Page 69 of The Sin Binder’s Chains (The Seven Sins Academy #2)

“Humor me.” I hold up both hands, palms out like I’m about to offer something pure. “Orin touches the creepy ancient pillar and it lights up like it’s welcoming him home. His crest, his magic. That’s one. But what if, hear me out, it needs all of us?”

There’s a beat. Orin tilts his head, eyes narrowing in a way that means he’s considering it, which makes me want to preen like a cat.

“It’s not a half-bad idea,” Orin admits, stroking the curve of his beard like some sagely scholar. “The pillars were carved to anchor us here. To bind. And Branwen designed them. The pillar may be attuned not just to Sin Binder magic, but to the ones originally tethered to her.”

“You mean us,” I say, fingers twitching with restless energy. “The founding rejects.”

Lucien doesn’t speak, but his gaze cuts through me , calculating, cold, as if he’s already predicting the outcome six moves ahead. Which, knowing Lucien, he probably is.

“Even if that’s true,” he says slowly, “we don’t know what kind of response we’re triggering. The pillar could open a doorway, or it could incinerate us.”

“I like those odds,” Elias mutters, slouching closer. “Besides, if we burn alive, at least we don’t have to listen to another one of your speeches.”

“Touch it,” I say, ignoring the way Lucien glares at both of us like we’re termites in his flawless plans. “Let’s all touch the damn stone.”

Orin steps forward first, pressing his palm flat to the pillar with the calm assurance of someone who’s done this before. His crest glows again, a soft violet pulse that spreads across the surface of the stone like veins threading through marble.

I move next, laying my hand over the spiraling rune beside his, and the stone hums deeper. Lower. More primal. I feel it tug in my chest, like the bond, but older. Rougher. A call in a language I shouldn’t understand but do.

Lucien doesn’t move.

“You’re either part of this,” I say without looking at him, “or you’re in the way.”

He exhales through his nose like he’s debating murder versus cooperation, but then he steps forward and lays his palm beside mine.

Elias flutters in with a dramatic flourish, placing his hand on the stone with an exaggerated gasp. “If I die, I want a funeral. Fireworks. Dramatic weeping. And someone has to sing something stupid and tragic, ”

The pillar pulses. Once. Hard enough to push air outward like a heartbeat breaking through stone.

Then it begins to glow, lines carved into its surface lighting up in order, one after the other, like a sequence being activated. I glance at Luna. She hasn’t moved yet.

But her gaze is locked on the pillar, on the marks that are now blazing brighter with each breath. And something is shifting in her too, her magic, wild and barely caged, pulling toward the center of the storm.

The pillar wants her.

But this time, maybe it needs all of us.

“You too, honey,” I tell her, grinning as I point to the crest etched high on the pillar’s surface. Hers. The crown of the whole cursed thing, and she doesn’t even realize it. “That mark right there? That’s all you. The top of the totem pole. The boss-level glyph.”

She hesitates, which is rare for her these days, and it’s kind of hot, honestly. That moment where she doubts herself before she levels the world anyway. But then, like she always does , Luna steps forward. Silent. Sure. Her fingers brush the stone, and oh, fuck me sideways.

The world doesn’t just ripple. It rips.

It’s not dramatic at first, no roaring wind, no searing light.

Just a hum, deep and low, like the earth’s throat clearing.

Then the pillar flares, and the magic hits us like a freight train.

My mouth drops open on a half-baked joke that never makes it out, because the ground tilts, reality snaps sideways.

We’re ripped from the world.

I barely get a “SHIIIII, ” out before my voice is swallowed whole by the spiral of air and color and weightlessness. I reach for Elias on instinct, because I know he’s probably flailing like a drunk cat somewhere nearby, and also because I love him, though I’ll deny it under oath.

It’s not falling. It’s not flying. It’s like being unraveled and stitched together at once, every piece of me suspended in some shimmering current of magic that defies gravity and logic and every law of physics I never bothered to learn.

My hand is still pressed to the pillar, or maybe it’s not.

Maybe I’m holding on to something else entirely, something that pulses with Luna’s magic and our bonds and the tangled threads between us all.

I hear Elias yell something obscene behind me.

Typical. And Lucien curses, sharp, cold, too controlled for the chaos around him.

Orin says nothing, but I feel him like an anchor, steady even as we’re hurled through the vortex.

And Luna at the center of it all. She doesn’t scream.

Doesn’t flinch. Her magic sings around her like it knows this place, this path.

Like it’s been waiting for her to come home.

The ground hits my spine with a thud that knocks the curse out of my lungs. Elias lands on top of me. Or maybe I landed on him. Who the hell knows anymore.

The world reforms with a lurch. Stone underfoot, air thick with the scent of wild magic and ash.

I half-catch myself, and immediately look for Luna.

She’s standing a few feet away, hair wild, eyes wide, but she’s fine.

She’s glowing faintly, like whatever just happened fed something inside her. Or woke it up.

I glance around. We’re in a courtyard. Ruined.

Ancient. A mirror of Daemon Academy’s, but twisted, the same bones, but corrupted.

Overgrown with vines that pulse with unnatural light, statues crumbling into ash, the sky above us a bruised violet with no visible sun.

This place is wrong. Familiar and wrong.

“Well,” Elias says, panting, hand braced on his knees. “I give the ride one star. Would not recommend.”

“Where the fuck are we?” Riven growls, stalking forward like he’s ready to tear the answer out of someone’s throat.

But Orin’s already moving. His gaze sweeps the courtyard, lands on a broken arch at the far end. His shoulders tighten. “This is the other side of the anchor.”

Lucien steps up beside him. “You mean the mirror?”

“No,” Orin says quietly. “I mean this is where the first one was built. Before Daemon. Before the divide.”

My skin crawls. “You’re saying Branwen brought us to the original Academy?”

“No,” Orin replies. “I’m saying she never left it.”

Luna exhales, slow and steady, and steps toward us, her expression unreadable. “Then it’s time we find her.”

And just like that, we move. Because if this place is her domain, we’re already in the mouth of the wolf. And if Branwen wants to play queen of a kingdom of ash, then we’re here to burn it down.

To be continued……