Page 142 of The Sin Binders Ascent

The ground beneath us flattens as we reach the base. No more cracked clay. Just obsidian plates, large as coffin lids, fitted together with no seams. Some are etched with more of that whispering script, shallow and intricate, etched so fine it feels personal.

And then there's the bridge.

It stretches from the edge of the scorched plain across a chasm that shouldn’t exist. I don’t remember seeing it from the ridge. But now it yawns below us, wide and deep, filled with a shimmering black mist that swirls as we approach, like something beneath it is exhaling.

The bridge itself is narrow. Too narrow for something this grand. No rails. Just a strip of fused bone and stone, bleached white, with claw-like ridges jutting out along the sides. It humsbeneath our boots, vibrating with a rhythm that’s not quite sound.

Luna doesn’t pause. She walks like she’s already decided she’s getting answers. Or blood.

I follow, eyes on the mist below, half-expecting it to reach up and pull one of us down. But nothing moves. Nothing attacks.

That’s worse.

At the far end, the gates stand open. Not just open,inviting.They’re titanic. Easily five stories tall, forged from something that looks like melted silver frozen in motion. The surface ripples as we near, like a mirror dropped in water. Shapes move within the metal, faint outlines of things that aren’t us. Faces. Eyes. Wings.

And the doors themselves aren’t shaped like any I’ve seen. There’s no symmetry. No panels or bolts or hinges. Just two massive slabs arched inward, the tops of them curving into what almost looks like a skeletal ribcage above the entrance. The space between them forms a sharp maw, as if the castle is waiting to swallow us whole.

As we step through, the temperature shifts. The heat vanishes, replaced by a kind of stillness that crawls down my spine.

Inside, it’s vast.

It stretches wide and high and impossibly deep, a labyrinth of hollow halls and vast chambers with ceilings that disappear into shadow. No people. No servants. Not even echoes. The stillness isn’t peaceful. It’swatchful.Every wall, every slab of black stone, every twisted archway feels like it’s waiting. Not dormant.Expectant.

The corridors are too large, the scale unnatural. The doorways could fit giants, their frames carved in sharp, curling shapes that look more grown than chiseled. Some of them pulse faintly under our hands when we brush past, like veins buried just beneath the surface. The floors are smooth and cold, somepaved in huge slabs of obsidian, others patterned in white and crimson tile that crackles under our boots like eggshells.

There’s furniture, but it’s not made for people like us. It’s colossal, chairs with backs twice my height, their legs carved into strange, spiraled beasts with too many limbs. Tables that stretch across entire rooms, their surfaces inlaid with mirrored fragments that reflect things behind us instead of what’s in front. Once, we pass a bench molded from bone-white resin shaped like a spine, and I don’t stop to ask if it’s real.

We move in silence for what feels like hours. Room after room. Chamber after chamber. No signs of life, no blood, no Brashir. Just emptiness curated into something elegant and wrong.

And then we find the dining hall.

It’s a cathedral in itself, taller than a temple, lined with thirty-foot pillars that glow faintly from within, casting a golden wash over the long table at the center. The table is monstrous. Long enough that it disappears into shadow at either end. Made from some kind of petrified wood, slick and dark with a lacquer that smells faintly of spice and iron. It’s covered in food.

Real food.

Not the rot-fruit we’ve been choking down for weeks. Not the blood-wine berries or bone-spring water that burns your throat when you swallow. This isactualfood. Hot, steaming, fragrant. Bread, piled in twisted rolls and thick hunks, browned at the edges. Meats, sliced and glazed and roasted, bones charred black and glistening with fat. Bowls of deep green vegetables soaked in oil and herbs we can’t name. There’s fruit, too, ripe, dripping with juice, glowing faintly from within like they’ve been plucked from trees that still remember sunlight.

I stop. Luna doesn’t. She’s already moving toward the table, wide-eyed, her expression caught somewhere between suspicionand hunger. I expect her to test it first. To examine the food, sniff it, hesitate like she always does.

She grabs a roll, tears it open, and steam pours out. Then she takes a bite. Her eyes flutter shut. She chews like she’s forgotten how to swallow, like her body doesn’t trust the pleasure of it.

I watch her finish it before I move closer.

“You think it’s poisoned?” I ask, eyeing a slab of roasted meat glistening with honey and something red.

“If it is, I don’t care,” she says, already reaching for another piece of bread. “I’ll die happy.”

I grab a handful of something I don’t recognize, meat wrapped in charred leaves and sliced open to reveal a rich, spiced center. It melts on my tongue. Warm, tender, perfect. I groan, half-laughing.

“This is unfair.”

“It’s divine,” she says around a mouthful, licking honey from her fingers.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this unguarded. Not even when she’s laughing. There’s something wild and beautiful in it. The way she eats like she’s starving, because she is. We both are. And not just for food.

I reach for more, something that looks like roasted root and tastes like cinnamon and smoke, and slide onto one of the chairs, legs dangling off the edge because it’s too tall for humans. Luna hops onto another, climbing up with her plate like a child in a throne room.

The moment is absurd. And good. Too good. The warmth, the flavor, the satisfaction of swallowing something that doesn’t come with pain or rot or consequence. My stomach aches with it.

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