Page 107 of The Sin Binders Ascent

Theo shifts forward, the chain between us pulling tight. His voice is still calm, still cocky, but there’s steel under it now. “Who am I? The one she’s handcuffed to. So, unless you feel like ripping me in half, and I’m not saying youcan’t, maybe step back and try a different opening line.”

Brashir does not step back.

Instead, he kneels.

The earth sinks under him like it’s bending to accommodate his weight. His massive form lowers slowly, deliberately, until his eyes are nearly level with mine. The crater he leaves behind fills with cracks that glow faintly, and the air around us warms.

He studies me with unsettling calm. Not malice. Not pity.

Expectation.

“Why?” My voice cracks, and I hate that it does, but I keep going. “Why would you take me? What did I do to deserve beingdropped in this hellhole and hunted like an animal? Who the fuck are you to decide what I become?”

The crater beneath Brashir’s knees glows brighter for a moment, pale green-blue light pulsing beneath the cracked ground like veins. His eyes shift, not cold, not cruel, but far too calm. There’s something worse than calmness. Something certain. His gaze drags over my face, not with judgment, but withcalculation, and somehow that’s worse.

“You were not meant toexistlike this,” he says, quietly, almost like he’s explaining something to a child who asked the wrong question too many times. “A sin binder is a tether. A mortal vessel. Abalance.You are meant to be a bridge between wrath and reason, between desire and duty, between humanity and divine structure. You were never meant toholdthem.”

My pulse is thunder in my ears. Theo moves beside me, weight shifting like he’s ready to leap in front of me if Brashir so much as twitches, but I don’t move. I can’t.

“You don’t get to decide that,” I whisper. “You don’t get to tear that away from me.”

Brashir’s mouth pulls into something like a frown, but it’s too measured, too deliberate. “I did not decide it alone.”

The moment he says it, I feel the truth of it slam into me like cold water.

“The other gods,” I say. Not a question. A slow, hollow realization.

Brashir nods once. “They watched. You grew stronger than you should have. The bond to one Sin alone was a risk. The Seven was... unprecedented. We believed they would reject you. That their pride, their greed, their natures would prevent it. But you bound them. And theyletyou.”

“I didn’t force them….” My voice rises, sharp and shaking. “Ilovethem. They chose me.”

“And in choosing you, they unbalanced everything.”

There is no accusation in his voice. That’s what makes it worse. He isn’t blaming me. He’s just stating facts. Like it’s done. Decided.

“You’re lying,” I snap, but it sounds weak. My fists clench at my sides, nails digging into my palms until I feel them bite. “You don’t know what we are. What we’ve built together. I didn’t take power, I didn’t steal it, Iearnedit.”

Theo shifts beside me again, quiet, but I feel him glance over, watching me in that way that says he’s not sure what to do with this version of me. The furious one. The unraveling one.

Brashir doesn’t move. He just keeps watching, as if waiting for me to catch up to the truth he’s already swallowed.

“You are not powerless,” he says. “You arecut off.There is a difference.”

My breath stutters. “You did that.”

“Yes.”

He says it with no pride. No apology either.

I take a step forward, the cuff tugging hard against Theo’s wrist, and he mutters something under his breath, but I ignore him.

“You stripped me of everything. Ofthem.Do you even know what that did to me?”

Brashir watches me, expression unreadable. “We needed to see. Without the Seven to prop you up. Without power, humming through your blood. Who are you, Luna? What remains when the divine bond is gone? When it’s onlyyou?”

He leans in slightly, and I feel the heat from his skin, thick and dry and pulsing like a forge.

“You are not the first sin binder,” he says. “But you are the first tosurvivethem all. That alone makes you dangerous.”