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“You think you scare me, Riven?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Youshould.” My voice is ragged. “Youshouldbe running.”
“I already did,” she says. “And I still ended up here.”
And then she walks away, back into the tavern, back to the others.
And I—I stand there like the god of wrath, undone by a girl who doesn’t fear the fire. Only the cold it leaves behind.
The door closes behind her with a softness that feels cruel. Final, like a blade sliding home. I don’t move. I can’t. I sit there, anchored to the edge of the tavern’s outer steps, every part of me clenched so tight I might fracture from the inside out. My shoulders bow forward, forearms resting on my thighs, the heat of my magic churning beneath my skin like it’s looking for a reason to burn something down.
But I stay still.
Because stillness is the only thing that keeps the flood back.
She’s inside me. She’s everywhere. And it’s not the bond. It’s not the damn magic. It’sher.Luna. The girl I never wanted to know. The girl I can’t unknow now, no matter how hard I try. She presses into every scar like she belongs there. And somehow, she does. She doesn’t ask me to soften, and yet she already has. She doesn’t demand anything from me—and I still want to give her everything.
And that terrifies me in a way nothing else ever has.
It isn’t the pull of her. It’s the inevitability.
She’s going to die.
The realization lives at the base of my spine, curling like smoke, laced with memories I’ve buried so deep I thought I’d outrun them. But they claw their way up now—memories of other Sin Binders. Others who burned too bright, who thought they could handle our power, hold us, change us. And maybe they did. But it didn’t save them. It never does.
I’ve seen it.
I held one in my arms once, her blood staining my chest, her body going limp as I screamed promises I couldn’t keep. Her name’s gone now—too dangerous to remember—but the pain remains. The loss carved itself into my bones, made me what I am. Wrath. Not rage. Not fury. Something older, darker. The kind of fury that exists because the world takes and takes, and you learn to stop giving a damn.
And now Luna’s here.
Soft. Strong.Fragile.
She doesn’t act like she’s breakable, but I canfeelit. In the bond. In the way her life thrums like a flame caught in a storm. She isn’t like the others—but that doesn’t mean she’ll make it. The Hollow’s already feeding off her. Severin’s watching her like she’s prey. Branwen has her hooks in the shadows around her.
And the more I care, the more I become the thing that will shatter when she’s gone.
I dig my fingers into my thighs, trying to steady my breathing. It’s not working. My magic prickles at the edges of the village, disturbing the stones. Not enough to crack them, but enough to let the world know I’m close to coming undone. Again.
The door creaks behind me. I don’t have to turn to know it’s Orin. His presence doesn’t announce itself. It simplyarrives—quiet, ancient, steady. Like the only thing in the world not trying to ruin me.
“I told Lucien we shouldn’t linger,” I mutter, watching the wind toy with the festival banners strung between buildings. “This place remembers too much.”
Orin says nothing at first. Just steps up beside me and stares out over the square, as if the stillness means something. Maybe to him, it does. He’s always known how to wait.
“You’re not wrong,” he says eventually, voice a low, contemplative thing. “But you’re not the only one who remembers loss, Riven.”
I bark a quiet, bitter laugh. “Don’t need a sermon.”
“No,” Orin agrees, calm as ever. “You need to stop pretending she hasn’t already gotten inside your bones.”
My gaze snaps to him, a scowl rising fast—but it dies under the weight of his stare. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. Just lifts his mug of coffee to his lips and looks at me like he sees every bloody, broken thing I’m made of and loves me anyway.
“You think I don’t know how this ends?” I say, the words catching on something sharp in my throat. “You think I haven’t already seen it?”
“I think,” Orin says slowly, “that you love her. And it’s easier to carry that love as anger than admit you’re afraid.”