Page 22 of The Sin Binder's Vow

Pure, undiluted rage. The kind that comes from betrayal so old it calcified into instinct. He doesn’t justfeelanger. Heisit. A living storm, always one breath from thunder. Wrath doesn’t need a reason—it waits, coiled, until the smallest crack lets it in. Riven tries to leash it. Pretends it’s control. But I’ve seen the truth. When Luna touched him, when sheboundhim, she didn’t calm the rage. She gave it purpose.

And Elias… Elias is sloth.

Not laziness. Not indifference. The ancient sin ofwithdrawal.Of choosing numbness over pain, avoidance over truth. Sloth is the cowardice of the soul—the decision to look away even as the world burns. Elias jokes because he’s always half a second from collapse. He refuses to feel too deeply because the moment he does, he’ll drown in it. He’s not weak. He’sterrifiedof what he’d become if he ever let go.

And me?

I am gluttony.

Not hunger for food. That would be merciful. Mine is the hunger formore.More knowledge. More experience. More of what should never belong to me. I consume and consume—books, magic, meaning—until there is nothing left but ash. Gluttony is the sickness of never being full. Of knowing that what I take will ruin the very thing I love most, and taking it anyway. That’s why I keep my distance. That’s why I let the others touch her, joke with her, burn for her.

We are not men.

We are the things men bury.

We are the rot at the base of the holy tree.

And she—Luna—she’s the light they forgot to extinguish.

Which means, eventually, we will destroy her.

Or she willredeemus. And can Sin be redeemed? That’s the question gnawing at the base of all this. Not spoken aloud—not yet—but it hangs in the air every time she breathes too deeply, every time one of them looks at her like they’ve seen the shape of their damnation and would still drag their tongue across it just to taste her name.

Can Sin be saved?

If that’s all that lives inside you?

I don’t know.

But I know what I’ve seen. I’ve watched women reach for power before. Some with noble intent. Some with hunger buried so deep they thought it looked like hope. And each time, they crumbled. Not in some grand spectacle, but piece by piece. Their softness went first. Their logic next. And eventually, the thing that made themthem.

Because power never just fills you.

It hollows you out.

And Sin—ourkind of power—it’s not just a force. It’s a parasite. One that whispers your name while it redefines it. One that convinces you what you’re becoming is beautiful, until you’re standing in the ruin of everything you loved with blood on your hands and no memory of how it got there.

And Luna?

She’s already changing.

Three bound to her now. Riven, Silas, Elias. Each of them pulled into her orbit, each of them marking her with something she may never understand. Not because they forced it—becauseshe let it happen.Because something in her wants to be claimed. To feelall of it.Even if it means being devoured by what we are.

Her power is shifting. I can feel it in the stones, in the way the ruins themselves respond to her like a queen returning to a throne that should never have been built. The Hollow no longer fights her. The Academy no longer rejects her. Theyrecognizeher.

But they don’t recognize Luna.

They recognize something else.

And maybe that’s what she’s becoming.

Not a binder.

Not a savior.

But something new. Something born from all of us. And gods help us if she survives it.

Because none of us will. Not unchanged.

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