They said Zion Canyon was built by God.
But when Clara Whitlock arrived in 1859, she realized God hadn’t been here in a long time.
The stage coach rolled through a canyon painted in blood and dust, red cliffs, black shadows, and silence so thick it could choke a prayer.
Clara clutched her lace bonnet, eyes wide.
This was her new home, a hidden Mormon settlement deep in Utah territory.
A place the elders called the new Zion.
A place outsiders never returned from.
The driver never spoke.
He dropped her trunk, tipped his hat, and vanished into the storm behind her.
Only the church bell echoed through the valley, one long hollow note.
A man waited by the church steps, tall, bearded, with eyes that didn’t blink long enough.
“Welcome, Sister Whitlock,” he said.
“I am Elder Brighgam Hol, your husband.
” She bowed, trembling.
The ring on his finger looked like iron, and the way he smiled didn’t feel like love.
The town’s folk gathered as they entered the village.
Women with covered faces, children who didn’t speak, and men who watched like wolves behind kind expressions.
Every house looked the same.
Every door was locked from the outside.
Inside the holtome, a strange smell lingered, like wax and old blood.
The walls were lined with portraits, all of women, each one pale, each one painted the same year.1858.
Previous sisters of the covenant, Bighgam explained.
Each chosen to serve in holiness.
He looked at Clara.
You are now the ninth.
That night, she couldn’t sleep.
Wind screamed through the cracks in the cabin.
The portraits seemed to shift when she turned her head.
Then a sound, soft scraping under the floorboards.
Claren knelt and pressed her ear to the wood.
Someone was moving beneath her.
A whisper crawled up through the gaps.
Don’t let him seal you.
She stumbled back, heart racing.
She told herself it was her imagination.
But the next morning, when she went to unpack her trunk, she found something buried under her bed.
A small silver locket, tarnished, old.
Inside, a portrait of another woman and engraved beneath her name, Abigail Halt.
The year under it was 1858, the same as the portraits.
Clara rushed outside, clutching the locket.
She found one of the older wives hanging laundry, eyes down.
“Who was Abigail?” she asked.
The woman froze, fingers trembling, then whispered, barely audible.
“She was the last one before the covenant took her.
” The church bell told again.
Three slow rings.
Every head in the village turned toward the sound, and the older wife whispered one more thing before walking away.
Once the bell rings thrice, another wife is chosen.
Clara’s breath caught.
The wind stopped.
Even the birds went silent.
Behind her, Elder Holt stepped out of the church, his iron ring glinting in the sun, and his smile was waiting just for her.
If you want to know what happened to Clara on that first covenant night, like, share, and subscribe because you will reveal why no wife ever left Zion Canyon alive.
By morning, Clara Whitlock wasn’t a bride anymore.
She was a secret the canyon meant to keep.
Dawn bled across the red cliffs.
Smoke rose from the chapel chimney, and the town began its quiet routine.
Wives carrying water, children sweeping dust from empty streets, men disappearing toward the canyon caves with shovels and sacks.
Clara stood by the window, clutching the silver locket.
Abigail Holt’s face stared back at her from inside it, soft, smiling, and dead.
She turned when the door creaked open.
Another wife entered, tall, dark hair, eyes that darted like a hunted dough.
I’m Martha,” the woman whispered.
“Keep that locket hidden.
They’ll burn you if they find it.
” Clara frowned.
Who was she? Martha’s lips trembled.
Abigail was the bishop’s favorite.
She asked questions.
She vanished before the next moon.
Her gaze flicked toward the chapel.
The covenant doesn’t forgive curiosity.
Outside, the bell rang once.
Everyone froze midstep.
Martha leaned close, voice shaking.
Don’t go near the caves after sundown.
They say that’s where the chosen ones are purified.
Clara wanted to ask more, but the door swung open again.
Elder Holt entered, his shadow spilling long across the floor.
“Evening prayers tonight,” he said calmly.
“The prophet will announce who joins the next covenant.
” He looked directly at Clara.
Wear white.
When he left, Martha grabbed Clara’s wrist.
If he calls your name, don’t answer.
No matter what happens.
That night, the whole village gathered under candle light in the chapel.
Men on one side, women on the other.
No one spoke.
At the altar stood the prophet, a gunk man in a long coat, his eyes pale as snow.
He raised a scroll sealed with wax.
Tonight, he declared, the Lord calls another to the sacred promise.
Every candle flickered at once, as if the canyon itself was breathing.
Clara’s heart pounded.
Her hands shook inside her sleeves.
She searched for Martha in the crowd, but she was gone.
The prophet unrolled the parchment.
A pause.
Then his voice cut the silence.
Clara Whitlock, halt.
Every head turned.
The wives stared, their faces hollow.
The men bowed.
Clara couldn’t move.
The locket felt heavy against her chest.
Elder Holt smiled.
“Tomorrow,” the prophet said, “he shall be sealed to eternity in the caves beneath Zion.
” The congregation murmured, “Not applause, not joy, something closer to mourning.
” After the ritual, Clara ran outside, gasping for air.
The canyon winds howled around her, carrying whispers that didn’t sound human.
That’s when she heard footsteps.
Quick, barefoot.
Martha appeared from the shadows, eyes wide, face stre with dirt.
You’re next, she hissed.
They marked your name in the book of the sealed.
Once it’s written, there’s no return.
Then help me, Clara begged.
How do I leave this place? Martha shook her head.
No one leaves.
The prophet guards every trail.
Only the dead go out.
The bell rang again three times.
Martha’s breath caught.
It’s starting early.
Go back inside before they see us.
Clara turned toward the cabin, but the door was open.
Elder Holt stood there holding a lantern.
His expression was calm, almost tender.
wife,” he said softly.
“It’s time to prepare.
” The flame flickered in his hand, and in that light, she saw it.
His ring wasn’t iron after all.
It was bone.
If you think you know what happens when Clara enters those caves, you don’t.
Like, share, and subscribe because in next, the truth behind the covenant oath will finally be revealed.
The caves of Zion weren’t built by men.
They were built to hide what men had done.
Night fell like a curtain of ash.
The bell had rung.
The torches burned.
And Clara Whitlock walked barefoot toward the canyon’s mouth, dressed in white, trembling, surrounded by silence.
The wives followed in a single line, veils over their faces.
Men marched beside them, chanting words that didn’t sound holy.
The prophet led the procession, carrying a rusted key.
Behind them, Elder Holt watched Clara like a shadow with a heartbeat.
The entrance to the cave yawned open.
A black wound in the red rock.
Cold air crawled from within, smelling of iron, wax, and death.
Clara hesitated.
The prophet turned, “Do not fear,” he said.
“In darkness, you will meet eternity.
” They entered inside.
Candles burned on ledges carved into stone.
The walls were lined with strange marks.
Circles within circles painted in dried blood.
In the center, a pool of water reflected the flickering light.
The prophet raised his hand.
The ceiling begins.
Two wives stepped forward, chanting in low tones.
They placed a white cloth over Clara’s head.
Then the prophet handed Hol a silver blade.
Clara’s pulse screamed in her ears.
She looked around.
The other wives didn’t blink.
Their faces were blank, drained of soul.
“Repeat after me,” the prophet said.
“I give my life to the covenant and my body to the Lord’s keeping.
” Her lips trembled.
She stayed silent.
The prophet frowned.
Elder Halt gripped her arm.
“Say it,” he whispered.
or your soul will never find peace.
” But something inside her snapped, a whisper she’d heard beneath the floorboards, a voice that wasn’t dead yet.
“Don’t let him seal you.
” She ripped off the veil.
“Where’s Abigail?” Clara shouted.
The echo thundered through the cave.
The prophet’s eyes darkened.
“Silence her,” he ordered.
Two men stepped forward, but before they reached her, a candle toppled and rolled across the floor.
It landed beside a narrow tunnel.
A gust of air blew through it, carrying a faint sound.
A scream, “Distant, human.
” Clara turned toward the noise.
“Someone’s alive down there,” she said.
The prophet shook his head slowly.
“There are no living souls beneath Zion.
” But Clara ran.
She grabbed the fallen candle and disappeared into the tunnel.
Behind her, shouts echoed.
Elder Holts voice boomed her name.
The passage twisted cold and wet.
The deeper she went, the louder the crying became.
She followed it until the floor turned to dirt and bone.
And then she saw them.
Dozens of white dresses hung on hooks, still dripping red.
At the far end, a small wooden door, half rotted, sealed with a metal bar.
She raised the candle, trembling.
From behind the door came a whisper, weak but alive.
Help me.
Clara dropped to her knees, forcing the bar loose.
The door creaked open and a pair of eyes stared back at her through the dark.
A woman’s voice and broken.
Are you another wife? Clara froze.
The face was pale, sunken, but familiar.
The same face in the locket.
It was Abigail Halt.
Clara just opened the door to a secret.
the church buried alive.
Like, share, and subscribe because in the next Abigail will tell her what the blood ledger really means.
Abigail Hol was supposed to be dead.
But what Clara found beneath the church proved something far worse.
The dead never really left Zion Canyon.
The candlelight flickered across Abigail’s face.
Her eyes were hollow, her skin gray with hunger, but her voice still carried a pulse.
“Close the door,” she whispered.
“They can hear us through the stone.
” Clara shut it quick, chest heaving.
“How are you alive? They said you vanished.
” Abigail’s lips cracked into a trembling smile.
“I did vanish.
” The prophet said, “I was chosen, but chosen means buried.
” She touched her throat where scars ran like rope burns.
They don’t kill you right away.
They call it sealing the flesh until the body gives up.
Clara stared at the room.
Scraps of fabric, dried food, bones small enough to belong to children.
How long have you been here? Abigail looked at the dirt floor.
I stopped counting after the second winter.
They keep the chosen ones alive until the next covenant.
Then they take the strongest to begin the ritual again.
Her eyes lifted to Clara’s trembling hands.
You’re next, aren’t you? Clara nodded slowly.
Tears welled.
I can’t go through with it.
I have to escape.
Abigail laughed.
A broken hollow sound.
Escape? There’s no way out.
The prophet built these tunnels himself.
Every path circles back to the chapel.
Clara held up the candle.
There has to be another way.
You survived.
Help me do the same.
Abigail’s gaze softened.
There is a ledger, she whispered.
The blood ledger.
It holds every name of every wife the covenant is taken.
If you find it, burn it.
That’s the only way the covenant dies.
Clara frowned.
Where is it? In the bishop’s study.
Behind the altar, hidden in a box marked divine record.
The candle sputtered.
From above, faint footsteps echoed.
Abigail’s breath caught.
They know you’re gone.
Go now.
Clara hesitated.
What about you? Abigail shook her head.
I’ll slow them down.
Take the candle.
Take the truth.
Clara’s heart twisted.
She wanted to drag her out, but Abigail grabbed her arm tight.
Listen, she whispered.
When you hear the bell, run.
Don’t look back.
And whatever you do, don’t pray.
They can hear prayers.
Clara slipped through the tunnel, crawling toward the flicker of moonlight.
Behind her, the door slammed shut.
Then a scream, Abigail’s, and a voice booming through the stone.
Bring her back alive.
Clara crawled faster, dirt filling her nails.
The tunnel opened behind the chapel.
She stumbled into the night, gasping, clutching the candle.
The church loomed ahead, black against the stars.
She crept inside.
The altar glowed with the last of the dying candles.
Behind it, the prophet’s study door.
She pushed it open.
Inside, scrolls and holy books lined the shelves, and on the desk, a thick red ledger bound in leather, engraved with the symbol of two interlocking rings.
The blood ledger.
She flipped it open.
Names filled the pages.
every wife in the village, each crossed out in blood until the final page, her own name written in crimson ink, beside it, to be sealed tomorrow.
The candle trembled in her hand.
She heard footsteps behind her and a voice she knew too well.
Elder Halt, reading the holy record, “Wife!” Clara turned, clutching the candle like a weapon.
“You lied to me.
” He smiled faintly.
“No, I promised you eternity.
You should be honored.
” His hand reached for her, but she hurled the candle onto the ledger.
The flame caught instantly, devouring the pages.
The prophet’s portrait on the wall began to burn.
The church filled with smoke and ash.
Clara ran for the door.
Behind her, Hol screamed, “The Covenant cannot die!” She didn’t look back.
The night swallowed her whole.
Clara burned the blood ledger, but something survived the fire.
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When the fire finally died, Zion Canyon was silent.
But silence doesn’t mean peace.
It means something is waiting to breathe again.
Smoke crawled across the sky like a ghost.
The chapel was nothing but embers.
Charred wood snapped in the wind and ash floated like snow.
Clara stumbled through the wreckage barefoot, coughing.
Her white dress was black with soot.
The flames had eaten the altar, the pews, the portraits, but the walls still whispered with voices that refused to die.
She dropped to her knees beside the ruins of the prophet’s desk.
The blood ledger was gone, burned to dust.
Only a corner of the cover survived.
The twin ring symbol scorched into black leather.
For a moment she thought she was alone.
Then a faint sound.
Not from above.
From beneath the floor.
A low rumble.
Like breathing.
Clara froze.
The ground shifted under her hand.
Ash fell through the cracks, revealing a metal ring, a trap door.
She hesitated, then pulled it open.
The smell hit her first.
Damp decay and blood.
A narrow staircase spiraled into darkness, and at the bottom, a faint glow, flickering red like dying coals.
She descended slowly, gripping the wall.
Every step creaked like a scream.
The deeper she went, the colder it became, until she reached a cavern lit by a single lantern.
On the ground were dozens of candles melted into the dirt, each with a name carved in the wax.
Abigail, Martha, Hannah, all the wives, and at the center, an altar made of bones, fresh ones.
Clara staggered back.
Then she saw something behind the altar.
A shadow slumped in a chair.
She lifted the lantern.
It was the prophet burned, blackened.
Still breathing, he lifted his head.
You think the covenant burns so easily? His voice rasped like sand.
The flame only freeze what lies beneath.
Clara raised the lantern higher.
Behind him, the wall pulsed.
a living surface, wet and breathing.
Hands, dozens of them, pale, reaching out of the stone.
Wives, their mouths moved soundlessly.
Their eyes followed her.
The prophet smiled through charred lips.
No wife, we are eternal.
The ground trembled.
The candles flickered out one by one, and the whispering rose.
Hundreds of voices chanting in unison, “Join us, Clara.
Join the covenant.
” She turned and ran up the stairs, the prophet’s laughter echoing behind her.
When she burst through the trap door, dawn was breaking.
Light washed over the ruins.
But in the ash, she saw movement beneath the burned church floor, shadows shifting like something alive.
She looked down at her hands.
Ash stuck to her skin, but beneath it, faint marks, two interlocking rings, burned into her flesh.
The covenant had touched her, and it wasn’t done.
Clara escaped the church, but not the covenant.
Like, share, and subscribe, because in the next, she’ll learn what it truly means to be the last wife alive.
Clara Whitlock thought she’d escaped the covenant.
But in Zion Canyon, no one escapes.
They’re simply claimed more slowly.
The sun rose over a dead village.
Smoke still curled from the ashes.
Everywhere silence, no wives, no men, only the whisper of wind moving through the burned bones of the church.
Clara walked through it barefoot, clutching a torn shawl around her shoulders.
Every step stirred up ashes that clung to her skin like ghosts.
Her palms still burned, the faint outline of two interlocking rings glowing beneath the soot.
She reached the old well behind the chapel and peered inside.
Water reflected her face, pale, trembling, unfamiliar.
Then the reflection blinked, but she hadn’t.
Clara stumbled back.
The whisper came again, soft, feminine, inside her head.
You lit the fire.
You freed us.
Now let us in.
She pressed her palms to her ears, shaking her head.
No, no more voices.
But they wouldn’t stop.
Every whisper sounded like Abigail, like Martha, like every wife’s name had burned inside the blood ledger.
She fled into the desert, the cliffs rising like bloody walls on either side.
By midday, her throat was cracked and her feet torn.
Still she walked until the canyon narrowed into a dead end.
There, half buried in sand, stood an old wagon overturned, its wood half rotted.
Inside it something glinted, a Bible open, pages blackened, but a verse underlined in fresh red ink.
And the women shall rise in covenant eternal.
The handwriting was familiar.
Elder Holtz.
Before Clara could move, a hand clamped over her mouth from behind.
rough, warm, human.
She fought, kicking, biting, until she heard a whisper.
Quiet.
It’s me, Martha.
Her eyes were sunken, her arm bandaged, but she was alive.
Clara stared in disbelief.
“I thought you were taken.
” “They tried,” Martha said, panting.
“But when the church burned, I ran.
” She looked down at Clara’s hands.
Oh god, they marked you.
Clara nodded.
It burns.
It never stops.
Martha’s face twisted.
That’s how it starts.
The mark means you’re bound.
You’re becoming one of them.
No.
Clara whispered.
I lit the ledger.
I ended it.
Martha shook her head slowly.
You burned the record, not the promise.
The covenant isn’t written in paper.
It’s written in blood.
Thunder rolled in the distance, though the sky was clear.
The ground trembled beneath their feet.
Martha grabbed her hand.
We have to go.
There’s one place left.
The canyon graves.
The first wives were buried there.
Maybe they can be undone.
They ran together, following the wind toward the cliffs.
The canyon narrowed again, dark and cold.
At the base of the rock stood a crude cemetery, wooden crosses half-fallen, names carved with dull knives.
Clara knelt at one.
Abigail Holt, 1858.
She touched the dirt.
It was warm.
Too warm.
Then the whisper came.
This time not in her head, from the grave itself.
You cannot bury eternity.
The soil moved beneath her hand.
Martha screamed.
Hands burst from the earth.
White skeletal reaching.
Clara stumbled back.
Horror freezing her breath.
Every grave split open.
Every wife rose, eyes empty, mouths chanting the same words.
She is the last, the final vessel.
Clara turned to run, but Martha was gone.
Dragged beneath the soil.
her scream fading into silence.
Clara fell to her knees, shaking, surrounded by the dead.
The wives closed in, whispering like a storm, and above them the bell told once, twice, thrice.
The covenant had chosen again.
Clara was marked, and now the wives have risen for her.
Like, share, and subscribe because in next she’ll face the trial of silence where the dead finally speak.
When the bell told three times, the dead didn’t rise to haunt Clara.
They rose to judge her.
Moonlight cut across the canyon graves.
Ash drifted in the cold air.
Clara Whitlock stood surrounded by the wives of Zion, their white dresses torn, their mouths whispering one prayer again and again.
The covenant is eternal.
Her heart hammered, her throat bled from screaming.
She backed away, but the wives followed, their bare feet making no sound on the dirt.
One stepped forward.
Abigail.
Her eyes glowed faintly, like candlelight trapped behind glass.
“You freed us from fire,” she said softly.
“But fire cannot unmake a vow.
” Clara shook her head.
“I destroyed the ledger.
The profit’s gone.
It’s over.
Abigail’s gaze didn’t waver.
You still bear the mark.
The covenant lives through you now.
The ground cracked beneath their feet.
Smoke rose, forming a faint circle around them, like an invisible ring closing in.
Then the voices fell silent.
The air grew heavy.
And from the darkness beyond the graves, something moved.
A figure emerged, tall, burnt, and cloaked in soot.
The prophet alive barely.
His skin hung in shreds, his eyes black as coal.
He walked with a staff made of bone.
The trial of silence begins, he rasped.
The covenant must decide if the last wife is pure or if she must be reclaimed.
Clara stumbled back, trembling.
What do you want from me? The prophet lifted his hand.
The wives circled her.
The covenant demands silence.
No lies, no please, no denial.
If your heart is clean, the mark will fade.
If not, you will join them.
Clara’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
The air itself held her tongue.
Every whisper, every breath gone.
She could only listen as the prophet began to chant.
The ground trembled.
The graves glowed red beneath the dirt, and images flashed in her mind.
Each wife’s death, each prayer, each betrayal.
Abigail’s voice echoed within her skull.
We were promised heaven.
They gave us chains.
Another voice followed.
“We were told to love.
They made us disappear.
” Clara dropped to her knees, clutching her head.
The whispers became screams.
The prophet’s voice thundered.
Confess your sin, wife, or burn again.
Tears streamed down her face.
She forced her lips to move, and through blood and silence, one word escaped.
Enough.
The sound cracked like lightning.
The circle of wives stopped.
The prophet froze, his eyes wide.
The mark on Clara’s hands began to glow, brighter, redder, until it seared through the night like molten iron.
She rose to her feet, voice breaking free.
I’m not your vessel.
I’m not your covenant.
I am your end.
The mark flared.
A wave of light erupted from her palms, ripping through the graves, the smoke, the prophet himself.
He screamed, collapsing into ash.
The wives fell silent, their faces softened, peaceful for the first time.
Abigail smiled faintly.
You freed us, Clara, truly this time.
Then they faded one by one, until only Clara stood among the empty graves.
The moon dimmed, the wind stillilled.
For a moment she believed it was over.
But when she looked at her hands, the mark was gone.
Yet the skin beneath shimmerred faintly as if something beneath it was still alive.
And in the distance the bell told once more.
Clara ended the covenant.
Or so she thinks.
Like, share, and subscribe because in next Zion Canyon will burn again and the last wife will vanish into legend.
They say the fire in Zion Canyon burned for 3 days, but when the smoke cleared, Clara Whitlock was gone.
The year was 1860.
Snow covered the ruins of the prophet’s compound.
No birds sang, no wind moved.
Only one trail of footprints led up the canyon ridge and ended abruptly at the edge of a blackened pit.
Sheriff Amos Keller dismounted his horse, staring at the ashes.
He’d written for miles after receiving a single letter written in shaky script signed only CW.
The letter read, “They’re not dead, Amos.
They’re waiting.
If I fail, seal the canyon.
Burn what’s left.
Don’t look for me.
” He crouched beside the pit, fingers brushing the scorched earth.
Something pulsed beneath it, warm, alive.
And then he heard it faintly, like voices beneath the ground.
The covenant is eternal.
His blood ran cold.
He stepped back, fumbling for his revolver, though he knew a bullet wouldn’t help.
From the pit’s edge, smoke rose in slow spirals.
It wasn’t just smoke.
It was breathing.
Meanwhile, deep beneath that same ground, Clara opened her eyes.
She wasn’t dead.
She was somewhere else.
A cavern carved of salt and light.
The air shimmerred like glass around her.
The wives of Zion stood once more, but now their faces were calm.
No pain, no fire, no rage.
They formed a circle, eyes fixed on her.
Abigail stepped forward.
The prophet’s body has perished, she said softly.
“But his vow lives within the covenant flame, and now you are the keeper.
” Clara’s heart pounded.
“No,” she whispered.
“I destroyed it.
I broke it.
” Abigail shook her head.
“The covenant cannot be destroyed, only inherited.
and you accepted it when you spoke the word.
Clara’s mind raced back to that single word she’d screamed in defiance.
Enough.
Her breath caught.
The wife’s hands began to glow, light flowing toward her like golden smoke.
Each woman’s body turned to dust, their essence drawn into Clara’s chest.
“No, stop!” she screamed, stumbling back, but it was too late.
The air ignited around her.
Symbols burned across the cavern walls, ancient, spiraled, living.
And above them all, a new voice spoke.
Not the prophets, not the wives, but something older.
The covenant reborn must protect the flame or perish with it.
Clara fell to her knees, her veins blazing with light.
The cavern shook, the ground split open, and in one deafening burst, the canyon above exploded in fire.
3 days later, when Sheriff Keller returned with his men, they found no trace of Clara.
Only the pit, now filled with white salt.
At its center lay a ring of stones glowing faintly red.
Keller ordered the canyon sealed.
He told no one what he’d seen.
But late at night, when the wind was still, the people of Utah swore they heard the bells.
Three tolls, always three.
And sometimes, if the moon was full, a woman in white could be seen standing on the ridge, her eyes like burning embers, her hands glowing beneath the skin.
Some say she became the guardian of the wives souls.
Others say the covenant consumed her, that she became the very thing she feared.
Either way, the canyon still whispers her name.
Clara Whitlock, the last wife of Zion.
The covenant may be sealed, but legends never rest.
Like, share, and subscribe because in our next story, we uncover the truth behind the prophet’s second ledger, the one written entirely in blood.
Years passed, but the covenant never truly ended.
And buried deep in Utah, a second ledger waits, written entirely in blood.
1875, Clara Whitlock had vanished from the canyon, officially dead.
No one saw her again, but rumors grew.
Travelers whispered of a woman in white appearing at the canyon’s edge.
A shadow moving across the cliffs, glowing faintly under the moon.
One winter evening, a young historian named Daniel Cross arrived in Utah.
He was obsessed with the stories, the burned church, the vanished wives, the covenant.
He carried nothing but a notebook, a lantern, and the stubborn hope of uncovering the truth.
The canyon loomed in front of him.
Red cliffs snow dusted, silent, empty.
Daniel walked carefully, notebook clutched in one hand.
Footprints from decades before had long vanished under snow and ash.
But something drew him deeper, a faint glow beneath the rocks, pulsing like a heartbeat.
He followed it beneath the canyon floor, hidden by rubble and salt.
He found a cavern.
The walls shimmerred with runes, ancient spiraled symbols burned into the stone, and in the center a desk carved from blackened wood, untouched by time.
On it lay a ledger bigger than any book he’d seen, bound in dried, cracked leather, and the pages were red.
Not ink, blood.
Daniel trembled.
Each page contained names, hundreds of them, wives, children, men.
Some names had been crossed out, some had dates spanning decades.
And at the very last page, glowing faintly under his lantern, a single name, Clara Whitlock.
The page turned on its own, as if a breeze whispered it.
symbols shifted on the edges of the letters and then a soft voice barely audible.
The covenant never dies.
It only waits for the last vessel to return.
Daniel’s lantern flickered.
The glow intensified.
From the shadows he saw her, Clara.
Her eyes were the color of embers.
Her hands burned with faint light beneath her sleeves.
The mark of the covenant glowed again.
She smiled, not warmly, not friendly, a chilling, knowing smile.
You found the ledger.
And now you know the truth.
The cavern walls pulsed with light.
The whispers rose to a roar.
The spirits of the wives, hundreds of them, circled Daniel.
Not angry, not evil, watching, waiting.
Clara’s voice cut through the chaos.
The covenant chose me, and now it chooses the next.
The ledger flipped open.
A blank page awaited, and above it faint symbols glimmered, waiting to be written in blood.
Daniel froze.
Clara stepped closer.
Her eyes glowed brighter.
“You can leave,” she said softly.
“But if you take this ledger, you join it forever.
” The ground trembled, the ceiling cracked, and the whispers grew louder, chanting the names of the fallen, the lost, the chosen.
Daniel dropped the lantern.
Light exploded.
When the dust settled, the cavern was empty.
Only the ledger remained, open, waiting.
Outside, the canyon was silent again, too silent.
And somewhere on the cliffs, the faint glow of a woman in white appeared, watching, waiting.
The covenant eternal.
The ledger waits.
And so does Clara Whitlock.
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