Page 81 of The Sin Binders Ascent

I glance at him, and I hate how steady he looks, even now. His weapon is already drawn again, that impossible curved blade that looks forged from obsidian and hunger, its edge humming faintly with his magic. Or whateverDesireis. It glows like a bruise, dark violet where light should be.

He steps in front of me.

“They haven’t moved,” he says, voice low. “That’s either a good sign or the worst one.”

I roll my eyes, heart punching the inside of my ribs. “Thanks. That clears things up.”

But the truth is. I’m grateful he’s here. I don’t want to be. I want to hate him. Still do, honestly. But my magic’s gone. My bonds are missing. And this place… it’s like walking inside someone’s fever dream after they’ve lost their mind. The sky isn’t even sky, it’s a swirl of dark, undulating clouds that don’t reflect light but seem todrinkit. “Do they look closer to you?” I ask quietly.

Theo inhales once, sharply.

“Yeah,” he says. “They do.”

We start walking again. Fast. Not running, because prey runs, and I refuse to feel like prey.

The trees are changing too. No longer warped like bones, but bloated and wet-looking, their bark slick with something dark. One has eyes carved into it, not painted, not etched,grown. Like the bark decided it wanted to watch me back. They blink once as I pass.

I swallow hard. “We need somewhere high,” I mutter. “Somewhere we can see.”

Theo nods. “Assuming up doesn’t make us a target.”

“Everything makes us a target,” I snap. “We’re already tethered together in a hell realm with no idea where we are and no backup. So unless you’ve got a magic map stuffed in your ass, I’m leading.”

He doesn’t argue.

I think that’s what scares me most.

Because ifTheoisn’t arguing, it means evenhedoesn’t like our odds.

And the red eyes behind us?

They’re following.

Theo

The blade rises from the space between thought and instinct, shaped by my will, formed by the hunger gnawing beneath my skin. It hisses into my palm, its hilt warm, the edge seething with a low pulse like a heartbeat starved of anything pure. It’s forged of me. Of Desire. Obsidian dark, etched with subtle veins of gold that flicker with every passing shadow, the edge shifts as if it’s breathing. It doesn't hum. It whispers. My name, her name, the sound of want bleeding into metal.

I offer her a smaller blade, one curved like a crescent moon, honed to a kiss of cruelty. Her fingers brush mine as she takes it. Brief. Impersonal. But I feel it all the same, like she’s dragging a live wire through my veins. She doesn’t thank me. She’s too busy scanning the trees behind us, every muscle locked tight.

And maybe she’s right to.

Because this place is no illusion, no echo of Earth. This realm is older than memory, alive in a way that shouldn’t be. The sky above us is bruised plum and red, smeared like old blood across the heavens, and it never shifts. It justwatches. There’s no wind. No birds. But something moves.

I hear it now, too.

Not the red eyes, that would be too easy.

It’s a trickle, faint and wet, winding through the stillness. Water, maybe. But not the kind that babbles over smooth stonein lazy rivers. This drips. Thick and deliberate. Like sap bleeding from a wound.

I step forward, the ground resisting with a damp squelch. The soil is spongy, saturated with something that sticks to the soles of my boots and doesn’t want to let go. Around us, the flora towers in warped, grotesque beauty, ferns the size of sails, trees too tall to see their tops, all pulsing slightly like they’re breathing in tandem with each other. The leaves are slick and glossy, colored in shades no forest on Earth has ever dared grow, poisonous greens, violet-inked black, veins of silvery blue twitching beneath their skins.

Whatever realm we’ve landed in isn’t natural.

It’s not hell. Hell I understand. Hell has rules. Structure. A hierarchy. Even damnation makes sense when it’s been formalized. But this? This placewantssomething. You canfeelit in the air, in the way every path leads nowhere, how the trees seem to shift when you aren’t looking, their roots curling like they might crawl toward you if given permission.

She doesn’t ask where we’re going. I think she knows I don’t have a damn clue.

Her weapon hangs loose in her grip, but her shoulders are coiled tight, and when she moves, it’s like a tiger pacing, silent, efficient, meant to strike. Her magic’s gone. I can feel it too. Whatever threads once connected her to the sins, they’re not just quiet. They’ve been erased. She walks like someone whose skin doesn’t fit anymore.

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