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"Riven," she purrs now, almost sweet, almost mournful. "You used to look at me differently."

He doesn’t even blink. "You used to be someone different."

"I could fix this," she says softly, letting the words stretch, baiting the hook. "All of it. The way it was. Before her."

Riven’s jaw tics, but he doesn’t rise to it.

She smiles wider, the corners of her lips slicing like razors. "If I kill her," she says, almost casual, eyes sliding lazily to Luna, who hasn't moved, "you’ll all come back to me. That’s how this ends. That’s the only way it can."

Silas mutters something under his breath that sounds like, "She’s lost the plot," but it’s too quiet to cut the tension.

Branwen keeps going, voice syrup-sweet. "She bound you, corrupted you. Ripped you from me, from yourselves. But I can fix it, if she’s gone."

And now she’s looking at me again, like I’m the one who’ll crack first. Like she can smell the fracture in me.

But it’s Riven who moves. He steps forward, slow, deliberate, until he’s standing in front of all of us—blocking her view of Luna entirely, like he’s the wall she’ll never tear down.

"You never broke us," Riven says, voice a growl that lives beneath his skin. "You never owned us. You carved pieces out of us and called it love."

His eyes harden, the full weight of him settling like a blade at her throat without ever touching her.

"She doesn’t bind us," he says. "We chose her."

Branwen’s smile fractures, something sharp flashing behind her eyes, but she keeps standing like she’s holding herself together with nothing but her rage.

I glance at Orin again—and whatever he’s doing, it’s pulling at her, at the threads holding her upright.

But she’s still smiling.

"Then watch how easily I can unmake what she’s built."

Her gaze lands on me like a death sentence, and I know—she’s going to try to start with me.

That threat, her threat, doesn’t just hang in the cathedral like some idle promise. It burns. Like acid on my skin. My stomach coils because it’s not just what she said. It’s how she said it, like Luna was a thing she could remove and everything would slide back into place—like we were possessions that belonged to her, like we were ever hers at all.

The room doesn’t move. No one breathes. I can feel every bond in me stretched taut, Silas vibrating beside me like a live wire, Riven’s rage pressing against my ribs from across the cathedral, Luna steady in that terrifying way she always is when she’s about to dismantle something.

But it’s Ambrose who steps into the quiet.

He moves like it costs him nothing—like the weight of her doesn’t even graze him—and I know that’s a lie because I know Ambrose. I know the way power sits on him like shackles, the way he holds everything together so no one can see the cracks.

He smiles now, and it’s a vicious thing.

"That's cute," Ambrose says, voice silk-laced steel. "You think you can threaten her like it means something."

Branwen's gaze sharpens, predatory, flicking to him like a tongue licking across sharp teeth.

"You came here to die, Dalmar," she replies, soft and sweet, like she’s savoring his name. "You always thought you were smarter than me."

Ambrose tilts his head slightly, that smile of his widening, dangerous. "I don’t think, darling. I know."

He lifts his hand lazily, like he's brushing dust off his coat. "Because here’s the part you’re missing. You think we came here for Lucien and Orin." He lets that sink, then adds, voice razor-edged, "But the truth is—we came here to watch you die."

"You can’t kill me," she says, voice rising now, the threadbare edge of her unraveling. "You idiot boys, playing at being kings in a ruin. I’ve already died. That’s what you don’t understand."Her gaze slices across all of us like a whip. "This is my grave. My kingdom. There’s nothing you can take from me."

Riven’s voice cuts clean, rough stone dragged over glass. "You’re wrong."

But she isn’t looking at him now.