Page 28

I could lie to her. Tell her he’s healing. That he’s quiet. That he’s eating and sleeping and not curled up in his bed like a child who’s lost more than his dignity. But the truth is a different beast entirely, one I don’t know how to deliver without it baring its teeth.

I step inside. She looks up immediately, those stormy eyes locking on me with the kind of focus that makes a man feel dissected.

“Is he okay?” she asks again, softer this time.

I sit on the edge of her bed, ignoring the way Riven’s hackles raise across the room. He stays silent, because we both know Luna will decide, not him. I study her face—no tears, no cracks. But something flickers behind her gaze. Guilt, maybe. Or something more dangerous.

“Physically, yes,” I say carefully. “He’s not bleeding. Not unconscious. Not dying.”

Her shoulders ease, just slightly.

“But his mind?” I continue, and my voice sharpens around the edges. “That’s a different matter. He’s unraveling.”

Her lips part, but no words come.

I lean in, resting my forearms on my knees. “Branwen didn’t just use him. She broke him. Every command. Every time she pulled the strings. Every time she made him touch her, made him smile through it. It’s not just guilt for stabbing you, Luna. It’s the shame of waking up and realizing he’s been hollowed out and filled with someone else’s will.”

She exhales shakily, and I see it—the moment the empathy strikes. Her fingers curl into the sheets. Her gaze drops.

“He thinks he doesn’t deserve you,” I add. “And honestly? He might be right. But that doesn’t stop the bond from pulling him toward you anyhow.”

Her voice is barely above a whisper. “Did she… command him to stab me?”

“Yes,” I say finally. “She told him to finish you. But that moment… the hesitation? That was his. He flinched, Luna. He didn’t stab you in the heart because somewhere in that fucked-up wreckage of his mind, he still chose you.”

She nods, once. Then again, slower.

“And now,” I finish, “you have to decide if you’re going to let that bond complete itself. Or let him break all over again.”

And I wonder—how many more of us she’ll have to save before she realizes she’s the one bleeding dry.

Elias

The stone leaves my hand with a flick of my wrist, skips once on the cobblestone before vanishing into the shadows of the courtyard. Normally, Silas would’ve made some stupid sound effect—something that echoed through the Hollow like a cartoon echo—but tonight he just watches the rock disappear like it might take all this damn heaviness with it.

Caspian’s still crying upstairs.

It’s not loud, not like the sobbing you’d expect from someone that pretty and composed when he’s destroying you in bed or with a whip. No, this is quieter. Stifled. Like he’s trying not to let anyone hear, which only makes it worse. Makes it feel like something’s broken in the foundation of this place, like we’re sitting on top of a grief that doesn’t belong to any one of us but still lives in all of us now.

“Do you think it’s, like... a permanent thing?” Silas asks, pitching a rock so hard it actually cracks a statue’s wing across the courtyard. “The crying. I don’t know if I can handle Cas being the emotional one now. It’s throwing off my whole dynamic.”

I snort, because he’s trying. This is him trying. Joking to make the silence bearable, to fill the space Caspian’s sobs hollow out in all of us.

“Maybe he just needed to get it out,” I say. “Like a trauma cleanse. Real crystal-girl vibes. I’ll buy him incense and a sage stick.”

Silas doesn’t laugh. Just drops his next rock into the dirt without throwing it. That says more than anything else could.

The Hollow’s quiet in a way that makes you feel like the walls are listening. The kind of quiet where you can hear someone’s heartbeat from the other room if you try hard enough. I know Luna’s inside. I can feel her, even when I don’t want to. The bond thrums with the knowledge of her. Awake. Tired. Sad.

“I hate this,” I mutter.

Silas glances at me. “The crying?”

“The guilt.” I exhale and lean back on my elbows, staring at the stars that don’t really twinkle here, just shimmer like they know this place doesn’t deserve anything that pretty. “He’s already punishing himself more than any of us ever could. And I don’t even know if he wants forgiveness. I think he just wants it to stop.”

“Yeah,” Silas says softly, nodding. “And none of us can make it stop.”

A beat of silence.