Page 42

She never retreats.

“Why are we here?” she asks softly. Not just the maze. Not just the festival.

Everything.

“All of it,” she whispers, “the chaos, the power, the pain, the binding... What was the point if we’re just going to live like ghosts?”

“You’re not a ghost, .”

“No?” She steps into me, until I can smell her skin, her magic, the strange perfume that clings to someone who has died and lived again. “Then tell me what I am.”

I take her chin in my hand and tilt her face to mine. Not rough. Not gentle. Just… real.

“You’re the storm that shattered everything I believed about myself. You’re the chaos I tried to dominate and failed. You’re the only thing in this world I didn’t win—but you gave yourself to me anyway. That’s not fate, . That’s power.”

Her breath catches.

And I don’t kiss her. She kisses me.

It’s not soft.

It’s not sweet.

It’s possession. It’s history. It’s everything we never said and everything we couldn’t help but feel. Her hands in my hair, my mouth on her throat, her name falling out of me like confession. Her feet hit the hay-lined floor and I go with her, worshipping the queen we made together from ash and ruin and blood.

This moment’s not about claiming her. It’s about standing beside her.

It’s about belonging to her.

All eight of us stand on the edge of the stalks like we’ve survived something no one else could possibly understand. And maybe we have.

looks over at me, her hand resting on Riven’s shoulder. Silas is crouched behind her doing something stupid with fake vampire teeth. Elias muttering, “don’t let him bite anyone,” while trying not to laugh. Orin’s watching me, and I know he sees it—how far I’ve come. How far I’ll still have to go.

We are not saved. We are not heroes. We are not healed. But we are together. And I can live with that. No—I want to live with that.

“I love you,” says.

To all of us. And every sin, every piece of me that once flinched from that kind of softness, that kind of truth—kneels.

This isn’t the end.

It never was.

It’s the beginning of us.

And gods help whatever stands in our way next.

The end

Epilogue -

The movie’s loud—blood-curdling scream loud—and Silas jumps so hard at a jump scene I feel it in my thighs. He makes a strangled sound, something between a gasp and a squeal, then flinches dramatically backward, dragging me with him by the legs he’s already looped over his shoulders like some bizarre human blanket. I spill half the popcorn across the rug in the process, and he flails as if the kernels are cursed.

“I hate this,” he hisses, clutching my ankles like they’re a lifeline, his whole body vibrating under me. “Why do I do this to myself?”

“Because I look really hot when I’m terrified?” I suggest, voice syrup-sweet. I trail a foot down his chest. “You’re welcome.”

He groans, tips his head back to look up at me, and gives me the most pathetic, love-drunk expression I’ve ever seen. “. My goddess. My radiant, sadistic siren. Please put something else on. Something where no one’s intestines become a fashion statement.”

“You asked for this,” I whisper, leaning over his shoulder so my lips are against his ear. “You told me scary movies bring people closer.”

“Not when my soul leaves my body.”

Across the room, Elias makes a strangled sound of his own—half-laugh, half-judgmental wheeze—and mutters, “You are so deeply embarrassing.”

Silas flips him off without even turning around.

“You’re just mad because I got the best seat in the house.” He wiggles my leg for emphasis. “And you’re over there dry-humping your dignity.”

Elias, reclined sideways in one of the massive armchairs, throws a piece of popcorn at Silas’s head. It bounces off his temple. Silas fakes a death spiral and dramatically keels over—taking my legs and half the blanket with him.

Riven’s watching the whole thing from beside the fireplace, quiet and steady, sipping from a mug of something that smells faintly like cloves and stormwind. His eyes find mine through the low flickering glow, and the corners of his mouth tilt up, soft. Possessive. Knowing.

We’ve all changed since the Hollow, but Riven… he’s clearer now. Like whatever madness burned into him has finally gone quiet. And the way he looks at me, like I’m his north star and his weapon in the same breath—I’ll never stop craving that.

“Are we actually watching this,” Caspian mutters, from the couch’s far edge, where Ambrose’s arm is draped lazily around his shoulders. “Or just sacrificing Silas to it?”

“Both,” Ambrose answers without blinking.

He’s the most relaxed I’ve seen him in weeks. But even now, there’s a sharpness to him. He never quite lets it all go. Not even in safety. Not even in softness.

Orin’s by the window, reading.

He has the book open in one hand, fingers spread wide against the page, but his eyes are on me. Always on me. He doesn’t hide it anymore—not since I gave him that gift, not since he asked to bond and I said yes. I can still feel the burn of his magic underneath my skin. It’s nothing like the others. His magic doesn’t blaze or consume—it hums, patient and infinite, like he’s not just bound to me, he understands me.

And Lucien…

Lucien hasn’t looked at the screen once.

He’s watching me, his jaw tight, fingers flexing slow on the armrest like he’s debating whether to pull me into his lap or pin me against the nearest wall. The bond still simmers fresh between us, hot and electric and strange. I think he’s still adjusting to it. To this version of us that doesn’t involve anger as foreplay.

He catches me staring. Doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t look away. Just lifts his chin like he’s daring me to come to him. And maybe I would—if Silas didn’t flinch violently at another jump scare and drag me backward into a heap of tangled limbs and popcorn casualties.

“I hate this!” Silas yells again.

Riven says, “Then stop watching it.”

“But she likes it,” he groans, burying his face against my thigh. “And I love her more than I love my dignity.”

“You’ve never had dignity,” Elias says, voice bone-dry.

“ has it for both of us,” Silas announces proudly. “She’s, like, our collective dignity reservoir.”

“Are you done?” I ask, brushing popcorn off his head.

“I’m never done.” He rolls onto his back and looks up at me, face too open, too sincere. “But I’d die for you, so maybe we pause the murder movie?”

I lean down and kiss him once. Light. Brief. A breath of affection in the chaos. He melts like I carved his spine out with it.

“Fine,” I say, reaching for the remote.

From the other side of the room, Lucien’s voice cuts through the warm glow like a blade.

“Don’t turn it off.”

I look up.

He doesn’t blink.

“You want to stay?”

“I want to remember this,” he says, so low I almost miss it. “While we still can.”

And something in my chest tightens. Because I think he’s right. This peace is temporary. The darkness isn’t done with us. But tonight… we’re still whole. And for once, that’s enough.

Smoke curls from the center of the room like a ribbon torn from the world. It’s slow at first, delicate, as if it’s asking permission to exist—until it thickens, darker, faster, filling the air with the sharp, electric scent of old magic, of something older than time pretending to be a man.

Silas lets out a high-pitched scream that shatters the lull of lazy comfort. He flings himself over my shoulder in a move that might’ve been acrobatic if it hadn’t ended in him knocking over the popcorn bowl and kneeing me in the ribs.

“What the fuck,” he gasps, breathless, already crouched behind me with his arms around my waist like he thinks he’s shielding me.

He is not.

Riven and Ambrose rise first, silent and instinctive. Caspian is slower, always slower, but he doesn’t hesitate to step in front of me. Orin stands like he’s been expecting this for years, ancient calm sharpening to something almost reverent. Elias mutters a curse but moves too, protective in his own sideways, irreverent way.

Lucien is already there. His magic presses outward, a hum just beneath my skin, Dominion sliding into the air like it has a right to everything it touches.

The smoke parts.

And Headmaster Blackwell stands at the center of it. But it’s not him. Not really. Or maybe it always was. He’s unchanged and completely transformed—same dark coat, same dark hair swept back from a face that’s too ageless to place. But it’s his presence that splits something open. It’s wrong. It's right. It’s impossible. Magic rolls off him in waves—no, not magic. Something older than magic. A force. A truth. A reckoning. He shouldn’t have any. He was human. Mundane. Just a headmaster. I can feel it pulsing, heat that isn’t heat, pressure that isn't weight. I feel it in my bones.

Silas grabs my hand, voice cracking. “, babe, that’s—uh, that’s not Headmaster Daddy Issues. That’s—”

“Power,” Orin says softly, not even blinking. “That’s divine.”

Blackwell’s eyes sweep the room, and there’s no sharpness, no cruelty. Just… affection. Like a father watching his children play in the dirt and finally, finally seeing them bloom.

“You did it,” he says, voice steady, threaded with pride. “All of you.”

No one moves. Not even Elias, who usually can’t not make some sort of snide quip during revelations like this.

“I had my doubts,” Blackwell continues, smiling faintly. “You’ve all spent so long resisting what you are. Fighting what was made for you. But look at you now.”

He lifts a hand. The weight of his gaze lands on me.

“You found her.”

And then to them.

“And you kept her.”

Caspian’s breath stutters beside me. Riven is still, unreadable. Lucien—Lucien’s fingers twitch, as if the need to reach for me is at war with his instinct to remain composed. He’s always been composed. He was born of Pride, after all.

“I didn’t want to interfere,” Blackwell says. “I gave you the tools. The world. The curse. And I waited.”

Silas exhales shakily. “Wait, wait, wait. What the actual fuck do you mean the curse? You mean Branwen? The Hollow? All of it?”

Blackwell’s gaze flicks to him, fond. “You were never cursed, Silas. You were incomplete. All of you were. The Hollow didn’t bind you. She did.”

He looks at me again.

My spine locks.

“She was made to hold you. Each of you. All seven sins—rooted in you, bleeding through your bodies, your souls. But what’s a sin without a reckoning? Without balance? was never the end. She’s the origin.”

Lucien steps forward, but Blackwell lifts a single hand and Lucien stills—not out of fear. Out of recognition. Some quiet knowing between gods.

“You don’t need to fight anymore,” Blackwell says. “Not with yourselves. Not with each other.”

He looks at each of them. Not just as their headmaster. Not as a man. But as their maker.

“I created the Sins,” he says, voice calm as dusk, “but I made you to feel them. To lose to them. To learn from them. It’s only now that you’ve bound fully, wholly, that you’ve completed what was written.”

A strange calm settles over the room. Like something vast and ancient has clicked into place.

“I’m proud of you,” he says, softer now.

And that breaks something in me. Because he means it. This man—this god—who watched us shatter and kill and bleed and suffer and still, still says he’s proud.

The popcorn crunches under my foot as I step forward. Everyone’s still holding the line around me, but I push past Silas’s protective hover, past Lucien’s gravitational pull, until I’m standing directly in front of him.

Blackwell—no, whatever he is—smiles at me like I’m his final, perfect piece.

“You said you didn’t interfere,” I say, voice tight. “But you’ve been watching.”

“Always,” he answers. “You’re mine, . And I do not abandon what’s mine.”

There’s no threat in it.

Only love.

And for once, I let myself believe it.

It feels like everything in the room stills—like the world has finally exhaled after holding its breath for centuries.

Immortality.

The word should terrify me. But it doesn't. Not when it comes from him—a god wrapped in mortal shape, a creator who just looked me in the eye and called me his. Not when the weight of what we’ve done is settling in my bones like starlight. We didn’t survive. We didn’t win.

We transcended.

Blackwell’s voice is warm with satisfaction, but there's a thread of something more reverent beneath it—an edge of awe that tightens my throat.

“And because you succeeded where every other binder failed,” he says, gaze steady, “you’ll be granted immortality. A gift. A consequence. A crown.”

I blink once. Twice. Then his eyes slide over the others. All of them.

Each Sin turns toward me with something different in their gaze. Hunger. Worship. Relief. Possession.

“And for each of your bonded,” Blackwell continues, “a child. One son to carry the legacy. Each bearing a fragment of the sin they descend from. To go in order of the bond’s. Except Silas.”

Silas jerks. “Wait—except—what? What’d I do? What did I break?”

Blackwell laughs. It’s fond. “You were the first to love her.”

Silas freezes.

“You get twins.”

He makes a strangled noise in his throat that sounds vaguely like a whimper and a gasp had a baby.

“Twins,” he echoes. “A boy and a girl? With ? I—do I get to name them? Do they come out with like, sparkles? Can they prank people in the womb—”

“Silas,” Elias mutters, deadpan. “Breathe.”

“I am breathing, Elias. Breathing is all I’m doing right now to not collapse into a pile of blessed chaos.”

But he’s trembling. Because he knows what this means. Not just a gift. Not just a child. A legacy. A piece of me bound to him forever—more than magic, more than blood. A divine inheritance.

My gaze drifts toward Riven, who hasn’t moved. His eyes are locked on mine—dark, steady, burning like he’s already undressing me with his mind, already mapping out the shape of our future son in the space between now and eternity.

Because he was the first to bond.

And I know that look.

It’s claiming.

He steps forward, doesn’t ask, doesn’t speak. Just touches my wrist, fingers warm, and I feel the bond between us thrumming. Sharpening. Coiling inward like it’s preparing to split open and make something new. Something alive.

“Riven,” I whisper.

His voice is rough. “You feel that?”

I nod.

“That’s what creation feels like when it begins inside you.”

Silas practically topples backward into the couch with a dramatic moan. “Holy fuck. Someone tranq me. I can't—”

Lucien is silent, arms crossed, jaw clenched. But his eyes—gods, his eyes are starving. Not for the gift. Not for the reward.

For me.

And it hits me then.

This wasn’t about completing a curse. This was about choosing them. Binding to them fully. And now—now the order begins.

Riven steps behind me. His mouth brushes my neck, reverent. “I’ve waited since the beginning of time.”

His hand finds my hip. My breath shudders.

“And I’ll wait again. As long as it takes. But you will be mine first.”

Silas flops dramatically across my lap. “Me next though, right? Because if I don’t go second, I swear to all divine sparkly gods—”

Elias rolls his eyes. “You’d fumble through divine conception like it’s foreplay and a punchline.”

“Foreplay is a punchline, Elias.”

“You’re a punchline.”

“Say that when we have twins, asshole—”

“Gentlemen,” Orin says, with a small smile, voice like velvet over ancient steel, “you’re in the presence of something sacred. Do try to behave like you belong here.”

Ambrose brushes hair back from my cheek. His expression is quieter. Hungrier. “You’ll have my son,” he says, voice raw. “Even after I nearly broke you. You’ll still carry me inside you.”

Caspian’s hand trembles slightly when it finds mine. “You’ll make me a father,” he murmurs, like he’s just now realizing he’s worthy of that.

And Lucien—

Lucien hasn’t said a word. But I feel it. That familiar pull. That Dominion. My skin tingles, my pulse kicks up. Because he doesn’t need to speak. Not when his power is already curling around my body, wrapping itself over my spine, whispering promises of what he’ll take from me—last—when I’ve given all the others what they were promised. He’s going to ruin me for all of them. And I’ll thank him for it.

But first—Riven. And I look up at him, and I nod.

Because this is the beginning of a different war.

Not to survive.

But to create.

And I’ve never been more ready to be undone.

Lucien’s voice cuts through the reverent silence like a blade across velvet.

"And the others?" he asks, quiet but deliberate, eyes on Blackwell with the weight of someone who doesn’t ask things he doesn’t already suspect the answer to. "The sub-sins. Were they yours too?"

The air tightens—not in that overused way stories love to describe, not like a clichéd hush. This is deeper. Colder. Like the gravity in the room recognizes the question for what it is: a challenge.

Blackwell doesn’t bristle. He smiles. It’s the kind of smile gods wear when they’re about to admit something blasphemous and holy in the same breath.

“The sub-sins were… born of necessity,” Blackwell says, voice slow, like he’s picking his words out of ash. “They were echoes. Aftershocks. Created not by me but by the void left when your kind tried to replace what I made.”

Lucien’s jaw flexes. “They’re fragments.”

“Attempts,” Blackwell corrects gently. “Failed ones.”

I feel Riven shift behind me. Silas snorts. Elias mutters something under his breath about ‘budget sins,’ and Caspian, quiet and still as always, watches Blackwell like he’s weighing the entire creation of our kind in his palm.

Blackwell lifts his hand, palm open, and between his fingers, light fractures into seven points of color—crimson for Wrath, gold for Greed, deep violet for Lust, and so on until all of them hover there, humming like stars reborn.

“These,” he says, “were never meant to be replicated. But mortals never stop trying to tame what was meant to consume them.”

“And our children?” I ask, voice low. “Are they echoes too?”

His gaze flicks to me, sharp and deep. “No. They are prophecy. Not what was made to fill a void—but what was always meant to be born.”

Lucien's eyes stay locked on his, unreadable. “And Layla?” he asks. “What happens to her?”

A ripple moves through me at the mention of her name. My sister. Bound to the sub-sins. Still walking a blade’s edge.

Blackwell exhales like he’s been waiting for someone to ask that.

“She walks the harder road,” he says simply. “Yours was to bind. Hers will be to unmake. But if she succeeds…” He trails off, then looks at me. “She will not just earn her freedom. She may earn a new dominion altogether.”

Silas leans back into my legs, whistling low. “So you’re saying she gets a throne if she doesn’t die first. That’s motivating.”

Elias sighs. “Honestly, I’d kill for lower expectations.”

Blackwell’s eyes glint. “You already have.”

That shuts Elias up.

But the god’s voice softens again as he looks back at me. “Your children won’t be fragments. They’ll be inheritance. Creation spun through desire, not destruction. That’s what makes them different. What makes them yours.”