Page 135 of The Sin Binder's Chains

I raise my hand. It stops. Not by choice. Not by instinct. By command.

Its body seizes, its limbs locking in place as my power threads through its being, tightening like a noose. It struggles, but there is no fighting me. I step forward, slow, measured, as its own body betrays it, as I force it to kneel. Pride demands it. Dominion enforces it.

Its choked snarl is cut short as I drive my blade through its skull.

Another corpse. Another failure of Severin’s. They’re not Severin’s best. They’re a distraction. I see it for what it is. A delay. A way to keep us here, fighting pointless battles while he moves his pieces elsewhere.

The others are catching their breath, Luna’s blade dripping with the ruin she’s left behind, Riven is standing too close to her, as if whatever moment they shared in the heat of combat still clings between them. Elias is leaning on his weapon like this was all just a mild inconvenience, while Orin, always the observer, studies the battlefield like he’s waiting for the next move.

But I know what Severin wants.

“Keep moving,” I order, my voice cutting through the settling silence like a blade. It’s not a suggestion.

Luna’s eyes snap to mine first, always the one to resist, to test the limits of my patience. She thinks she has a choice.

But this is not up for debate.

“We don’t have time for this,” I continue, stepping over a twitching corpse without sparing it a glance. “Severin’s stalling us. Every second we waste here, he gets further ahead.” I look at Orin first, because he’s the only one of them who understands what it means to make hard decisions. “We need to move.”

Orin gives a slow, thoughtful nod, but Luna doesn’t move.

She’s staring at me, unreadable, her blade still in hand like she’s waiting for something.

A challenge.

An excuse.

I step toward her, closing the space between us with the kind of deliberate calm that precedes violence. “Don’t argue,” I say, voice dropping low, lethal. “Not now.”

Luna lifts her chin, stubborn. Defiant. It should annoy me, it does. And yet, I feel that same pull, that same insufferable, unrelenting gravity that always exists between us.

I lower my voice, just for her. Just enough to let the words slide against her skin like a blade pressed too close to the throat.

“Move,” I tell her. “Before I make you.”

Her breath catches. Just for a second. She steps back, but not in surrender, in understanding.

I turn away before I do something reckless. Before I acknowledge the heat of her magic brushing against mine, the way my Dominion wants to coil around her, wants to make her obey.

Walking is slow. Agonizing. The undead horses, our usual means of traversing this nightmare realm, are nowhere to befound, likely scattered, as if even they know better than to linger in the wake of whatever Severin has planned for us.

I push ahead of the group, striding forward without looking back, because if I stop, if I let myself settle into their presence, the weight of it will slow me down.

I cannot afford to be slow.

Caspian and Ambrose are still missing.

And I don’t know if I believe what Orin told us. That it was Branwen’s scent. That she’s the one who took them. It would be just our luck that she’s returned. That the first Sin Binder has come to remind us exactly how this story ends.

I grind my teeth, jaw clenching so tight it aches, because the truth is, I was a fool back then. Branwen came when we were still learning what we were, when the Rift spat us out and we were more beasts than men, creatures bound by something older than language, something stitched into our bones. She called herself inevitable.

And I let her bind me. Because it made sense. Because I thought we needed structure. Because I thought we needed her.

It had been easy at first. She was acceptable. Until she wasn’t.

Until she held a Pride-forged weapon to my throat and smiled.

Until she tried to own us.

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