The Blood That Binds
1405 Words
The symbols on the altar throbbed like a heartbeat under Celeste's white fingers, faint at first, then growing more intense, pulsing softly in the faint, guttering candlelight. Armand regarded her with cautious eyes, a shiver creeping up his spine. There was something in the touch of her fingers on the stone. Not fear. Not worship.
Memory.
Her face was peaceful but remote, lost in the past, tormented by things he couldn't yet perceive.
"This is where it all began," she breathed, voice thick with something old and mournful. "The pact. The curse. The blood that binds us to Blackthorn."
Armand drew nearer, unable to resist the weight of her being. "What pact? What curse?" His voice was low, almost reverent, though frustration threaded along its edges. "What does any of this have to do with anything?
Celeste swiveled toward him, her lips opening as if at last she'd respond, but then her head whipped toward the door. The air chilled immediately. The room grew heavy. Armand sensed a pressure lying over him like intangible shackles. It was more than a presence. It was an incursion.
Something was approaching.
The steps were slow. They were deliberate. Echoed down the corridor, too heavy to belong to a human, too. rhythmic. Like something was pulling half of itself along. The floorboards groaned, resisting each step.
Armand's survival instincts took over. He braced the hilt of his blade and positioned himself next to the altar. Celeste, unwinking, edged between him and the door, her hand smoothing her lips in an odd, almost ritualistic motion.
The door creaked open on old hinges. From the darkness outside, there came a figure, tall and dressed in black, coming with the silent confidence of something that expects to be obeyed. The creature entered the room completely, though creature was a broad enough term.
His face was bloodless, stretched out over cheekbones too angular, too calculating. His eyes blazed not red, but bright as twin lanterns fueled by power and rage. He bore no weapon, and still Armand felt he faced an executioner.
Celeste's voice cut into the silence, cool and icy.
"Valerian."
The name hit Armand like a thrown dagger. The mood changed. This was no passing stalker. This was something connected to Celeste. To the altar. To everything.
"I didn't expect you so soon," she said.
Valerian's mouth curled into something close to but not quite a smile. "You never expect, Celeste. You count. But even you can see the pieces shifting. The blood has started to move."
His voice was thick with disdain, his eyes never leaving her.
“You think yourself above this. Above us. But you’re still shackled. Same as the rest.”
Armand’s jaw clenched, watching their exchange. The familiarity. The contempt. There was history here—history soaked in violence and power.
Celeste tilted her head. “I left this place behind. You, however, seem to have crawled back into the shadows the moment it called.”
Valerian's eyes flared. "No peace for us. The curse will not forgive. The blood won't forget."
Armand moved in, blade halfway out. "What blood? What curse? Enough mysteries. Speak clearly."
Valerian sized him up like a man studying a c***k in a mirror. "Ah. The Order's hound." His voice dripped with disdain. "Still yapping at monsters you don't know."
He attacked out of nowhere.
Armand's sword flashed out of its sheath in a blur, striking for Valerian's chest, but the beast was quicker. Much quicker. One second he was ten feet away; the next, his hand had closed around Armand's throat, lifting him from the floor as if he were weightless.
Armand struggled, gagging, fingers grasping for the hand around his windpipe.
"Enough," Celeste said, her voice cold and commanding.
Valerian didn't hear her.
Then the air rippled.
Celeste held up her hand, and a blast of unseen energy burst from between her fingers, knocking Valerian across the room. He crashed into the stone wall with a c***k, plaster and dust cascading down. Armand fell to the floor, gasping, burning throat.
Celeste didn't stir. Her eyes were facets of power.
"Leave, Valerian," she told him. "Or I'll remember why I let you live the first time."
Valerian rose slowly, eyes searing. "The blood will call again, Celeste, and you won't be able to keep avoiding it for much longer. None of us will."
And then he was gone, disappeared into the shadows that spawned him.
The room breathed a sigh in his absence. The chill began to abate.
Armand doubled up, wheezing. Celeste was instantly beside him, kneeling, steady hands brushing his throat and cheek. Her touch was moonlight—cold but calm.
"Are you all right?" she said, her tone softer now. Not cold. Not distant.
He nodded weakly. "Been better."
Something changed between them in that instant. Not tension. Not seduction. Something quieter. Deeper.
Understanding.
He gazed up at her. "What was he?
A relic," she told him, assisting him to a standing position, "of what we used to be. Of what we attempted to be."
Armand didn't release her hand. He didn't know why. Only that he had to have something tangible. Something that belonged to her.
Her eyes lingered on him. Her mouth opened, then closed. She moved back, ending the contact.
"You have to go away," she told him.
No," he said, his voice low. "Not until you tell me everything."
She didn't turn to look at him. Her back was still to him, her outline softened by candlelight.
"You're not ready."
"Try me."
She stood still for a moment. Then, as if drawn by strings that weren't there, she turned.
There was a time, a very long time ago," she started, "when this town thrived under something ancient. Something strong. We believed we could negotiate with it. Feed it. Control it."
Armand moved a step forward. "And you made a deal?"
She nodded. "We paid with blood. In exchange, it provided power, long life, and political pull."
"And you were one of them."
"Yes, I was the last one."
He looked at her. "The last what?"
"The last sacrifice.
She moved closer, her voice shaking with recollection. "They tied me to it, not as a martyr, but as a gateway. I was intended to be the container, but something was amiss. The thing stirred too early, too voracious, and consumed them all."
Armand's breath was suspended. "But it spared you."
She looked at him, her eyes aglow. "Because I was a part of it. And now I am its key."
He didn't think. He simply placed his hands on her waist, drawing her near.
"You're not a key. You're not a curse," he muttered, his voice husky with emotion. "You're Celeste."
She didn't fight him.
Her arms went around him hesitantly, her face raised to his. Her lips danced over his softly, tentatively, as though she were asking a question.
He answered.
The kiss intensified the flame bursting like fire under his skin. She whispered a moan against his lips, and he sucked in the sound like liquid. His fingers were knotted in her hair, her nails scraping down his back. Danger screamed in his head, but his body paid no attention.
He pushed her back against the altar, lips tracing down her neck. She gasped sharply and raggedly, and he felt her body curve under him.
"Armand," she breathed, out of breath, "this thing in me, it's not finished with me."
"Then I'll battle it," he snarled, nuzzling her collarbone.
"You don't see. If we go beyond this point, it stirs. Passion nurtures it. Desire empowers it."
His eyes locked onto hers, his thumb caressing her jaw.
"Then let it emerge," he repeated.
But she moved away, shuddering.
"I'm not scared of the entity," she said. "I'm scared of losing myself in you."
The candles flickered. The altar throbbed once more.
Then there was a sound in the manor, a far, hollow one, but unmistakable.
A child's laughter.
Armand stilled.
"That was downstairs," he breathed.
Celeste's face paled.
"It begins," she said, edging away from him. "The cycle. The harvest."
Armand moved towards the door. "Then we put a stop to it."
She grasped his wrist. "No. Not tonight. Tonight we ready ourselves, because what is coming is not only darkness."
She gazed into his eyes, something shattering in hers.
“It’s everything we once were. And everything we’re about to become.”
- Writer
