Chapter 43: The Soul Shackle

Catherine took in the room slowly.

It was dim, deliberately so, as though light itself had been discouraged from lingering. Thick velvet curtains swallowed the windows whole, allowing only thin seams of gray daylight to bleed through. The air was heavy with layered scents: dried sage, myrrh, something bitter and metallic beneath it all, like rain on old coins.

At the center of the room stood a low, circular table carved with symbols she didn’t recognize but somehow felt. A crystal ball rested atop it, flawless and unnervingly clear, catching what little light there was and bending it inward. The glass pulsed faintly, as if breathing. Or listening.

Bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling on twine—lavender gone pale with age, thorned stems, curled leaves that crackled softly when the air shifted. Some were fresh, still green and alive. Others were brittle, darkened, preserved long past their natural end.

Shelves lined the walls, sagging under the weight of jars and vials. Powders in unnatural colors. Dried roots knotted like fingers. Small bones, polished smooth. Candles burned low, their flames steady—no flicker, no smoke—as though even fire behaved differently here.

The silence pressed in, thick and watchful.

Catherine had the unsettling sense that the room knew she was there.

Or maybe it was the incense… thick, sweet, and wrong, curling into her lungs and making her thoughts feel slightly unreal. She exhaled slowly and turned her head.

Maximilian sat beside her, spine straight, shoulders squared, eyes sharp with a focus that felt almost predatory. He looked entirely out of place in a room that smelled of smoke and secrets, yet somehow… anchored. Real.

Across from them, the woman sat behind the crystal ball. Her fingers hovered above it, drifting in slow, deliberate circles, as if she were coaxing something awake. The motion sent a chill down Catherine’s spine.

“What do you know about the bracelet?” Catherine asked, cutting through the silence.

The woman’s lips curled. “What don’t I know?” She chuckled, low and amused, as though the question itself entertained her.

Maximilian exhaled through his nose. Without a word, he opened his wallet and placed a neat stack of hundred-dollar bills on the table.

The woman’s eyes gleamed.

She rubbed her hands together, giggling softly, and swept the money into her pocket with indecent enthusiasm. Only then did she settle back into her chair, elbows on the table, face half-hidden behind interlaced fingers tipped with claw-like nails.

Catherine rolled her eyes, half convinced they were being scammed.

Then the woman spoke.

“Long before Dravencourt, Velmont, and Elyndra were kingdoms with borders and banners,” she said, her voice dropping into something solemn, “there lived a scholar-priestess known as Aurelia of the White Ash.”

Catherine stiffened.

Those names, ancient and buried, should not have been known.

Beside her, Maximilian leaned forward, his expression sharpening.

This woman was not a fraud.

“She was not a queen. Not a witch,” the psychic continued. “She was far more dangerous—a woman who understood the soul.”

The crystal ball shimmered faintly.

“Aurelia served an empire that believed the soul could be measured. Weighed. Bound. While kings sharpened swords, she studied why men chose to wield them.”

Her gaze flicked to Catherine.

“And Aurelia loved a man who would never be hers.”

Catherine felt her chest tighten.

“He was a general—married to duty, sworn to a crown that demanded blood. Every time she begged him to flee, he answered with the same words.”

The woman’s voice hardened.

’If I leave, the war will follow me.’

“When he rode out for the last time, Aurelia knew he would die.”

A pause.

“So she broke the one law never meant to be broken.”

Catherine leaned forward, breath shallow.

“She bound his soul to hers… not to possess him, but to anchor him to life. The ritual demanded three sacrifices.”

The woman raised one clawed finger.

“Distance. The bound could never stray far without agony.”

A second finger.

“Desire. Longing strengthened the chain; closeness weakened it.”

A third.

“And Truth. The curse answered not to words, but to what the heart refused to admit.”

Her gaze lifted, piercing.

“The bracelet was meant to save him.”

A breath.

“It failed. The general still died on the battlefield… holding Aurelia as her life bled out beside him. Both shackled. Neither free.”

The incense thickened, the flame of the candles wavering as if the air itself had flinched.

“When the empire fell, Catena Animae vanished with it. But the spell did not die,” the woman continued softly. “Because souls remember what bodies forget.”

Catherine sucked in a breath, her pulse pounding painfully in her ears. “Can you just tell me how to break it?” she snapped, impatience cracking through her voice. “I didn’t come here for a tragic history lesson.”

The woman’s lips curved… slow, knowing.

“Curse?”

Her laugh slithered through the room, thin and unsettling. “Over the years, Catena Animae has been called many things. A binding spell. A punishment. A lovers’ curse.” She chuckled again, the sound scraping. “But it is not a curse.”

Maximilian frowned. “Then… is it about love?”

Catherine rolled her eyes. Of course, he would ask that. What was so miraculous about love anyway? It ruined lives. It made fools of people. It buried knives where armor should be.

The woman leaned forward, her shadow stretching across the table.

“Catena Animae was never about love,” she said quietly. “It was about an unfinished choice.”

Catherine’s heart skipped.

The dream—her dream—crashed back into her mind. The pain. The unbearable sense of having failed something irreversible. Of standing at a crossroads and choosing wrong… or not choosing at all.

She narrowed her eyes, studying the woman.

“The shackle manifests only when two souls bound by fate are torn apart by fear or betrayal,” the woman continued, gaze sharpening, “and die without choosing each other… or without letting go.”

Her eyes locked onto Catherine.

“It appeared on you.”

A pause.

“So tell me, child… which category do you belong to?”

Catherine laughed.

She laughed hard enough that Maximilian turned to stare at her, stunned.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Catherine said, wiping the corner of her eye. “He betrayed me. I wanted him dead.” Her smile sharpened. “So what—you’re saying this breaks if I kill him?”

Maximilian’s eyes widened as he looked at her. Catherine pretended not to see him. The woman slammed her palm onto the table.

“Are you stupid?”

The candles flared violently, flames leaping high before plunging low, shadows clawing up the walls. The crystal ball rattled, a sharp crack echoing through the room.

The woman’s eyes burned as she leaned forward.

“If death could solve it,” she hissed, “you would not be sitting here wearing the chain.”

Silence fell… thick and suffocating.

Then she spoke, slow and deliberate.

“Catena Animae does not break with hatred.”

Her gaze flicked between Catherine and Maximilian.

“It breaks only when the choice that was once refused… is finally made.”

“And what choice is that?” Catherine asked.

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