood a basin of water clear, but unmoving. At the bottom of it, an inscription burned in faint silver:

Only the bound may glimpse what memory conceals.

She opened the pouch.

The symbol flared with heat, reacting to the chamber's energy.

Magnolia dropped it into the basin.

The water boiled instantly.

Smoke rose. Then images.

A forest. A child running. Camille.

But not as a child.

Now.

Present-day Camille barefoot, running through ash trees, a mark glowing on her shoulder. She looked over her shoulder, panicked.

Then a voice cut through the smoke not hers.

A man's.

"The seal is weakening. She will call to the bond soon. And when she does… we answer."

The water went still.

Magnolia staggered back.

Whatever force had possessed Camille was trying to reconnect. Not just to her but to the entire bloodline.

The seal wasn't holding.

Ashriel wasn't a myth.

He was gathering strength and using Camille as the vessel to breach their world again.

Footsteps behind her snapped her out of the trance.

She turned.

Celeste Arden stood in the archway, wrapped in a silver shawl, eyes rimmed with shadows. She looked older than she had yesterday. Older than she had the last ten years.

"I hoped you'd come here," Celeste said quietly. "I've been waiting."

"For what?"

Celeste stepped closer. "To confess. And to beg."

Magnolia stared at her. "Why me?"

"Because I knew," she whispered. "I knew Camille wasn't dead. I knew what Sterling planned. I helped him bury the truth to protect Rhett's inheritance."

Magnolia's hands clenched.

"I betrayed you," Celeste said. "And I can't undo that. But I can help you stop what's coming."

"Then speak fast."

Celeste reached into her sleeve and pulled out a key old, rusted, blackened by time.

"This opens the western crypt beneath the elder shrine. Sterling locked away something there when Camille turned seven."

"What is it?"

Celeste's voice trembled. "The original Ashriel pact. Written in Camille's blood."

The floor seemed to shift under Magnolia's feet.

"You need to destroy it," Celeste said. "Before it finishes what it started."

From above, a horn sounded.

One long, shrieking blast.

Not intrusion.

Not emergency.

A funeral call.

Magnolia's breath caught. "Who?"

Celeste looked down.

"The guard assigned to Camille's room."

Magnolia ran.

And this time, she didn't care who tried to stop her.