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“I almost let him,” Elias mutters from behind me, sprawled with one leg thrown over a mossy log like we’re lounging at some twisted woodland spa.
Riven doesn’t blink. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I couldn’t breathe,” Luna says finally. Her voice isn’t shaky. It’s stripped raw. Like it’s been scraped against stone and left in the cold. “Something got into me. Not magic. Not—hollow either. It felt… old.”
Old. I hate that word. Everything old here is cursed.
“Old like Elias’s taste in women?” I offer, just to see her mouth twitch at the corners.
“Old like your humor,” Elias shoots back.
“Please. My jokes are timeless. Like your virginity.”
“Still funny you think I’m the one who hasn’t gotten laid recently.”
“Boys,” Luna murmurs, the word gentle, exhausted—but there’s a sliver of laughter buried in it. I take it like an addict. Let it root in my bones.
Riven ignores us. He leans forward, eyes catching the fire just enough to flash silver-gray. “You said it wasn’t Hollow. Was it Branwen?”
Luna flinches. Just slightly, but I see it. Feel it.
“No,” she says, but it’s not a denial. It’s a dare to drop the subject.
I shift closer, my hand resting at her back. I don’t ask for permission. I don’t need to. She’s mine in the way the sun is the sky’s—burning and constant and too far away to keep. But I’ll die trying.
“Whatever it was,” I say, keeping my voice light, “it didn’t win. She’s here. She’s breathing. We’re good.”
“For now,” Riven replies, and it’s not a warning. It’s a prophecy.
The flames crack louder. The ruins surrounding us—whatever version of Daemon this is—breathe with too much memory. Like the bones of the place are waiting for us to rot next.
Elias shifts. “Well. If we’re done glaring dramatically into the fire, maybe someone could figure out what just tried to murder our favorite girl.”
I raise a brow. “Favorite, huh?”
“I said what I said.”
Luna hums, and I glance down. She’s watching us. All of us. Like she’s memorizing the pieces in case they disappear again.
She probably should.
But for now, she’s still in my arms. Still mine.
This tiny wisp of a girl has ruined us.
I don’t mean that lightly. I don’t say it with humor—not really. Not even with that usual curl of sarcasm I like to drape over everything like a blanket no one asked for. I mean it with the kind of bone-deep clarity that only comes after you’ve watched someone nearly break in front of you and realized you’d trade anything—everything—to keep it from happening again.
She’s ruined us.
Me, Elias, Riven. Orin and Lucien, too, even if they pretend otherwise. Ambrose and Caspian, wherever they are, aren’t exempt either. She’s become the center of gravity, and none of us can seem to escape her pull. We’re unraveling—not because she demanded it, but because the moment we saw her, we remembered what it felt like to want something enough to be afraid of losing it.
And she’s so small. Still sitting where she was, arms folded tight like she’s holding herself together with the force of will alone. There's blood on her lower lip—dried, cracked—and she keeps chewing at it, eyes flicking toward the fire like it might whisper an answer.
I want to tell her she doesn’t have to be afraid.
But I won’t. Because I am. For both of us.
Why would the gods—if those petty bastards are even real—make her like this? A sin binder, sure, but trapped in something so vulnerable. Why not give her teeth to match the weight of what she’s meant to hold? Why not make her unbreakable?