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He lifts his gaze slowly, the morning sun catching the edge of his irises, making them look almost gold instead of that old, impossible black. “It may be necessary,” he agrees with infuriating calm. “But it’s not the end of our story, Lucien.”
I scoff. “And what, exactly, do you think is? You plan on being the one who shoves the dagger in Branwen’s heart?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares past me toward the square where the festival banners sway, colorless in the dawn light. The wind cuts through the silence like a blade, lifting the scent of ash and brewing storms off the rooftops.
When he finally speaks, it’s quiet. “It doesn’t have to be one of us.”
I round on him, fury pulsing behind my eyes. “It can’t not be,” I snap. “And if you think for a second I’m taking the girl anywhere near Branwen, you’re more deluded than I thought.”
Orin’s expression doesn’t shift, but there’s weight behind his stare now. A reckoning unspoken. “She’s already near her. She always has been.”
“That’s exactly why she doesn’t get closer.” I don’t raise my voice, but every word is a lash. “She doesn’t know how deep this goes. What Branwen wants from her. What sheis.You think she’s ready to face that?”
“She’s stronger than you give her credit for.”
“She’s a fuckingchildcompared to what we’ve faced. She doesn’t know the cost—”
“She’s the one paying it,” Orin interrupts, and that silences me in a way nothing else could.
The words hit like stone cracking ice.
“She’s paying it every day she chooses to stay,” he says. “Every time she reaches out to us, knowing what we are. Knowing what we’ve done.”
I hate that he’s right. I hate more that I can feel her even now, a warm thread wrapped just barely around the edges of my awareness. She’s not looking at me, not touching me, not speaking my name. And still, she pulls.
“She doesn’t need you to save her, Lucien,” Orin says quietly. “She needs you to let her fight.”
“No,” I grind out. “She needs someone to make sure there’s a world left for her when this is over.”
Orin studies me for a long time. Then, with that maddeningly serene tone, says, “Then don’t die for her yet.”
I don’t respond. I can’t. Because there’s something fraying in me, something I’ve kept tightly coiled around bone and breath, and Orin’s voice threads right through it. The choice I made long before Luna ever said my name. Before she looked at me like I wasn’t something to obey—but something tounderstand.
I step away from the table, ignoring Orin’s steady gaze. The village stretches ahead, deceptively peaceful. Somewhere beyond it, Branwen waits, with her blood magic and her knives and her ancient, rotted ambition. She thinks she’s winning.
Let her.
For now.
Because I’m not handing Luna over.
Not to her.
Not to fate.
And not to anyone who thinks they can dictate the end ofmystory.
We who are bound can’tnotfight her. That truth lands like a nail driven into the marrow of my spine. I’ve known it, of course. But knowing andfeelingare two different beasts. Knowing is clean. Cold. Measured.
Feeling it—realizingit—that’s a messier thing. It hits like rot seeping beneath armor, something slow and spreading, impossible to cut out once it’s inside you.
Because this isn’t just about winning anymore. It’s not even about surviving. Branwen is a tactician, same as me. Only difference? She’s playing with pieces she’s already broken.
If she gets me—if sheturnsme—I won’t be able to stop it. Not if I’m bound. Not if she siphons what she needs from whatever twisted magic she’s threading through the Hollow. I’ve studied her longer than the others know. Watched the way she moves through the world like it’s already hers. She’s building something. A kingdom of corruption. A throne for the godless.
And if she decides I’m the sword she needs to drive through Luna’s chest—I’ll do it. Iwon’t want to. But the bond won’t give a fuck what I want. Not if she carves her way in deep enough.
And that—