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His eyes meet mine.

Wide. Panicked. Haunted. He looks at me like he knows exactly what he’s doing—and like he’d give anything not to be doing it. His body is shaking. His mouth opens like he’s going to say my name, but nothing comes out. Just breath. Justguilt.

The moment shatters as his head jerks back violently, and more blood pours from his nose—thick and unnatural, staining the front of my shirt, the side of my throat. He lets out a sharp, strangled noise as he yanks the blade free from my shoulder. My knees give out, but he catches me, hand pressed hard to the wound, trying to hold in what’s already spilling out too fast.

His grip trembles against my skin, and his face twists—not with triumph, not even fear.

With horror. He turns his head sharply over his shoulder, eyes locking on Ambrose, who’s still trying to rise behind him. Still bleeding. Still burning with something half-feral and fully livid.

And then Caspian yells—raw and desperate.

“The bond’s broken!”

His voice cracks, slicing through the battlefield, through the Hollow, throughme. I don’t know what he means. Branwen’s? Or did he mean something else entirely?

I don’t get to ask. The pain hits in full, a searing wave that takes the breath from my lungs and the light from my eyes.

The world tilts. And then—I fall into the dark.

Silas

I should be furious. Should be clawing at the air, ready to tear into Caspian like I’ve done for far less. He stabbed her. HestabbedLuna. And not metaphorically—no, this wasn’t a betrayal wrapped in lies or loyalty twisted sideways. This was a blade, real and sharp andin her. Right near her heart.

But I’m not mad.

Because he looks like hell.

Caspian sits on the floor, legs folded in like a child who doesn’t know how to carry his grief upright. His knees are pulled tight to his chest, his bloodied hands outstretched and trembling, fingers twitching like they’re still trying to undo what they did. The silver stains his skin like guilt that doesn’t want to dry. And gods, thelookon his face. It’s not blank, not shocked. It’sshattered. He’s drenched in shame, soaked through with it, and it’s so loud in the room I swear I can hear it humming off of him.

He reeks of it.

Not blood.

Guilt.

I lean against the archway across from him, one foot propped up on the wall, arms crossed like I’ve got nothing better to do than watch him fall apart. But I don’t speak. Not yet. Because there’s nothing I can say that would twist the knife deeper than he already has.

And Luna… my Luna… she’s resting. Breathing steady in her room. Pale, still, stitched back together by Riven’s careful hands and Ambrose’s begrudging, golden touch. She’s okay. For now. But it was close.Tooclose. I could feel her slipping. Ifeltit in the bond when she went still—like someone ripped a hole straight through my fucking ribcage.

And now?

Now we wait.

Riven’s pacing the hallway just outside her room, half his shirt soaked in blood that isn’t his and all of it useless fury. Ambrose sits like a storm behind glass, drinking something that isn’t helping, arguing with Riven in sharp, venom-laced phrases that don’t land the way they mean to. They both want to make sense of what happened. Both want someone to blame. Both think talking will fix what just tore through all of us like a blade.

But I already know the truth.

Branwen.

She vanished the second Luna went down, Lucien and Orin ripped from the battlefield like puppets on strings. Like the show was over and she didn’t want to deal with the aftermath. Classic fucking Branwen—make the cut, disappear before the bleeding starts.

And now we’re left to bleed for her.

I glance at Caspian again, still unmoving, still folded into himself like he can hide inside the cage of his own limbs. His eyes are fixed on nothing. Not Luna’s door. Not me. Not even the floor. Just…inward.

I almost feel sorry for him.

Almost.