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For the team.
For the Sins.
For the rebellion we haven’t spoken aloud yet, but are all quietly planning.
And I’m not a man who believes in pity.
But I feel it. For him. For me. For what we’ve all been turned into by the binders who think they own us.
I will return the favor, one day.
And when I do, it won’t be mercy I give her.
It will be war.
Orin tosses the book like it’s made of glass and he’s daring it to shatter. The heavy thud it makes against the table is so jarring in this palace of manipulated calm that the silence afterward feels louder than the impact. He doesn’t look at us. Just drags his hands over his face and leans forward like the weight of his centuries is finally dragging him under.
“I wish I were dead,” he mutters, voice low and jagged, not poetic or wise. Not Orin.
For a moment, I don't move.
“I’m tired,” Orin continues, words muffled behind his palms. “Tired of pretending there’s nobility in this kind of survival. That being caged with grace makes it any less of a prison.”
“You want to talk about cages?” I say, the venom behind my voice quieter than it should be. “Try being leashed to a woman who turns love into a collar and makes you say thank you for it.”
Orin lifts his head just enough to meet my eyes. His are raw. Not red. Not tear-glossed. Just stripped of every filter he usually hides behind. “At least she doesn’t make you betray the only thing that ever made you feel… right.”
I look away.
Because I know who he’s talking about.
Because I remember the moment he was dragged from Luna’s side like a limb being torn off—silent, slow, brutal. No fight. Just obedience laced into his soul like poison. And he’s never forgiven himself for how easy it was.
“She’ll kill him,” he says softly, gaze flicking toward the hallway where Caspian vanished. “One way or another. Caspian can play the fool, but you know how that story ends.”
I clench my jaw so tightly it sings with pain.
“I know.”
We say nothing more for a beat, both watching the hallway as if we could anchor him through it. But we can’t.
Orin slumps back into his chair, dragging his hand through his hair like he could pull the command out of his scalp with enough friction. The wood beneath his palms is scarred from where he’s dug into it, over and over, every time she’s left us in this room dressed like her trophies.
“She dressed me in this,” he says flatly. “And I let her. I fucking thanked her.”
The disgust in his voice is foreign. Orin doesn’t speak that way. He doesn’tsnap. He doesn’tcrack.
But tonight, he’s unraveling in front of me.
And the part of me that still remembers loyalty—it twitches. Just once. Before I shove it down.
“Don’t make me feel something about this, Orin,” I murmur. “I can barely hold together what I’ve got.”
He lets out a rough sound—half laugh, half curse—and scrapes his chair back. “Then we’re both fucked, Lucien.”
I stand, adjusting the stiff collar Branwen had buttoned to my throat herself. Her touch still lingers there. A brand. A warning. And maybe the beginning of a noose.
“Not yet,” I say, voice low. “But we will be.”