Page 168 of The Sin Binder's Chains

Silas turns to me finally, his eyes rimmed red, not with tears, but something worse. Shame. “I didn’t even say it right. I tried to make her laugh first. Thought maybe if I was me, she wouldn’t take it so hard.” His voice cracks, and he shakes his head. “She looked at me like I was a stranger.”

I lean forward, resting my forearms on my thighs, watching the stretch of nothing beyond the campfire’s reach. “She’ll come back to you.”

“You think that?” he asks, almost hopeful.

I nod once. “I know it.”

He doesn’t thank me. Doesn’t smile. But his shoulders relax a fraction, like he’s bracing less against the world.

And then, because he’s still Silas, he mutters, “I mean… I am the prettiest one. She’ll miss that eventually.”

I bark a laugh despite myself. “Shut up.”

“Just saying,” he says with a weak grin. “I have great lashes.”

We sit there, the two of us, just breathing for a while, until the weight lifts a little, and the night feels slightly less impossible. But the void watches us still, whispering promises and threats we’ve yet to understand.

And we both know the real battle hasn’t even started yet.

There’s something pathetic about missing Daemon Academy.

I used to dream of burning it down, taking its ash and grinding it into Severin’s smug, sharp smile. And now, here I am, in the middle of a warped, collapsing world that reeks of the void and clings to you like mold, and all I can think about is the sound of the floorboards in the west wing when they creaked beneath our steps, or the way the walls groaned at night like they were holding something in, maybe us.

Maybe me.

I shift against the cold stone, my back pressed to a jagged pillar of rock that juts out from the ruined landscape like a broken bone. The fire nearby flickers in its pit, struggling against the wind, throwing warped light over the faces of the others. Luna’s curled up with Layla, but she keeps looking over at us, eyes sharp, waiting for another betrayal to fall out of our mouths. She hasn’t forgiven Silas. I don’t think she will.

And I can’t even blame her.

“I miss the house,” I murmur aloud, more to myself than anyone, though Riven hears it and lets out a low, bitter laugh.

“You hated that place.”

“I did,” I agree. “Still do. But I miss hating it in comfort.”

He snorts and doesn’t respond, kicking a loose stone into the dark. It vanishes without a sound, like the void swallowed it whole.

There was order at Daemon. Brutal, cruel order, but order nonetheless. Even when Severin was breathing down our necks, even when we were bound by spells and rituals, shackled by ancient contracts carved into our skin, we knew the rules. We knew the battleground. Here? There’s no battleground. Just endless terrain, bleeding into itself like ink on water. No landmarks. No time.

Just monsters.

And Layla, looking more fragile by the hour.

And Luna… still burning like she doesn't realize the fire has to consume something.

I look at her again. Her hair’s tangled. Her lips are pressed in a hard, thin line. But she’s beautiful in a way that grates at me like a truth I can’t unlearn. Beautiful and wrong and impossibly necessary.

She’s not my sin binder. Not yet. Not ever, if I can help it. But I want her.

Gods, I want her.

And that’s the worst part. That somewhere in all of this, I’ve started craving the very thing I was made to resist.

The fire pops beside me, and Orin shifts where he sits, unreadable as ever, his ancient gaze watching Luna like he already knows the outcome of every path we take.

Maybe he does.

I sigh again, letting the exhaustion pull at the bones beneath my skin. “We’re not built for this,” I murmur. “This war. This… wandering.”

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