Page 104 of The Sin Binders Ascent

Her eyes flick to the narrow split between the roots behind me. Her pulse pounds through the bond, jittery and sharp.

It’s moving around now, circling. A heavy thump as it shifts weight. Then a growl, slower this time. Not angry. Curious. Like it knows we’re here.

And then the first claw breaks through.

The root above us cracks slightly, not enough to collapse, but enough to drop a rain of dirt and black moss across my shoulder. I grab her wrist.

“We’re not staying,” I mutter. “Go. Out the back.”

Her head snaps toward me. “We can’t, ”

“Wecan. Now.”

I don’t wait for agreement. I roll and shove her hard toward the back opening, the narrow gap just wide enough to squeeze through if we move fast. She scrambles, half-crawling, half-pulling herself out as I stay low, twisting my body to block the creature’s sightline if it manages to break through fully.

Another claw rakes in, splitting more root. I catch a glimpse of it this time, slick black fur, matted and steaming, a paw the size of my face with claws that curve like hooked blades.

It knows we’re here. It’s just trying to decide how to pull us out.

“Go!” I hiss, shoving her the rest of the way through.

She’s out.

And I’m right behind her.

Luna

My adrenaline outpaces my steps. My feet are already moving, pounding into the wet, uneven ground, but my body keeps begging them to move faster. Faster. The sound of claws behind us is gone, swallowed up by the woods, but I know better than to think we’ve outrun anything in this place. It’s not that kind of world. This place doesn’t chase. It stalks.

Theo’s right behind me, his hand hitting my lower back when I stumble again, pushing me forward, hard. Not gently. Not protectively. Just desperate. He’s cursing under his breath, but low, like even his voice knows too much sound could call down something worse.

The trees have changed again. The ones we were under before were twisted and dead, all black bark and bloated roots, but these... these are wrong in a different way. Tall and silver, their trunks smooth like melted stone, their branches tipped with something that glows faintly blue and dangles in strings like wet ribbons. The glow doesn’t light anything, not really. It just makes the shadows look thicker, deeper. My feet splash through a puddle that wasn’t there a second ago, and something thin brushes my ankle beneath the water. I don’t stop to see what.

Above us, the moon is hanging so low it looks like it’s caught in the branches. It’s huge. Heavy. Too close. And it’s not right, it’s not even white. It pulses with red and gold like a moltenbruise, ringed with jagged teeth of cloud that don’t move. It’s got holes punched through it like craters, but they’re too clean, too deliberate. Like someone reached up and bit pieces out of it.

I can’t breathe right. My lungs feel like they’ve shrunk. My throat’s dry, and the deeper we run, the harder it is to keep upright. The terrain is getting worse. The ground isn’t earth anymore, it’s something soft and uneven, like old carpet soaked in rot. It squelches when I step, sticks when I try to lift my boots. There are tiny bones scattered across it in clusters, some as small as mouse skulls, others unmistakably human.

I hear the hum just behind me, low, steady, rising like it’s being wound tight in Theo’s chest. He’s pulled his scythe. The sound of it scraping into form is unmistakable, a hiss that slithers up my spine, cold and electric.

I reach for my blade on instinct, my hand brushing the space where it should’ve been. Nothing. Just fabric. Just skin. It’s still gone. My power is still locked somewhere inside me, untouchable. And I hate how useless I feel, how exposed. The bond to the others is gone, my strength burned out, my body running on what little panic it can scrape from the bottom of my lungs.

Theo snaps at me from behind. “Keep going.”

“Iam,” I spit, breathless. “You try running with no magic and half a lung.”

He doesn’t say anything back, but I hear the shift of his boots behind me quicken, the sound of his scythe hissing as it drags through the air just above the ground. He’s watching the treeline. Expecting something. I don’t ask what.

There’s a hill ahead. Sharp. Jagged. Carved out of dark red stone that glistens with a wet sheen. I have no idea what’s on the other side, but there’s nowhere else to go.

I scramble up, hands catching on stone, slipping more than once. My knees scrape over some kind of black moss that coatsthe slope, and it stains my palms when I press into it. It smells like something between rust and vinegar, and it clings to my skin like it’s trying to grow there.

Theo grabs me under the arms when I slip near the top. Hauls me up like I weigh nothing. His hand is bleeding again, the same cut from earlier split open. His palm leaves a streak across my shirt. I can feel the pull between us pull taut for a second, like it’s remembering what we are, what we could be if either of us leaned in too far.

I don’t lean. I don’t look at him. Not right now.

We crest the ridge, and there it is. A field. Endless. Open. The sky above it split in long red gashes that pulse with light every few seconds like veins. The grass, or what passes for it here, is tall and thin, almost translucent, swaying despite the stillness of the air. There are towers in the distance. Ruined. Bent sideways like the earth stopped supporting them halfway through their lives. And something is moving between them, slow and wide and barely visible through the mist curling across the valley floor.

We can’t go back.

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