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We’ll decide that for ourselves.
Luna
The sun’s long since dropped below the treeline, but it doesn’t matter out here. Light bends strangely around the pillar, like it’s trying to remember what the world’s supposed to look like but keeps slipping. The grass beneath me hums, ancient and bruised. It remembers too.
Riven doesn’t look at me when I sit beside him. Doesn’t shift, doesn’t flinch, just stares down the pillar like if he glares long enough, it’ll implode. Or maybe he will. The bond between us coils, erratic. His fury’s buried so deep it sings in the marrow of me.
He’s got a six-pack crumpled beside his boot. Two bottles already shattered—glass like jagged starlight around the base of the pillar. One more in his hand, half-gone. I reach for the untouched one, because that’s what people do when they don’t know what to say. They drink. They distract.
It’s not a twist-off. Of course it’s not.
I grit my teeth and dig my fingers into the cap, twist harder, then harder again. My palm stings. It won’t budge. My pride—my very stupid, very stubborn pride—screamsdon’t you dare ask him for help.
He sighs. Not loudly, but enough. Just enough to make me want to hurl the bottle across the field and storm away like the dramatic disaster I am.
“Give it,” he mutters.
It’s not a question.
I hesitate, just long enough to feel petty about it, then pass it over. He takes it, flips a knife from his boot with the kind of ease that should not be this attractive, and pops the cap like it’s nothing. Hands it back without looking at me.
“You don’t have to sit here,” he says after a long pause, voice rough with something older than exhaustion. “I don’t need company.”
“I’m not company,” I murmur, staring ahead. “I’m a parasite. Ask anyone.”
A flicker of something moves across his face, too fast to name.
I take a drink. The beer is warm. Bitter. Exactly right.
We sit in silence. But not the kind that stretches. This silence coils. Knots. Fuses heat to bone.
“You trying to fix it?” I ask, finally. “The pillar.”
He takes another pull from his bottle, the muscles in his jaw clenching.
“I’m trying not to kill it,” he says flatly. “Or maybe I am. I don’t know.”
My gaze trails up the obsidian stone. The runes still shimmer faintly, pulsing in no rhythm I recognize. The last time we touched it, it took us to hell. Or close enough.
“It’s not the pillar’s fault,” I say softly. “It’s just a doorway. A key. It does what it’s told.”
“No,” he growls. “Itchooses.It let her bring us back. But it won’t open now. Not for us. Not for me. And it sure as shit won’t let me back in to get Orin or Lucien.”
I turn toward him slowly. “You think it’s punishing you?”
“I think it knows what I am.”
I inch closer, barely a breath. “I know what you are too, Riven. And I’m still here.”
He flinches like I struck him.
“Don’t say shit like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t mean it. You’re just—” he swallows. “You’re the fucking Binder. You’re supposed to say things like that.”
I set my beer down. Carefully. Deliberately.