Page 24 of The Sin Binder’s Chains (The Seven Sins Academy #2)

We spent a week getting here. A week of fighting Severin’s lovely little welcoming committee, nightmarish creatures that never should’ve existed, crawling through the Rift like sentient rot, tearing through the fabric of this place like it was meant to be devoured.

A week of barely sleeping, barely eating, pushing forward through unnatural lands where time folded in on itself, where the ground wasn’t always ground, where the sky sometimes forgot what color it was supposed to be.

And now, after all that suffering, all that carnage, all those incredible near-death experiences I did not sign up for.

We’re finally here.

The fortress.

Or whatever awful thing you want to call it.

Because this isn’t a place.

It’s a statement.

And that statement is suffering.

The first thing I notice is the wrongness of it.

Not in the way the Rift is wrong, not shifting, not alive, but something worse, something deliberate. Something built to be oppressive, designed for the sole purpose of reminding you that you don’t belong here.

The walls are tall, made of something darker than stone, denser than iron, not quite black, not quite void, something that eats the light without swallowing it entirely. The surface is smooth in some places, jagged in others, spines of warped metal protruding at odd, violent angles.

The structure itself is impossibly vast, stretching out in ways that make my eyes hurt if I try to track the edges. The towers are wrongly built, slanting inward, curving like they were melted and reshaped, but never quite finished.

It doesn’t look abandoned.

It looks forgotten by time itself.

"So," I say, tipping my head back to take in the sheer, overwhelming horror of it all, "this is cozy."

Luna, beside me, exhales through her nose. "Do you ever shut up?"

"No," I say, far too cheerfully. "It’s part of my charm."

Lucien doesn’t react. He stands at the front, gaze locked on the fortress, his expression unreadable, but I can feel the weight of his thoughts, the sharp calculation behind his silence.

Because he knows.

He knows what this place is.

I shift slightly, adjusting my grip on the reins, the horse beneath me restless. "So, anyone want to guess where they’re keeping our lovely, dramatic disasters?"

"Inside," Lucien says flatly.

I blink. "Great detective work, boss."

Luna sighs, already looking at the massive, heavily warded entrance ahead of us.

Because, of course.

Of course it wouldn’t just be a door.

The entrance isn’t a gate or a set of double doors like a normal, sane fortress might have.

No, this thing is a gaping maw of interlocking mechanisms, golden sigils carved into the blackened metal, pulsing with an energy I don’t like, something ancient, something that recognizes what we are and does not intend to let us pass.

"I can break that," Luna murmurs, more to herself than to us.

Lucien cuts her a glance. "Not yet."

"Not yet?" I gesture wildly at the impenetrable barrier. "Lucien, my love, my light, my least favorite person, we have been through hell to get here." I narrow my eyes. "Why, exactly, are we waiting?"

Lucien doesn’t answer immediately.

But when he does, his voice is calm. Too calm.

"Because we’re not the only ones who made it here."

Have you ever have one of those moments where your body registers Oh, that’s bad before your brain can catch up?

This is one of those moments.

Because as soon as Lucien says we’re not alone, I hear them.

The horses come first, wrong things, dead things, hooves that make no sound, breath that fogs the air too thickly, like they’re exhaling something heavier than air itself.

Then, the riders.

And I see him.

Orin.

I don’t know if I want to be relieved or very, very annoyed that he’s alive.

But that’s not what makes my stomach drop.

It’s the other rider.

The girl beside him.

Because she looks exactly like Luna.

Too much like her.

And the real Luna, our Luna, is already off her horse, already moving toward her before any of us can say a word.

"Luna, " Lucien starts, but it’s too late.

Luna is already running before I can process what the fuck I’m looking at.

Her boots barely hit the ground before she’s off, moving like the answer to a question she didn’t know she needed has finally been given to her.

And the girl, Same dark hair, same sharp features, same fucking presence, like the universe forgot it had already made one of her and thought, you know what would be fun? Another.

It’s wrong.

And it clicks somewhere in my slow, sleep-deprived, slightly concussed brain.

Another Luna. And Orin brought her.

Which means, Oh, fuck me.

I look at Lucien. And that smug bastard is smiling. He knew.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Layla?!" Luna’s voice cuts through the space between them, sharp, furious, too much all at once.

Layla doesn’t respond.

She just stares.

And Orin, Orin fucking smiles.

That slow, knowing, smug as shit smile, like he just did something brilliant.

And honestly? I think he fucking did.

Because if she’s here, if she exists, that means she might be able to bind the Sub-Sins.

Lucien shifts beside me, exhaling like he’s just so fucking pleased with himself, and I resist the urge to throw something very sharp at him.

"Lucien," I say slowly, pointing at his face. "Stop that."

He lifts a brow. "Stop what?"

"The smuggness." I wave a hand at him, at Layla, at Orin still looking too goddamn happy. "The ‘I knew this would happen’ bullshit. Just fucking say it."

Lucien doesn’t.

Because of course he doesn’t.

Instead, he watches. Like a man who already knows exactly how this is going to end. And that means I should’ve been worried long before now.

But, in my defense, it’s hard to focus when Luna is still wrapped around her duplicate, murmuring something too low for me to catch, her hands gripping Layla’s arms like she’s afraid she might disappear.

It’s weird. The kind of weird that makes my skin itch, like reality isn’t sitting right anymore.

Orin, ever the serene, all-knowing bastard, steps toward us, watching them for a moment before finally speaking. "Layla is the Sin-Binder for the Sub-Sins."

I squint at him. "You say that like it’s a casual fact."

Lucien hums. "Because it is."

"Right, of course." I wave a hand, looking between them. "Totally normal thing to drop into a conversation. ‘Oh, hey, that girl over there who looks exactly like Luna? She can bind the things trying to kill us."

"She can feel them," Orin continues, ignoring me like they all love to do. "The pull of them. The way they move, the way they hunger. They know her, even if they don’t understand why."

I flick my gaze back to the girls.

Layla does look unsettled. Too still. Like she’s listening to something none of us can hear.

I don’t like it.

Lucien, however, just nods. Like this is exactly how he expected things to go. He turns away from them, facing the fortress again, his expression settling into something sharper, colder.

"Now we wait," he says simply.

I blink. "For what?"

He glances at me, and his smile returns, but this time, it’s something else. Something cruel.

"For Severin to come out and see his Sin-Binder."

A slow, sinking feeling curls in my gut. Because there’s something deeply fucked about that sentence. And I’m pretty sure Lucien knows exactly what he just set into motion.

Luna is trying to be quiet.

Layla is even quieter.

But I can still hear them. I probably shouldn’t be listening. Definitely shouldn’t be eavesdropping like a nosy little shit. But to be fair, they’re talking about us.

And if they’re going to do that right in front of me, well, that’s their mistake.

I shift slightly, still watching the fortress, still waiting for Severin to make his grand, ominous entrance, but my focus keeps slipping back to them.

To her.

Luna. I’ve spent a week riding beside her, holding her up when she was too exhausted to keep herself upright, watching her burn through enemy after enemy like she was born to tear this world apart and put it back together in her image.

And now?

Now she’s whispering to the girl who wears her face, talking about us.

And I want to know what the fuck she’s saying.

Layla murmurs something too soft to catch, her hands clasped together, shoulders hunched like she’s trying not to take up space. She’s nervous, shifting slightly under Luna’s gaze, and it takes a second to realize.

She’s looking at me.

Oh, that’s not ominous at all.

I force myself to keep looking forward, to act completely unbothered and not like someone who just got caught listening to a conversation he shouldn’t be hearing.

Luna says something next, something firm, something I can’t quite hear but feel.

Layla nods.

Like she’s accepting something.

Like she’s agreeing to something.

Two Sin-Binders. Two threads in the same unraveling tapestry.

And somehow, I am now part of this particular, batshit equation.

Great. Fantastic. I love that for me.

I flick my gaze back to Luna, catching just the slightest trace of something on her face. Something I recognize. Something I want to be closer to.

But before I can say a single thing, Lucien shifts beside me, his voice calm and smooth as a blade sliding from its sheath.

"He’s coming."

The words settle, thick, and absolute.

Because just ahead, the fortress doors yawn open like the mouth of something ancient, something that should have died a long time ago but refused.

And out they come.

Severin Virelius, Arrogance incarnate.

Vaelrik Kain, Bloodlust made flesh.

They don’t stride out. They don’t march like men with a plan. No, they drift, stepping into the pale, corpse-light glow of this place like they have all the time in the world.

Like they own the time in the world.

Lucien moves first, stepping forward in that slow, effortless way that somehow makes him look above all of this, like he’s bored before a single word has been spoken.

Orin follows, fluid and unshaken, wise and waiting, always watching with too much knowledge and not enough urgency.

And I, gods help me, I follow too. Because fuck that.

I don’t know what’s about to happen, but I do know one thing: Severin is already pissed. And I love that for him. His gaze snaps to us immediately, but not because of us. Because of who’s behind us.

I can feel him trying to look past, trying to see her, his Sin-Binder.

Layla.

And I know that because I recognize it. The way a man hungers for something he thinks should already be his. The way power makes people stupid.

I let my lips pull into something lazy, something mocking. "Something wrong?"

Severin’s gaze flicks to me.

It’s fast. Subtle.

But not fast enough.

Because I caught it.

And now he knows that I know.

And I love that even more.

Lucien speaks before Severin can, his voice as smooth and cold as a blade being drawn from silk. "Severin."

That’s it.

No title. No insult. No respect.

Severin exhales through his nose, slow and measured, barely masking his irritation. "Lucien."

A pause. A slow shift of weight.

"Move."

Lucien does not move. Orin does not move. And neither do I.

Because fuck you.

"I don’t think we will," I say pleasantly. "But thank you for asking so politely."

Vaelrik chuckles under his breath, rolling his shoulders like he’s just waiting for this to turn into something bloody.

Severin, however, doesn’t acknowledge me.

Because he’s still trying to see her. And I can’t fucking wait to make him work for it.