Page 182

I step closer, letting her focus narrow to me, letting her think I’m the threat.

Because Iam.

But I’m also thedistraction.

Caspian’s whips lash through the smoke to my right, fast and brutal. He’s been silent, but the heat coming off him is molten. There’s no playfulness now. No tease.

Only vengeance.

And it’s almost time. Almost. Let her try to kill me. Let her burn through Lucien and Orin to do it.

I just need a few more steps.

Just one breath longer.

Then I’ll end this.

The entire cathedral quakes beneath the weight of magic so old, so fucking unholy, it feels like it’s clawing its way up my spine, wrapping its tendrils around every one of my ribs. It’s not Branwen’s—it’s hers.

Luna.

For a heartbeat, I think the world itself hesitates.

And then I see it.

Elias’s hands flash out in that blur he’s mastered, reckless and too fucking smug about it—because of course, the idiot has been practicing this. Like it’s a joke. Like it’s nothing.

And there’s Luna, launched skyward.

Thrown.

The girl who was supposed to kneel for us, who was meant to bend and break and beg. Instead, she’s a streak of fury above us, airborne, her body twisting like she belongs in the sky.

And in her hands—

No. It’s not a weapon.

It’ssin itself.

Forged and snarling, made of every damned thing we are.

Greed. Lust. Envy. Sloth. Wrath.

I can feel it in my marrow. That hammer isn’t just forged from magic. It’s made ofus.Our sins woven into metal and rage, an extension of everything we’ve tried to resist, everything we swore we’d never give her. It's jagged, vicious, the head of it carved in brutal, unnatural angles, burning with a venomous light that fractures the cathedral’s shadows.

And she's wielding it like a goddess. No, worse—like a fuckingsin-binder queen.

Branwen’s scream fractures the air, high and sharp, almost swallowed by the rush of energy Luna summons mid-flight. The force behind it doesn't just ripple—it devours. My grip slips on everything I’ve possessed in this room, the cathedral itself groaning beneath the weight of her magic.

Even the pillar—the one Branwen clings to like an anchor—cracks at its base, splintering before Luna even lands.

And shedoesn’t land softly.No, she crashes down like vengeance incarnate.

The hammer strikes the pillar with a sound that isn’t sound at all—it’s something primal, a tearing, unraveling scream that shreds through magic and marrow alike. The cathedral doesn’t just shake—it fractures. The walls ripple outward like reality itself is bending around her, and for a breathless second, I swear I can see the world behind this one, the void waiting to swallow her whole.

Branwen staggers forward, screaming something desperate, something broken, but the sound is lost. Because Luna’s standing in the wreckage, hair whipping wild around her face, eyes lit with the violence ofus,her power leaking off her skin like it wants to burn the entire realm to ash.

And she doesn’t look at Branwen.