Page 184 of The Sin Binder's Chains

I glance at her now. Really look. Her face is calm, but her fists are clenched at her sides. The way Luna’s used to be when she thought fury was a way to stay upright.

“You won’t,” I say, too quickly.

She huffs, amused. “You don’t even like me.”

“I don’t need to like you to know what Severin’s going to look like six months from now.”

Lucien’s lips twitch. “Wrapped around her finger?”

I shrug. “He’ll fight it. Pretend he’s not one of them. But Severin was cut from the same threads. You bind the Sub-Sins, and he’s probably the first one to go.”

Layla doesn’t smile. But there’s something in her eyes. A flicker of something older than she’s supposed to be. Like maybe she finally understands what Luna’s been carrying.

And maybe she’s ready to carry it too.

The terrain shifts beneath our feet. The Hollow here is different, twisted, darkened by rites and rituals long since erased from temple walls. Magic leaks from the cracks like steam from a broken bone.

Layla slows, sensing it. Her gaze lifts, eyes tracing something none of us can see.

“They’re near,” Lucien says. “The first of them.”

The ruins split open like something exhaling rot.

Stone curves where it shouldn’t, like the bones of a god cracked and stitched into a cathedral that forgot it was meant to bless. This place doesn’t invite. It waits. And it knows why we’re here.

Lucien leads. Always the first into the dark, even if it means setting himself on fire to see the path. Layla keeps to his side, spine straight, eyes forward, but I can feel it. The tremble behind her bones. Not fear. Not quite. Just knowing. Like the world’s already shifted beneath her feet and she’s too stubborn to flinch.

And then he steps out.

Severin.

Dorian, Alistair, and Soren flank him like sins dressed as saints, their silence louder than most men’s battle cries. The others aren’t here, which means they’re watching. Listening. Or hiding.

Severin’s smile lands like poison on a silver platter. Polished, deliberate, and a little too pleased with itself.

“Lucien,” he says, tone silked with false familiarity. “I expected you'd come armed. You always were more sword than strategy.”

Lucien doesn’t blink. “I came prepared. That’s not the same thing.”

Severin chuckles, but his eyes slide past Lucien like he’s nothing more than a shadow.

He’s already looking at her.

Layla.

And just like that, he forgets how to breathe pretty. It’s subtle, barely a shift in the air around him, but I feel it. The bond. Not a bond-bond, not yet. But the pull. Ancient. Bone-deep. The thing that wants. The thing that claims.

He doesn’t speak right away. Just studies her like she’s something between a prophecy and a problem.

Then: “So. You’re the Binder.”

Layla lifts her chin. “And you’re the coward.”

Lucien smirks. I don’t even bother hiding mine.

Severin’s smile doesn’t crack, but his posture does. A little too stiff now. A little too reactive.

“You’re not what I expected,” he says after a beat.

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