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The bond pulses again—faint but insistent.
And I realize Branwenfeelsthat too. She knows we’re near Luna. That Luna’s stronger now than she was. That her influence spreads like wildfire and the longer we stay in this twisted, resurrected place, the more likely it is that the Sins begin to shifttowardher instead of Branwen.
That should terrify me.
Instead, I feel something worse.
Hope.
Orin appears on my other side like the fucking ghost he is—quiet, unreadable, older than most of the stone in this place. His steps don’t echo. They don’t even disturb the dust. And still, I feel him before I see him. Not because he’s loud. But because he’spresentin a way no one else dares to be when I’m unraveling.
“She’s pushing,” he says, his voice as calm as it always is, even when he’s talking about a woman who nearly destroyed the world. “Hard. Right in the chest.”
I keep walking.
He falls into step.
“It’s like pressure, building between the ribs,” he adds. “You know the feeling.”
I do. I hate that he’s right. I hate it more that he thinks we need to talk about it. But he’s not wrong—Branwen’s push isn’t a whisper anymore. It’s weight. Slow. Heavy. Relentless. Like water behind a cracking dam. And if we don’t seal the breach, it will drown us.
I exhale through my nose, slow and razor-thin. “Shut it off.”
He turns to look at me, his expression heavy with something I don’t want to name. Pity, maybe. Or worse—understanding.
“That’s not a solution,” he says softly. “That’s a delay.”
“I didn’t ask for a solution,” I snap. “I gave you a command.”
The words sting the air between us. But Orin doesn’t flinch. He never does. That’s the thing about ancient creatures. They don’t respond to dominance. Theyrememberit.
His eyes—those bottomless, pulsing voids threaded with flickers of something not quite human—hold mine for a long moment. Not in defiance. In quiet sorrow.
“You’re bleeding at the seams,” he murmurs, and for a second, I think he means it metaphorically. Until I look down and see a thin streak of red trailing from beneath my sleeve. My palm must’ve split where I clenched my fist too tight.
Branwen’s influence is more than a pull now.
It’s a dig.
She’s clawing at the inside of me, hunting for the parts I’ve tried to bury. The pieces she once kissed with power and promises before twisting them into weapons I didn’t recognize until it was too late. If she really wanted, she could do more than summon. She couldtake. Rip obedience from my throat like a leash I didn’t agree to wear.
But she hasn’t.
Yet.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” I bite, more quietly now, more dangerous.
“I know,” Orin replies. “But you will.”
The thing about Orin is that he doesn’t need to raise his voice to win a conversation. He justwaits. He lets you walk your logic to its grave. Lets you hear your own breath quicken and your defenses peel off, one layer at a time, until you realize he was never trying to win. He already knew.
I press a bloodied palm to the stone pillar as we pass it. The Academy shivers under my touch—like it recognizes me, but not kindly. I was never meant to return here. Not like this. Not inBranwen’s shadow. The stone beneath my hand pulses once. It’s faint. Deliberate. Ancient.
And I know—without Orin needing to say it—that it’s not Branwen anymore.
It’s Luna.
She’s waking the Academy in ways none of us understand.