Page 76 of The Sin Binders Ascent

It sits at the center like a shrine.

No, not a shrine. Anoffering.

Tall enough that the curve of the frame rises past Luna’s head. Its body is carved from blackwood, smooth and oil-slicked, the kind of dark that absorbs color. Not painted,grown. Twisted and shaped by magic, or madness, or both. And the strings…

Theymove.

They twitch on their own, some vibrating in long mournful hums while others jerk like nerves under skin. They shimmer faintly, fine as spider’s silk, but burn gold-red when struck, like veins of molten ore humming beneath the surface. And the sound they make? It’s not right. Each note is close to something beautiful but justoffenough to make your stomach tighten.

No one’s touching it.

But somethingis.

Luna steps closer, the golden cuff between us going taut for a second before I follow. I catch the way her hand tightens around her blade again, how her eyes stay locked on the harp like it might grow teeth andbite. She’s right to be cautious. This thing doesn’t feel old. It feelshungry.

“What the hell is this?” she mutters under her breath.

I crouch slightly, eyes narrowing. Desire doesn’t like this thing. That’s saying something, because there’s almost nothing I’ve found that my power doesn’t want to taste. But this? This harp is made of want twisted the wrong way.

“It’s bait,” I say quietly. “It’s singing for something.”

The strings pluck again, slow and deliberate. The next notehurtsin my chest. Just a throb, a pressure, like someone pressed a fist into my sternum and started topush.

Luna exhales sharply and presses a hand to her ribs, like she feels it too. Her gaze jerks to me.

“What the fuck is it calling?”

I grin, though there’s nothing friendly about it.

“That,” I say, standing slowly, “is the million-dollar question, sweetheart.”

It begins slowly, like a rising breath held too long, one note climbing after the other until it doesn’t sound like a song anymore, but a scream stretched into melody. The harp weeps its music into the clearing, louder now, impossibly loud, the notes stabbing through the air like hot needles sliding into soft places, behind the eyes, under the skin, into the marrow.

Then itbreaks.

The crescendo doesn’t build, it detonates. Sound rips through me like a blade dragged behind my eyes, and the agony isimmediate. It’s not volume. It’spressure. The weight of a thousand obsessions, a thousand hungers forced into pitch, into vibration, until it crushes in on itself and explodes outward in a sound that isn’t music anymore, it’swant, screaming so loudly through the clearing that it has nowhere else to go but inside.

I clutch my head, gritting my teeth, barely stopping myself from dropping my weapon. Through the red flood of pain in my skull, I know Luna’s feeling it too, her scream slices through the clearing, sharp and ragged, and then the fogmoves.

Not drifting.Rolling.

The world doesn’t blur, it vanishes. The thick gray mass crashes in like a tide, rushing in so fast it swallows the trees, the moss, the harp. Everything goes soft and featureless in a blink, like someone wiped existence clean with a single, long breath.

I reach for her, blindly, but my hand meets nothing but mist. She’s gone. Not far, impossible, with the cuff, butgonefrom my sight, from the space around me, like the fog has folded her away.

“Luna!”

My voice doesn’t echo. It doesn’t even carry. It falls flat and disappears, eaten by the thick gray. The music is still there, butmuffled now, like it’s playing from the other side of a wall that wasn’t there before.

And gods, ithurts.

It’s not just my ears. My skull feels split in half. My throat tastes like blood. My heartbeat’s ragged, stuttering beneath my ribs like it’s forgotten the rhythm it’s supposed to follow. I spin, or try to, unsure where front or back even is anymore. The trees have vanished entirely, the moss swallowed, the sky hidden. It’s all just a churning, pulsing fog, wrapping around me in waves like something alive.

Every breath is a mistake. It tastes like copper and damp soil, like long-forgotten crypts and rot dressed in perfume. I stagger forward, pulled by the cuff, or by instinct, I don’t know anymore. The pressure ofher, still tugs at the base of my spine, which means she’s close.

But the harp won’t stop.

It’s softer now, yes, but wronger. The notes pulse in time with my heartbeat, coaxing it to skip, to strain. Every pluck is a whisper in my chest, a suggestion, a seduction.Come closer. Come see. Come want.

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