Page 46 of The Sin Binder's Chains

Lucien

The ride has been silent for too long. And it’s not like her.

Elias, usually a one-man disaster, is at a loss, his jokes falling flat, his nervous energy shifting into something more fidgety, uneasy. He keeps glancing at me over his shoulder like I’m supposed to fix this.

Like I could. Like I would.

Luna sits behind him, her arms loose around his waist, her cheek resting against his back, but she’s not there. Not really. Her eyes aren’t on the landscape shifting around us, on the endless gloom of the Void, on the distant ruins and jagged remnants of a world undone.

She’s looking at nothing.

Elias lets out a dramatic, suffering sigh, like the weight of her silence is physically harming him.

"This is unnatural," he mutters. "This is some kind of eldritch horror shit. I can feel my soul shriveling under the weight of it. Lucien, say something before I fucking die."

I don’t. Because I know what he wants. I know what she needs. And comfort isn’t it.

Elias isn’t used to her like this. He thinks words will pull her back, that a well-timed quip will drag her out of whatever storm is raging inside her.

But I know better.

I know that silence isn’t weakness. It’s coiling, waiting, sharpening into something deadly.

Still, Elias is losing it. He twists in the saddle, awkwardly trying to look at her over his shoulder. "Moonbeam, blink twice if you’re planning to kill us all in our sleep. Just so I can prepare emotionally."

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

"Blink once if you already have."

Still nothing.

Elias stiffens. "Lucien, she’s broken. You need to- "

"She’s not broken," I cut in, voice even. "She’s thinking."

And I see it now, the way she’s thinking. The way her hands flex, the slow rise and fall of her breath, the way her eyes don’t flicker but burn, dark and deep and pulling in every fragment of the world around her like she’s cataloging it for later destruction.

I almost smirk.

"You’re planning something," I say, watching her carefully. "Aren’t you?"

Elias goes rigid. "Wait, what? Planning what? I live here, I would like to be informed of any upcoming death or dismemberment, "

Luna doesn’t answer, but her fingers tighten at Elias’s waist, just enough to make him choke.

He yelps.

"Okay, okay, fuck, I’m sorry I talked."

I don’t let him finish.

Because Luna finally moves. She lifts her head, her gaze slow, heavy, sharp as a knife dragged over stone. And she looks at me. Right at me. Not Elias. Not the Void.

Me.

And I know. I fucking know. The moment she meets my eyes, the moment something dark, raw, inevitable coils in her chest and reaches for the same thing inside me.

I know.

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