Page 4

Not mine.
Luna’s.
Somewhere, she’s alive. Still fighting. Still choosing.
And that—gods help us—is what scares Branwen most.
I look back at Caspian.
“You’re not lost yet,” I say.
But if he goes back to her again—if Branwen calls one more time and he answers—
He will be.
And the worst part?
He’ll let it happen.
Because even Greed knows when it’s watching something it can’t save.
It begins in the marrow. Not a sound, not a tremor—just that insidious slither in the bone, like something ancient waking up inside me that I haven’t fed in centuries. Caspian stiffensbefore the sound even touches the air, which means he feels it too. The curse doesn’t need a doorway to enter. It’s older than that. Smarter. It seeps through stone and skin, winding its way through the cracks she left behind. His back goes rigid, but not like a man bracing for battle. More like someone recognizing their own reflection in the eyes of the beast.
He doesn’t lift his head right away. I know what’s coming before her voice spills into the room like spoiled honey—too sweet, too deliberate. The kind of sound that lingers even after it stops.Caspian, she murmurs, slow and indulgent, and I watch the breath leave his body like he’s just been branded again.
He tries to resist. I’ll give him that. His fingers curl into the edge of the stone bench like he can anchor himself there, like it’ll save him from the pull she’s woven through his spine. But I know how this ends. So does he. Resistance doesn’t matter when the magic is older than memory. When it was sewn into the core of him so long ago that his blood hums in time with her voice whether he wants it to or not.
“Don’t,” I say, and I’m not sure if it’s for him or me. The word hangs there, useless, because we both know it’s too late. He doesn’t move, not yet, but I can see it in the set of his jaw, the way his gaze flickers like a man watching the last thread snap. There’s no war to fight when the leash is invisible and already pulled taut.
“She’s inside me,” he mutters, so quietly it almost doesn’t register. His voice isn’t full of panic. It’s something worse. Acceptance, maybe. Or despair. Like he’s finally admitted what we all feared—that whatever she did to him, however long ago it was, never left. Not completely.
“She was supposed to be dead,” he adds, and it’s not a question. It’s an accusation. Against her. Against me. Against himself.
“She was,” I say, voice low and even, more ritual than comfort. “But death isn’t final here. You know that.”
Caspian lifts his gaze, and for the first time since he entered, I see it—real fear. Not for himself. For what he might do next. For what he alreadyhasdone. His face is drawn, hollowed out by something far more cruel than pain. Shame. A deep, quiet rot that starts in the soul and festers in the silences left behind.
“She’s calling,” he whispers. “If I don’t go to her, she’ll come.”
He doesn’t say what that would mean. We’ve both seen what Branwen becomes when she’s denied something she thinks belongs to her. The bond between them wasn’t supposed to last. It was a weapon forged during a war we barely survived, a tie of necessity, not desire. But necessity has a way of growing roots when it’s fed by blood and desperation.
“She’s using you,” I tell him, and I’m not offering reassurance. Just clarity. “That bond was never meant to survive what she became.”
Caspian’s lips twitch, but it isn’t a smile. It’s the ghost of one—sarcastic, bitter. “But it did,” he replies, and that’s the truth neither of us can argue with. The bond should’ve rotted with her body. But she didn’t die. Not really. She was fractured. Cast into this Hollowed version of Daemon, locked behind wards and blood and ancient bindings. And we—Luna and Riven, with all their righteous fury and raw magic—broke her free.
Caspian stands slowly, deliberately. Every movement precise, controlled. But I see the way his hands tremble when he thinks I’m not watching. He’s unraveling, and he knows it. And still, he walks toward the door like a man summoned by something older than fate.
“She wants to feed,” he says. “And I’m the fucking offering.”
The door doesn’t creak open. It slides, seamless, like the stone itself knows to obey her. The light beyond isn’t light at all. It’s her magic. Dense. Golden. Sweet in the way poison is—enticingright until it kills you. She’s waiting. And Caspian? Caspian is already halfway gone.
“She thinks you’re still hers,” I say, watching his silhouette start to fade into the passage.
His voice comes back to me, raw and aching. “Maybe I am.”
And then he’s gone.
The door seals behind him, leaving nothing but stone and the faint whisper of her magic clinging to the corners of the room. I press my hand to the wall, feel the hum of something old and sentient pulsing beneath the surface. Not a warning. A reminder.