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Not because she’s weak. No. That girl’s stronger than most of us give her credit for. But because she hasn’t had to want the monsters staring at her across a fire pit she hasn’t had to choose between love and war. And Severin won’t ask. He’ll take.
Lucien shifts beside me, elbows on his knees. “You’d kill him before he laid a hand on her.”
“Obviously,” I snap. And I would. I will. But there’s a knot forming in my chest, a brutal tangle of guilt and resentment, because this is starting to feel like a trade. Like we’re circling the edge of a deal none of us are willing to say aloud. Let Severinhave her. Buy ourselves time. Then burn the whole world down after.
But Luna… she wouldn’t let that happen. Not to Layla.
Not even if it broke her.
I drag a hand through my hair, stare into the black distance where the shadows twitch and coil like they’re listening. “So what’s the move, then?”
Lucien doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.
Because whatever happens next… it won’t be clean.
And none of us are walking out of this without blood on our hands.
Orin moves toward us, quiet and deliberate as always. He doesn’t announce himself, doesn’t need to. His presence is enough to pull Lucien’s attention. The fire crackles, spitting embers into the dark, but neither of them flinches. Lucien leans forward, forearms braced on his knees, and without flourish, lays out what we’ve both been thinking but haven’t dared to voice too loudly.
He speaks with precision. He always does. Measured words to a man who listens with the weight of centuries behind his silence. “Severin isn’t here to kill her. He’s here to claim her. You know it. I know it. And we’re running out of time. He won’t stop until he has her. And if Layla’s the key to ending this, ”
I expect the resistance. The hard line. Orin, with all his ancient patience, is telling us we’ve gone too far. That Layla isn’t ours to sacrifice. That there’s always another way.
But instead, Orin just nods.
A slow, contemplative motion like he’s been walking this path in his mind longer than any of us.
“He will take her,” Orin says, voice low and strangely calm. “The question is whether she walks willingly… or is dragged.”
His eyes flick toward the fire, its reflection dancing across the hollows of his face. He looks like something carved from myth inthis light, part scholar, part weapon. And still, something in his voice makes my throat go dry.
“I thought you’d say no,” I admit, my tone sharper than it needs to be. I can’t help it. The idea of using her, using anyone, sits wrong with me even when it’s the only move that makes sense. “That you’d tell us we’re monsters for even thinking about it.”
Orin looks at me, then, really looks. “We are monsters,” he says, and there’s no malice in it. Just truth. “We’ve just spent centuries pretending otherwise. But Severin doesn’t pretend. He takes. He corrupts. And Layla, for all her power, hasn’t been forged in the same fire.”
Lucien watches him with that unreadable stillness, but I know him well enough to feel it, the shift. The weight of his silence turning into agreement. We all feel it. Even Silas, who’s lying on his back a few feet away, pretending to count stars with a hand tucked behind his head, has gone still. He’s listening. He always listens.
“We’ll have to ask her,” Lucien says at last.
I scoff, but it’s hollow. “You think she’ll agree to be Severin’s sacrifice?”
“No,” Orin says before Lucien can answer. “But she might agree to be his leash.”
Something clenches in my gut at that. The thought of Layla walking into Severin’s arms not as prey, but as bait. A hook we’d use to reel him in. It’s smart. It’s ruthless. It might even work.
And it might destroy her.
But we’re past easy choices. Past clean exits. This is war, and none of us came here to survive it.
Lucien stands, dusting ash from his coat. “We talk to her.”
I nod, jaw tight, and look back toward where Luna is curled beside Layla. She doesn’t know we’re planning this. She’s going to hate it. She’s going to hate me.
But I’ll do it anyway.
Because I’d rather she live and hate me than watch her die loving me.
Elias doesn’t walk so much as he prowls, like mischief given human form, his boots kicking up ash as he ambles toward us with his usual smug, crooked smile. There's blood dried on his cheek from earlier, a deep slash across his collarbone that hasn't healed properly, not because it can't, but because he hasn’t bothered to fix it. He wears damage like an accessory, a reminder that he’s survived worse and made it look easy. When he drops down beside us, it’s with the grace of someone who’s spent his entire life pretending not to care while watching everything.