Page 116 of The Sin Binders Ascent

His scythe drives forward, straight into the thing’s mouth, wedging between two jagged fangs and slamming upward. The blade shoves deep into the soft tissue under the croc’s upper jaw, and Theo pulls. Not out.Across.

The creature screams. It’s not a roar. It’s something deeper, almost mechanical, like something built to kill, is realizing it can bleed. The water turns black around us. Steam rises in long, curling threads as the wound begins to smoke.

Theo climbs the beast. Actually climbs it. One hand gripping a jagged scale, boots digging in as he vaults up its side and drives the scythe down again into the back of its neck. The blow cracks through cartilage and bone, blood spraying hot against the water.

The croc thrashes violently. Its head snaps toward me again, lips pulled back in a grin that isn’t a grin, just raw instinct. I dive sideways, slipping under as it lunges. The water burns my eyes again. My shoulder hits stone.

When I surface, choking, spitting river-muck, Theo is already on its back, hunched low like a demon with silver eyes and death in his hands. His scythe is buried to the hilt in the creature’s spine. His muscles strain as he twists the weapon. I hear the snap of vertebrae, feel the moment it breaks.

The beast lets out one final, shuddering heave. Then it collapses.

The weight of it sinks fast, dragging Theo with it for a moment before he yanks the scythe free and kicks off the creature’s corpse. He surfaces beside me, gasping, soaked, blood-slicked, and grinning like the bastard he is.

“You okay?”

I nod, breathing hard. “I’m great. That was relaxing.”

He pushes wet hair out of his face and offers a hand. I take it. His grip is hot. Firm. The only solid thing in a river that tried to eat us whole.

I drag myself to the far bank beside him, soaked and shaking. My chest feels hollow. Not from exertion, but from uselessness. I couldn’t do anything. No magic. No blade. Just fists and instinct and rage with nowhere to go.

He leans back on his elbows, breathing slower now, like his body’s finally registering what just happened.

“That thing,” he says, glancing sideways at me, “was not a crocodile.”

“I gathered.”

A beat passes. Then I ask, voice low, bitter, “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

He laughs. That same low, velvet chuckle that makes everything worse.

“I enjoy not being dead.”

“Well,” I say, letting my head fall back against the grass. “Good for you.”

And even though my body aches and my hands are still trembling, a part of me, some stubborn, bruised, ancient part, wants to laugh with him. Wants to scream and laugh and fall into his chest just to feel something thatisn’tthis world scraping my skin raw.

It slips out of me, sharp at first, almost a bark, then tumbles into something looser, breathier, bordering on hysteria. It comes in waves, and I can’t stop it. I sit there on the riverbank, dripping, teeth chattering, legs splattered with croc blood, or whatever that monster was, and I laugh until my ribs hurt. Until my face aches. Until something that’s been coiled tight in my chest since Brashir saidthis is mercystarts to shake loose.

Theo tilts his head toward me, water still streaming from his curls, the scythe gone now, his palms resting against the ruined grass. He’s got a smudge of something dark on his jaw, blood or shadow or whatever this place leaves behind when it tries to kill you. He looks like chaos incarnate, half-wild, teeth showing when he starts laughing too, breath catching as he leans back on his elbows like the world didn’t just try to chew him in half.

It’s not normal laughter. It’s not even sane. It’s the kind that only happens when you’re bone-deep in hell and still alive to laugh at the gods for sending you here.

“I don’t even know what’s funny,” I say between gasps, pressing the heel of my hand to my eye, still laughing, still shaking.

He lifts one brow. “We’re alive. That counts for something.”

“We’re in a swamp full of bloodthirsty reptilian nightmares and god knows what else, I have no magic, I can’t find a way home, and the divine punishment for my sins wasyou.”

That earns a snort. “Harsh.”

“It’s just, ” I wave a hand, gesturing vaguely at everything. “This is the worst situation I’ve ever been in. And I’ve died before. This might actually be worse.”

Theo glances down at himself, fingers brushing his soaked shirt, his mouth pulling into a crooked grin. “Yeah. Definitely not our best day.”

The laughter fades, not abruptly, but gradually, like it’s exhausted itself. I lean back on my palms, chest still fluttering from the adrenaline, the effort. I can’t remember the last time I let myself do that, just let go for even a second. It feels foreign. Like a muscle I forgot existed.

My body aches everywhere. The kind of ache that doesn’t settle in the muscle but bone. The kind that feels earned, even if it’s built on failure. I’m not strong enough here. That fight proved it. Without my magic, without my blade, I’m running on instinct and history, and this place doesn’t care what I used to be. Here, I’m breakable. I’m slower. I’m not enough.

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