Chapter Thirty - Two
Chapter
Thirty-Two
ELIAS
Inod toward the nearby alcove. “Come. We should sit for this.”
She follows me silently. There's a kind of quiet strength in her now—a rootedness that wasn’t there before. She’s still afraid, yes, but no longer aimless. She has direction. She has knowledge. And knowledge, especially this kind, is dangerous.
She settles back into the cushions, clutching the green-bound volume, Testimonials of the Seven Mothers. The moment I see it, my breath catches. That she found that book—one of the few original testimonies written by the Mothers themselves—feels like destiny reaching forward through time.
“You found something important,” I say softly.
Her eyes meet mine. “I think you know exactly how important it is.”
I nod. “I do.”
She opens it between us. The parchment is thin, fragile, handwritten in Morgana’s looping script. “Morgana of the Fifth Bloodline,” she murmurs. “She talks about the Covenant. About how the ritual was sacred. Mutual. Balanced.”
I exhale slowly. “Yes. That’s the part most of us were never taught. Or if we were... it was buried deep beneath lies.”
“And now?” she asks. “You remember it?”
“I’ve never forgotten,” I admit. “But remembering and speaking of it are two very different things.”
She frowns. “Why?”
“Because the High Council made sure silence was the safest option.”
She tilts her head slightly, watching me. “The Council… that’s who Malachi hates, isn’t it? The Magister. The others.”
I nod. “They’re not just political leaders.
They are the oldest surviving warlocks—many of whom took part in the original betrayal.
When the Seven Mothers sacrificed their lives to protect the truth, the Council made sure that history was rewritten.
They institutionalized the perverted version of the ritual.
They made soul-draining legal. Celebrated. ”
Her fingers tighten on the edges of the book. “But this wasn’t supposed to be like that. The Binding was meant to unify.”
I reach forward gently, touching the open page. “Seven Mothers. Seven types of magic. Seven warlocks they chose freely, willingly, to bond with. Not just lovers—partners.”
She goes still. “The Mothers had different types of magic?”
“Yes,” I say. “Each one channeled a different domain. Fire, Wind, Sea, Blood, Shadow, Time… and Stone.”
She stares at me. “Stone.”
I nod. “The most grounded. The protector. The one who remembers.”
Her breath catches. “Morgana says that's me.”
My eyes widen in a bit of shock. "Then, it must be true."
“But what does that mean?” she demands. “That I’m descended from her?”
“It means your magic runs deep. Deeper than memory. It means you were born not only with power—but with the ability to remember what was lost. To awaken that memory in others. That’s what the Mother of Stone did. She held the stories. She preserved the truth.”
She presses a hand to her temple. “The dreams… the visions. I felt them. Burnings. Betrayals. As if I was there.”
“You were,” I say. “Through her. Through all of them. When the Mothers made their final sacrifice, they wove their memories into the bloodline. Waiting for someone like you.”
Sage’s hands tremble. “I’m not ready for this.”
“No one is,” I say gently. “But that doesn’t make it any less real.”
She closes the book carefully, then leans back against the window seat. “So what happens now?”
“That depends on you,” I say. “You’ve found the truth. You’ve remembered. The question is: what are you going to do with it?”
She’s quiet for a long moment, staring at the beams of sunlight playing across the floor.
Finally, she says, “What would happen if I tried to restore the original ritual?”
I hesitate.
“Would it even work?” she presses. “After all this time?”
“With the right warlock?” I say. “Yes.”
Her gaze flicks to mine. “And who is the right one?”
For a beat, I don't answer.
Because the truth is—my first instinct is to say me.
That I would treat her as she deserves to be treated. That I would never see her as a vessel, or a prize, or a source of power.
But before I can speak, my eyes fall to her wrist.
My breath catches.
A symbol—intricate, ancient—circles her delicate skin like a cuff made of light and shadow, stone and smoke.
No, not just a symbol.
A mark.
The Binding.
I stare at it, stunned into silence. I’ve seen renderings of it in texts so old they crumble under your fingertips. I’ve dreamed of what it might look like if the original ritual was ever reawakened.
And now it’s real.
It’s on her.
And it’s not just her wrist. I’ve felt it in the air ever since I walked in. The residue of powerful, joined magic. The scent of blood and stone. Of need and surrender.
She’s already bound.
To someone.
My heart twists, violently.
“You’ve already...” My voice falters as I gesture toward her wrist. “That mark—Sage...that’s not just decorative.”
She looks down, startled. Her fingers drift over the glowing outline as if she’d almost forgotten it was there. “I know.”
“When did this appear?”
“Last night,” she whispers. “After...after Malachi.”
Of course.
Malachi.
I fight the surge of heat rising in my chest. Jealousy is beneath me. Dangerous. But it’s there, rising all the same.
The bastard got to her first.
“It just happened,” she adds quickly, as if she can feel the shift in my energy. “I didn’t know. I didn’t choose it. Not consciously.”
I force myself to breathe. To remember what this is—who she is. The Mother of Stone’s descendant. The one who carries all the memory of our kind. Her magic doesn’t follow the same rules as ours. Her instincts are deeper. Older.
“I believe you,” I say carefully. “The true Binding...it can’t be forced. Not even by him.”
She nods, hugging her knees closer to her chest. “It felt...I don’t know. Like something inside me woke up. Like I wasn’t alone in my body anymore.”
I want to touch her. To comfort her. But I stay where I am.
“I’ve studied this for years,” I tell her. “The Binding was believed to be a myth by most warlocks. A story. A relic of the old ways. But it’s real. You’re real.”
Her gaze lifts to mine again. “What does it mean?”
I shake my head slowly. “It means you’ve already begun restoring the balance. And that perhaps fate is no longer waiting. It’s intervening.”
Her brow furrows. “But what if I made a mistake?”
“You didn’t,” I say firmly. Then more gently: “But that doesn’t mean this isn’t complicated.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “That’s one word for it.”
I smile faintly. “What would you call it?”
“Terrifying,” she says without hesitation. Then, after a pause, “But also kind of beautiful.”
My heart aches.
“I wish—” I stop myself.
“What?” she asks.
“I wish I’d met you first.”
The silence stretches between us, warm and heavy. She doesn’t pull away from it. She doesn’t dismiss it.
She just whispers, “Me too.”
And I think—for the first time in centuries—maybe there’s still a place for the old ways.
Even if fate had other plans.