Home / Paranormal / The Blood Bound Legacy / Chapter 114: A Map of Ash and Memory

Share

Chapter 114: A Map of Ash and Memory

Author: Anala
last update Last Updated: 2025-04-15 00:06:21

We didn’t head back to the estate. Not yet.

I needed space. Distance. The kind of silence that doesn’t come from isolation, but from being far enough from expectation that you can breathe again. Maxwell didn’t ask questions when I turned the path away from home. He just walked beside me, blade on his hip, eyes always scanning the horizon.

It was late afternoon when we found the old chapel.

Or what was left of it.

It was half-swallowed by the earth, the roof caved in, ivy crawling up through cracked stone like veins across a dying body. The stained-glass windows were mostly shattered, but one remained intact—a single panel showing a wolf curled around a glowing star. I didn’t recognize the symbol.

But it felt… familiar.

We stepped inside.

Dust clung to the air, heavy and undisturbed. The pews were rotted through, the altar split by lightning or something like it. But there was peace here, buried under ruin. The kind that comes after fire takes everything and leaves only the truth behin
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter

Related chapters

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 115: The Girl With My Face

    I didn’t speak. Couldn’t.She stood there—my copy, my mirror, my nightmare made flesh—with her chin lifted like she’d known this meeting was inevitable. Her eyes burned gold. Not flickering. Not unstable. Constant. They glowed like a sun that had stopped pretending it needed a sky.Maxwell moved in front of me on instinct. I stepped around him.“I need to see her,” I whispered.My father, James, watched me like he saw two daughters at once. There was grief in his face, but not surprise. “She’s been waiting for you.”The copy—no, not a copy. A version—tilted her head. “You’re smaller than I remember.”Her voice was my voice. But colder. Like it had been tempered by flame and sharpened by time.“I don’t remember you at all,” I replied.She smirked. “That’s because I made different choices.”My stomach twisted. “What do you mean?”She stepped forward, slow and deliberate. The light around her pulsed as she moved, like reality was trying to decide whether or not to obey her.James raised

    Last Updated : 2025-04-15
  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 116: Between What Is and What Might Be

    We didn’t speak for a long time after she vanished. The chapel returned to silence, but it wasn’t peace—it was the kind of silence that settles in after something sacred is broken.Maxwell stayed near the altar, his blade still unsheathed, like she might return at any second. I sat where I was, hands slack in my lap, head low, like I’d just walked out of my funeral.“You okay?” he finally asked.“No,” I said honestly. “But I’m aware. For once.”He lowered the blade. “That wasn’t just a vision, was it?”“No. She was real.”Max sat down across from me. “So what do we do about a version of you who’s already made all the choices you’re still questioning?”I didn’t answer at first. My mind was still parsing the confrontation, reliving each word, the heat behind her eyes, the way she moved like certainty was oxygen. “You remember how I told you the first seal cracked in my dreams?”“Yeah.”“Well, she’s been dreaming through them, too. But from the other side. I don’t think she was just born

    Last Updated : 2025-04-16
  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 117: The Fracture and the Fight

    The path out of the chapel felt longer than the one going in. With each step, the world outside seemed more fragile, like reality itself was bruised, discolored by something unseen. Maxwell walked just behind me, quiet but watchful. He didn’t need to speak; his presence was enough—solid, grounding. Still, I felt the echo of the woman with my face in every shadow we passed.“Do you think she’s still watching?” I asked as we reached the treeline.Maxwell didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”I glanced back toward the chapel, half-expecting to see her silhouette in the stained-glass remnants, but the ruins stood empty. Still, the space didn’t feel abandoned. It felt paused.“You believe she’s waiting for me to break,” I said.“I think she needs you to,” he replied. “But I also think she underestimated you.”I smiled faintly. “She knows me better than anyone.”“Not better than me,” he said.That hit harder than I expected. I wanted to believe him. I almost did. But the version of me I had seen—fierce,

    Last Updated : 2025-04-16
  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 118: Ashes of the Old Tongue

    By first light, we were already moving. The path to the ruins cut through dense, brittle woods. Nature had reclaimed much of the road, ivy curling up through cracked stone, tree roots splitting once-paved ground. But I remembered the way, at least what remained of it. I remembered walking it as a child, held by my father's hand, back when the Sanctum was still alive before the seals had started to hum. Before they began to break.Now, only one seal remained.And it was buried somewhere beneath the rubble we were heading toward.Maxwell kept pace beside me, silent but alert. He hadn’t said much since we left camp. Neither had I. There wasn’t much left to say that hadn’t already been whispered in firelight the night before. We both knew what this place meant, not just to us, but to the shape of everything still to come.When the Sanctum came into view, I felt the breath leave my lungs.It was worse than I remembered.The outer arch had collapsed. The great doors—once carved with runes t

    Last Updated : 2025-04-16
  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 119: The Hollow Below

    The staircase swallowed sound. Each step down stripped the world of something familiar—first the light, then the warmth, then the sense of time. Maxwell moved close behind me, but even his breathing sounded distant, muffled by the oppressive weight of the descent.The deeper we went, the more I could feel it pressing inward. Like the walls weren’t made of stone at all, but of memory. Of something waiting.I touched the glyphs that flickered faintly along the tunnel’s edge, symbols glowing for only a heartbeat before vanishing. This wasn’t language. It was a warning. Or maybe confession.Maxwell’s voice was barely audible behind me. “Lena… if this place changes you…”I stopped and turned slightly, enough to catch his shadow. “You’ll remind me.”“I’ll drag you out.”I wanted to believe that was possible. I wanted to believe anything could drag me out if I stepped too far.After what felt like hours, the staircase ended in a wide, circular chamber. The floor was smooth, unlike the rest o

    Last Updated : 2025-04-16
  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 1: The Broken Dream

    “You know she has to die, David.” Sophie’s voice rang out over the clamorous charity gala as her champagne glass glinted in the light. “The Council will not wait very long.”"Not here." David's jaw clenched as he glanced around the room, an expensive suit not enough to disguise the tension in his shoulders. “We do have half the city’s elite watching us.”I froze behind the marble column, my heart throbbing in my ribs. They hadn’t seen me yet — my own husband and his supposed best friend, discussing my murder over champagne. The anniversary gift nestled in my clutch weighed a ton.“She’s getting suspicious,” Sophie said, turning her red lips into a smile as she waved to a passing senator. “Yesterday she asked about where her family’s foundation’s missing money went.”“Because you got careless about the transfers.” David’s tone stayed polite, but I could hear the peril. “Two hundred million doesn’t just vanish without questions.My hands shook when I took out my phone, opening the banki

    Last Updated : 2025-02-18
  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 2: No Safe Harbor

    My father’s estate was always intimidating, but tonight it seemed like a fortress. The mile-long driveway was lined with ancient oaks, whose branches jutted at odd angles and hung over us like wrinkled fingers. Walking up to the wrought-iron gates, they slid open without a sound — no security code required. They'd been expecting me.The change still coursed under my skin, sharpening every sensation. I could smell the rain coming, hear small crows darting away from my car, feel the ancient power thrumming in the estate’s foundations. The gas-station pregnancy test I had taken lay positive on the passenger seat, confirming Sophie’s cruel revelation.My phone had been buzzing nonstop since I’d left David bleeding in the library. I checked it one last time:David: You have no idea what you’re getting into. Come home. Let me explain.The Council is convening. They’re voting whether to hunt you down. You're safer with us.Unknown: The kid alters the whole conversation. Caution is necessary,

    Last Updated : 2025-02-18
  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 3: The News

    I was standing in the torn-open living room of my parents’ house, blood dripping from my bloodied hands, as unconscious wolves lay all around me. David had left — he'd bolted the moment I'd willed the ancient sigils into being, dragging a wounded Sophie with him. The look of astonishment on his face had been nearly worth all the other things.“Well,” my father said, adjusting his tie as he took in the destruction, “I guess that answers the question of whether your powers have awakened.”"James." Mom’s warning tone was sharper than I had ever heard it. She stepped carefully through the wreckage to touch my shoulder. "Sweetheart, you're shaking."I was. The energy that had coursed through me was now gone, replaced with fatigue. My legs gave way, and before I could hit the ground, I was caught by solid arms."I've got you."The voice tingled in my veins — unlike the raw power I’d just wielded. This was warmer, familiar in a way that made my heart stutter. I gazed upwards into eyes I had

    Last Updated : 2025-02-18

Latest chapter

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 119: The Hollow Below

    The staircase swallowed sound. Each step down stripped the world of something familiar—first the light, then the warmth, then the sense of time. Maxwell moved close behind me, but even his breathing sounded distant, muffled by the oppressive weight of the descent.The deeper we went, the more I could feel it pressing inward. Like the walls weren’t made of stone at all, but of memory. Of something waiting.I touched the glyphs that flickered faintly along the tunnel’s edge, symbols glowing for only a heartbeat before vanishing. This wasn’t language. It was a warning. Or maybe confession.Maxwell’s voice was barely audible behind me. “Lena… if this place changes you…”I stopped and turned slightly, enough to catch his shadow. “You’ll remind me.”“I’ll drag you out.”I wanted to believe that was possible. I wanted to believe anything could drag me out if I stepped too far.After what felt like hours, the staircase ended in a wide, circular chamber. The floor was smooth, unlike the rest o

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 118: Ashes of the Old Tongue

    By first light, we were already moving. The path to the ruins cut through dense, brittle woods. Nature had reclaimed much of the road, ivy curling up through cracked stone, tree roots splitting once-paved ground. But I remembered the way, at least what remained of it. I remembered walking it as a child, held by my father's hand, back when the Sanctum was still alive before the seals had started to hum. Before they began to break.Now, only one seal remained.And it was buried somewhere beneath the rubble we were heading toward.Maxwell kept pace beside me, silent but alert. He hadn’t said much since we left camp. Neither had I. There wasn’t much left to say that hadn’t already been whispered in firelight the night before. We both knew what this place meant, not just to us, but to the shape of everything still to come.When the Sanctum came into view, I felt the breath leave my lungs.It was worse than I remembered.The outer arch had collapsed. The great doors—once carved with runes t

  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 117: The Fracture and the Fight

    The path out of the chapel felt longer than the one going in. With each step, the world outside seemed more fragile, like reality itself was bruised, discolored by something unseen. Maxwell walked just behind me, quiet but watchful. He didn’t need to speak; his presence was enough—solid, grounding. Still, I felt the echo of the woman with my face in every shadow we passed.“Do you think she’s still watching?” I asked as we reached the treeline.Maxwell didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”I glanced back toward the chapel, half-expecting to see her silhouette in the stained-glass remnants, but the ruins stood empty. Still, the space didn’t feel abandoned. It felt paused.“You believe she’s waiting for me to break,” I said.“I think she needs you to,” he replied. “But I also think she underestimated you.”I smiled faintly. “She knows me better than anyone.”“Not better than me,” he said.That hit harder than I expected. I wanted to believe him. I almost did. But the version of me I had seen—fierce,

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 116: Between What Is and What Might Be

    We didn’t speak for a long time after she vanished. The chapel returned to silence, but it wasn’t peace—it was the kind of silence that settles in after something sacred is broken.Maxwell stayed near the altar, his blade still unsheathed, like she might return at any second. I sat where I was, hands slack in my lap, head low, like I’d just walked out of my funeral.“You okay?” he finally asked.“No,” I said honestly. “But I’m aware. For once.”He lowered the blade. “That wasn’t just a vision, was it?”“No. She was real.”Max sat down across from me. “So what do we do about a version of you who’s already made all the choices you’re still questioning?”I didn’t answer at first. My mind was still parsing the confrontation, reliving each word, the heat behind her eyes, the way she moved like certainty was oxygen. “You remember how I told you the first seal cracked in my dreams?”“Yeah.”“Well, she’s been dreaming through them, too. But from the other side. I don’t think she was just born

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 115: The Girl With My Face

    I didn’t speak. Couldn’t.She stood there—my copy, my mirror, my nightmare made flesh—with her chin lifted like she’d known this meeting was inevitable. Her eyes burned gold. Not flickering. Not unstable. Constant. They glowed like a sun that had stopped pretending it needed a sky.Maxwell moved in front of me on instinct. I stepped around him.“I need to see her,” I whispered.My father, James, watched me like he saw two daughters at once. There was grief in his face, but not surprise. “She’s been waiting for you.”The copy—no, not a copy. A version—tilted her head. “You’re smaller than I remember.”Her voice was my voice. But colder. Like it had been tempered by flame and sharpened by time.“I don’t remember you at all,” I replied.She smirked. “That’s because I made different choices.”My stomach twisted. “What do you mean?”She stepped forward, slow and deliberate. The light around her pulsed as she moved, like reality was trying to decide whether or not to obey her.James raised

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 114: A Map of Ash and Memory

    We didn’t head back to the estate. Not yet.I needed space. Distance. The kind of silence that doesn’t come from isolation, but from being far enough from expectation that you can breathe again. Maxwell didn’t ask questions when I turned the path away from home. He just walked beside me, blade on his hip, eyes always scanning the horizon.It was late afternoon when we found the old chapel.Or what was left of it.It was half-swallowed by the earth, the roof caved in, ivy crawling up through cracked stone like veins across a dying body. The stained-glass windows were mostly shattered, but one remained intact—a single panel showing a wolf curled around a glowing star. I didn’t recognize the symbol.But it felt… familiar.We stepped inside.Dust clung to the air, heavy and undisturbed. The pews were rotted through, the altar split by lightning or something like it. But there was peace here, buried under ruin. The kind that comes after fire takes everything and leaves only the truth behin

  • The Blood Bound Legacy    Chapter 113: Aftershards

    The sound was indescribable.When the blade struck the reflection—my reflection—there was no crash of glass, no thunderclap. Instead, it was a note, low and aching, like the end of a song that had gone on too long. The mirror didn’t just break; it folded. Inward. Like a memory being erased.I stumbled back, chest heaving, the blade still warm in my grip. For a moment, I thought the world might come undone around me. The fog screamed, then vanished all at once, sucked into the broken mirror as if it had never belonged here.Then silence.Maxwell caught me by the arm as my knees nearly gave. “You okay?”“I don’t know.” I blinked at the place where the mirror had been. Only scorched stone remained, and a faint scent—smoke, salt, and something old.The woman—the one who claimed to have worn my reflection—watched it disappear with no satisfaction. Her gaze was heavy and unreadable.“What just happened?” Maxwell asked her. “What did she destroy?”She looked at me. “She destroyed the future

  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 112: Reflections of Choice

    We both turned back toward the reflection.It stared at me now with eerie calm, and slowly, almost gently, its mouth began to move again.“You’re still clinging to the idea that you’re separate. That there’s a choice.”“There is,” I snapped aloud, fury flashing in my chest like a flare.The reflection’s face tilted, amused. Then it said,“If there were, you wouldn’t still be standing here.”A tremor rippled through the ground. The obsidian cracked wider beneath our feet.Maxwell’s breath was ragged. “This is a trap, Lena. A designed one. It's feeding on your doubt.”“But what if it’s not just doubt?” I whispered. “What if it’s the truth?”He stepped in front of me. “Then we fight it. You don’t owe that thing your fear.”The ground split between us and the mirror. A fissure formed like a mouth trying to swallow the space whole.And then—suddenly—another voice.“Step back, both of you.”I turned sharply.From the fog came a woman. Cloaked in deep gray, her presence humming with ancient

  • The Blood Bound Legacy   Chapter 111: The Third Voice

    We’d only been walking for a few hours when the fog rolled in.It was fast—unnatural. One minute, the trees were visible, gnarled and skeletal, looming overhead. Next, everything was swallowed by a thick, soundless gray. I couldn’t even see Maxwell, though I could still feel him close—his presence like a current in the still air.“Don’t move,” I said quietly. “Something’s wrong.”“Yeah,” his voice came, low and tight. “This isn’t weather. It’s intentional.”And then it happened.I heard it.Not Elara’s voice. Not the thing from Marston.A third voice.Clear. Sharp. Feminine. But empty, as if spoken through layers of broken glass.“Gate. Fracture. Flame. Do you know which one you are today?”I froze. “Max, did you hear that?”His breath hitched. “Yeah. And Lena? It sounded like you.”I turned in the fog, spinning slowly. “That wasn’t me.”But then the voice came again, louder this time, closer.“You run from the seal, but you are the crack. You fear the fire, but you are its breath. Yo

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