Page 47 of The Sin Binder's Chains

I see it in the way her fingers flex at Elias’s waist. The way she finally, finally lifts her head, her gaze burning through the void like it’s something tangible, something she’s measuring. Weighing.

Elias exhales through his nose. "I don’t know how to handle this, man. She’s too quiet. It’s unnatural. This is witchcraft. "

But she cuts him off.

"How many came before me?"

Elias stiffens.

And I do, too.

Not because I didn’t expect the question, she was always going to ask. But because she asks it now, in a way that suggests she’s already been thinking about it. That she’s been waiting to bring it up.

Her voice is steady, but there’s something beneath it. A sharp edge. A quiet, coiled heat.

Elias, useless as ever, makes a mangled choking noise. "Oh. Well. Uh. I mean- "

I shoot him a look that promises suffering, and he instantly pretends to find something deeply fascinating in the distance.

Luna doesn’t look at him, though. She looks at me. So I give her the only thing I can.

The truth.

"There have been twelve before you."

Something flickers in her eyes, too quick to decipher. She absorbs it, digests it, and then:

"How many of you bound to them?"

I inhale slowly. "Not all of us. Not ever."

She nods once, like she expected that answer. But it doesn’t stop her from continuing.

"So who?"

I let the names roll through my mind, piecing them together with the lives that have come and gone.

Elias, predictably, tries to deflect.

"Do we need to talk about this right now? Like, on the way to battle? Can’t we wait until after we’ve all survived? I feel like this is jinxing it. "

Luna ignores him.

Her gaze doesn’t waver.

Neither does mine.

I exhale, measured and slow.

"Caspian has bound the most, seven times."

Her brow arches slightly, but she doesn’t interrupt.

I continue.

"Orin, six. I've bound to five. Elias and Riven, three. And Ambrose and Silas?"

I pause.

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