Page 62 of The Sin Binder's Chains

Her mouth presses into a thin line. “Where are they now?”

Good question.

A better one, what took them?

I glance around once more, scanning the destruction, the patterns, the magic left behind. Not random. Not reckless. This wasn’t a struggle. This was a hunt.

And Ambrose and Caspian were the prey.

I exhale slowly. This just got complicated.

Layla steps forward, her gaze skimming over the damage, assessing, processing. Then she stops. Stares.

At first, I don’t see what caught her attention.

Then I do.

A message, scrawled into the wood, barely visible through the soot and blood. Not written in ink. Carved. With a blade. Come and see.

Layla reads it aloud, her voice steady, but beneath it, something else.

A flicker of something distant. Something wary.

I meet her gaze. “It’s an invitation.”

She swallows. “Or a warning.”

Both.

I rise to my full height, rolling my shoulders, the weight of something inevitable settling into place. This wasn’t just an attack. It was a statement. A lure.

And we’re expected to follow.

I glance toward the ruined doorway, toward the darkness stretching beyond.

“Well,” I murmur, voice calm, deliberate. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

Layla hesitates for only a second before stepping in line beside me.

I follow the trail, not by sight alone, but by something deeper. Something older. It lingers in the air, in the warped space where power licked against reality and left its mark. The ground bears the story of their struggle: jagged imprints, the uneven scuff of boots, the unmistakable path where one of them was dragged.

That’s the first thing that doesn’t make sense.

Ambrose and Caspian are not weak. Not careless. Not the kind of men who fall easily, let alone get dragged like carrion while the other simply walks.

The prints are deliberate. One dragged. One walking.

I crouch, pressing my fingers against the disturbed earth, feeling for the story beneath my skin. There’s no blood. No sign of struggle beyond what’s written in the dirt itself. No hesitation in the steps that followed.

Whoever walked did so willingly.

A choice.

Or an order.

My gaze follows the trail, tracking the path until it reaches the ruined pillar ahead. It rises from the cracked foundation like a splinter of the past, weathered by time but still standing, defiant against the decay around it. The drag marks stretch right up to its base, and then stop.

Not tapering off. Not scattered by wind or disrupted by another force.

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