Page 17 of The Sin-Binder’s Fate (The Seven Sins Academy #1)

The flowers wither between my fingers, petals shriveling to dust as I drink them dry.

Power slides through me, slow and insidious, sinking into my bones like ink spilled into water.

It’s never enough, not really, but it’ll do for now.

I pluck another bloom from the creeping ivy that clings to the stone, feel the desperate thrum of life beneath my touch.

A moment later, it’s gone. Spent. Worthless.

I let the brittle stem fall, adding to the graveyard of dead things at my feet.

The wall beneath me is cool, rough-edged, old as sin itself.

From here, I can see the academy sprawled out below, ancient spires cutting into the sky, shadows pooling in the courtyards, the weight of the past pressing down on every stone.

This place is a maw, always hungry, always waiting to swallow something whole.

And in the morning, it gets to feast.

The trial begins.

Luna will stand before all of us, and if she wants to survive, she’ll have to do the impossible. She’ll have to fight. Win .

I roll my shoulders, flexing my fingers against my palm. I should care more about what happens next, but I don’t. Whether she fails or not, whether she falls to one of us or somehow survives, what does it matter?

She’s just another thing waiting to be consumed.

I tip my head back, exhaling into the night. The air is thick with the scent of charred wood from the distant torches that line the academy’s gates, the whisper of something rotting beneath it all. There’s always decay, even when you don’t see it.

Movement below.

I still.

Luna steps out into the courtyard, oblivious to the fact that she’s not alone.

From up here, she looks small, out of place against the looming architecture of Daemon Academy. Too human for this world of monsters. Too alive.

I watch as she hesitates, glancing up at the sky like she’s looking for answers in the stars. She won’t find any. Nothing up there will save her.

I spin a dead flower between my fingers, considering.

She doesn’t know I’m here. Doesn’t realize she’s being watched. Doesn’t realize how easily she could be taken apart.

The academy is going to eat her alive. And if it doesn’t, I just might.

I pluck another flower from the ivy, its delicate white petals brushing against my skin. For a moment, it resists me, vibrant, full of life, before it withers, collapsing in on itself, surrendering to my touch. Energy curls through my veins like smoke. Faint. Fleeting.

Still not enough.

It never is .

I flick the dead flower aside and reach for another when I hear her voice.

“That’s kinda cool.”

I go still.

Luna stands at the base of the wall, tilting her head as she watches me. The torchlight barely reaches her, casting her in shadows, but her gaze gleams, curious, unafraid.

She should be afraid.

I let the last of the flower crumble between my fingers. “Cool?” My voice is rough from disuse. “You think death is cool?”

She shrugs, stepping closer. “I think you think it’s cool.”

I study her, unsure if she’s mocking me or if she means it. She’s searching for a way up, glancing at the uneven stone, the ivy curling along the wall like grasping fingers. She wants to sit beside me.

I should tell her no.

I should leave.

Instead, I do the stupid thing.

I extend my hand.

Her gaze drops to it, and for the first time, she hesitates. Not the way someone normally would when they’re wary of falling. This is something else, a wariness of me. Of what I am.

She shouldn’t trust me. But she does the unthinkable. She takes my hand.

And I don’t drain her.

For the first time in my existence, I stop.

I feel her warmth, the pulse in her fingers, the quiet, steady hum of her life. It’s right there, and I don’t take it. I don’t even want to. It leaves me off-balance, the sensation foreign, wrong. My grip tightens involuntarily as I pull her up, guiding her onto the ledge beside me.

She settles, crossing her legs, looking out over the academy like she belongs here. Like this isn’t completely fucked.

Then she turns back to me, chin propped on her fist. “Do it again.”

I arch a brow.

She motions to the ivy, the flowers. “I want to see it.”

I consider her for a long moment before reaching for another bloom. It trembles against my touch, struggling for survival.

Then it dies.

Luna watches with something close to fascination.

I turn the shriveled stem between my fingers before flicking it off the ledge. It spirals downward, landing on the cobblestones below like all the others before it, a fragile thing, easily taken, easily discarded.

Luna watches it fall, then looks at me.

She should be nervous up here, so high above the academy grounds, but she isn’t. Just like she isn’t unnerved by the way I reduce living things to husks with a touch.

“Does it hurt them?” she asks, tilting her head toward the pile of lifeless flowers I’ve left behind. “When you take it?”

My mouth curls at the corner. “No. But it should, don’t you think?”

She hums, considering. “Maybe. Or maybe it just is.”

I pluck another flower, watching the way its petals tremble against my fingers before they cave inward, curling, crumbling.

“You always drain things like this?” she presses, curious but not cautious .

“No,” I answer. “This is…” I flick the ruined flower aside. “This is nothing. A habit.”

She shifts beside me, the night air ruffling her hair. “Then what’s something?”

I pause, tapping a finger against my knee, feeling the phantom itch of hunger curl in my ribs. Something is when I take too much. When I let it sink too deep, it consumes too fast. When I forget that I’m meant to stop.

Her gaze lingers, expectant, and for some reason, I don’t give her the easy answer.

“You ever get so hungry it stops feeling like hunger?” I ask instead.

Luna blinks, caught off guard. “Like… starvation?”

I shake my head. “No, not like that. Like when you’re past the point of wanting, past the need for food.

When the hunger has sat in your stomach so long, it becomes part of you.

And then, when you finally eat, it’s like you can’t stop.

Because you know, even if you gorge yourself, even if you consume until you’re sick, it’ll never be enough. Because the hunger is you.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment.

Then: “That’s what it’s like?”

I glance down at my palm, flexing my fingers. It’s worse.

“It’s what I am.”

She exhales, looking back at the pile of drained flowers. “And you don’t ever stop?”

I lift a brow. “Do you?”

That gives her pause. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but something shifts in her gaze, like she understands. Like she recognizes the feeling of always needing, always reaching, even if she doesn’t have the words for it yet.

For a moment, we just sit there.

Then she murmurs, “What else can you take? ”

I lean back on my palms, tilting my head toward her. “Why? You volunteering?”

She snorts. “Not a fucking chance.”

I smirk, but I answer her anyway. “Energy. Strength. Magic.” I glance at her from the corner of my eye. “Memories.”

That catches her attention. “You can steal memories?”

I nod. “Take enough, and I can unravel someone from the inside out. Piece by piece.”

She doesn’t recoil. Doesn’t shift away. She just watches me, her expression unreadable.

I wonder what it would feel like to hold her in my hands. To press my fingers to her skin and take.

Not because I need to.

But because I want to.

Luna leans forward, forearms resting on her knees, gaze dipping to the shriveled flowers littering the ledge below us before flicking back to me. Assessing. She’s been doing that all night, measuring, weighing, trying to see beneath the surface like she thinks I’ll let her.

She won’t find anything.

I go back to the flower in my hand, fingers curling around the delicate stem. The petals are soft, trembling as though they already know what’s coming. I could drain it in an instant, let it wither between my fingers, and discard it like all the rest.

But I don’t.

Luna tilts her head. “Do you hate it?”

I glance at her. “Hate what?”

Her eyes flick toward the flower, then back to me. “The taking.”

I exhale through my nose, rolling the stem between my fingertips. “What kind of question is that? ”

She shrugs, legs still swinging. “A simple one. Do you hate it?”

I press my thumb to the petals, let the slow pull start, just enough that they begin to curl inward, folding in on themselves. “No.”

She waits. A second passes. Then another. The flower crumbles, turning to dust in my palm, and her gaze lingers on the remains before lifting to meet mine.

“But you don’t like it either,” she murmurs.

I don’t answer.

Her head tilts, eyes narrowed in quiet curiosity. “It’s not about hunger, is it?”

I say nothing.

She exhales, a slow thing, before pulling her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.

The night air stirs her hair, sending stray strands across her cheek.

“You know,” she starts, voice softer now, “when I was a kid, my dad always used to tell me that people didn’t want the things they thought they did. ”

I raise a brow. “That so?”

She nods. “He’d say, ‘Luna, people don’t want food, they want the feeling of being full.

They don’t want money, they want the security of having it.

They don’t want love, they want the certainty that it won’t be taken away.

” She rests her chin on her knee, looking at me from the side.

“It’s not the thing that matters. It’s what it means. ”

Something in me stills.

She shifts slightly, letting her legs dangle again, and nods toward the pile of ruined flowers at my feet. “So I don’t think you hate it. But I don’t think it’s about needing, either.” Her gaze flickers back to mine, steady. “I think it’s about having.”

I don’t know how to reply. No one’s ever said that before. No one’s ever thought about it, understood it, the way she just did.

Luna doesn’t push for an answer. She just exhales, stretching out her legs, shifting closer so that our arms brush. “Anyway. Thought you’d find that interesting.”

I study her for a long moment. Then I reach into my coat, fingers closing around the small, withered petal I’d tucked away earlier. The only thing I haven’t destroyed. I hesitate before holding it out to her.

Her brows lift slightly.

I don’t say anything, just wait.

And after a beat, she reaches out, her fingers brushing mine as she takes it. She turns the shriveled petal between her fingers, studying it like it holds secrets. Then, without hesitation, she tucks it into her pocket.

I watch, waiting for her to make some remark, to tease me, to ask why I gave it to her. Instead, she just exhales, stretches her legs out in front of her, and says,

“I like dead flowers better anyway.”

A slow, dry laugh leaves me before I can stop it.

“Do you?”

She nods, tilting her head to the side like she’s only just realizing it herself.

“Yeah. Live ones are nice, sure, but there’s something about the dead ones that makes you look at them.

” She gestures toward the discarded petals at my feet.

“Like, when something’s alive, you just assume it always will be.

You don’t really see it. But when it starts to die?

That’s when people notice. That’s when they care. ”

A humorless laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “That’s a depressing way to look at it.”

She grins. “Yeah, well. So is sitting up here killing flowers all night. ”

I study her. The way her fingers linger against her pocket, the way she says it like it matters, like she’s not just filling the space with empty words.

I glance at the pile of dead things around me. Wilted stems, curled leaves, things I’ve drained without a thought. I’ve never once considered keeping any of them. Never even thought to. I take and I consume and I let them go to waste.

I reach for another bloom, curling my fingers around its delicate stem. “So what, you think death makes things more valuable?”

Her gaze flickers between the flower in my grip and my face. Then she says, “I think endings make people pay attention.”

Luna swings her legs, boot scuffing against the ledge, then turns that steady gaze back on me. “Do you ever take too much?”

I roll my jaw, fingers drumming against my knee. “Too much of what?”

She tilts her head. “Life. Power. Whatever it is that you pull from them.”

My mouth twists. “I always take too much.”

Her brows knit.

I huff a humorless breath and lean back against the stone, tilting my head to look at the sky.

It’s the same ink-black expanse it always is, thick with stars, no different than it was yesterday or the day before.

A sky that has never once changed for me, no matter how much I take from the things beneath it.

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” I murmur, flicking a dead leaf off the ledge. “It’s never enough. So I keep going.”

Luna doesn’t respond right away. I feel her eyes on me, searching, like she’s waiting for me to say more.

I don’t .

“So what happens when you take from a person?” she asks finally, voice quiet.

My gaze snaps to her.

I drum my fingers again. “You want to find out?”

Her lips press together, considering. “Would I survive it?”

A smirk tugs at my mouth. “Depends.”

She hums. “On?”

I lean in, just enough that the space between us narrows, just enough that I can see the way her pulse jumps in her throat.

“On how much I like you.”

A slow breath leaves her. She doesn’t move away, doesn’t flinch, just watches me like she’s trying to see something.

Then she reaches out, deliberate, unhurried, and presses her palm against my arm.

Nothing happens.

Nothing should happen.

But I feel it anyway. A spark of something, a shift in the air, an odd pull in the center of my chest like I’ve lost something I never knew I had.

She tilts her head. “Huh.”

I exhale sharply, wrenching my arm back, staring at her like she’s some kind of anomaly.

Luna smirks. “Guess you do like me.”

I should leave. I should let this moment slip away before it turns into something else, something I don’t know how to name.

But I don’t.

Because she tucks her hands back in her pockets, breathes in the night air, and says, “Yeah. I think I like dead things better.”

And I think, for the first time in a long time, that maybe I don’t want to be one.