Page 31 of The Sin-Binder’s Fate (The Seven Sins Academy #1)

His expression shifts, amusement flickering into something darker. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

I’m catching my breath when Riven speaks again, voice low and edged with something dangerous.

“You’re not weak.”

It’s not a compliment. Not encouragement. Just a statement of fact. I don’t like the way it settles in my chest. I glare at him, fingers still curled into fists. “Tell that to the ground I just ate because of you.”

His smirk deepens, like he enjoys the fight in me more than he should. “You ran.”

I grit my teeth. “You threw a fucking boulder at me. ”

He shrugs. “You could have stopped it.”

I scoff. “Oh, sure. Let me just politely ask gravity to take a break while I figure out how to stop you from killing me.”

He steps closer, and despite myself, I hold my ground.

“You’ve done it before,” he murmurs, eyes burning into mine.

I swallow hard. “What are you talking about?”

His gaze sharpens. “Caspian.”

I freeze. Because I know what he’s talking about.

The night in the library. The moment Caspian’s power twisted around me, forcing me to feel more than I should have, making my body burn with something I couldn’t control, until I shoved it back onto him.

Until I made him drown in the very thing he’d tried to overwhelm me with.

Riven tilts his head. “You didn’t run from him.”

My jaw clenches. “Caspian wasn’t trying to kill me.”

“No,” he agrees, voice smooth, mocking. “Just trying to fuck you stupid.”

Heat flares in my chest, not from embarrassment but from the sheer audacity of him saying it like that. I lunge before I think, aiming a punch at his smug fucking face, Riven dodges easily, laughing under his breath, a dark sound that infuriates me.

“Predictable,” he muses.

I hate how he moves like he’s already ten steps ahead of me. I hate that I know he’s doing this on purpose. He wants me mad. Because anger ruins control.

I exhale sharply, forcing myself to focus. “What’s your point?”

Riven flexes his fingers. “Caspian’s power worked against you. It drowned you in something you didn’t know how to control.” He steps closer, voice quieter. “But mine? ”

The ground beneath me shudders, just slightly, just enough for me to feel it.

His lips curl.

“You can’t drown in fire,” he murmurs. “But you can make it burn itself out.”

I stare at him, pulse hammering. “You want me to, what? Throw your power back at you?”

He lifts a brow. “Why not?”

Because he’s not Caspian. Caspian, let me figure it out. He wanted me to win. Riven? He’s not going to wait for me to catch up. I can see it in his posture, in the slight shift of his weight, in the flicker of something reckless in his expression.

I inhale sharply. “Riven, ”

He smirks. “Figure it out.”

Then, he moves. The boulder comes flying before I can process his words. I barely dodge it. The stone shatters against the frozen ground, jagged shards exploding outward, and I swear I feel the vibration rattle my teeth.

Riven doesn’t slow. He’s a blur of movement, shifting like a storm with no center, a force without hesitation. He doesn’t pause. Doesn’t let me catch up. Another rock rips free from the ground, hovering for half a second before he throws it at me.

“Use it against me!” he shouts over the roar of shifting earth.

Snow sprays up in my wake, boots slipping slightly as I weave between trees, but the ground itself is against me. The moment I plant my foot to push forward, the earth cracks. The ground sinks just enough to steal my balance, just enough to make my body stumble, and then,

Riven is there.

I throw myself backward just as his fist swings toward me, not to hit, not really, but to force me to react, to keep me from getting a single breath of control.

“You don’t get time to think,” he growls, pivoting before I can even catch my footing.

His leg sweeps out. I jump, too slow. The kick clips me, sending me sprawling onto the frozen ground, pain jarring through my spine. My lungs burn, the cold leeching through my jacket as I scramble to push up, a shadow looms over me.

“You’re dead.”

I shove myself up to my knees, my body screaming at me, but Riven doesn’t move away.

He waits. Like he wants to see what I’ll do.

I glare up at him. “This isn’t fucking training.”

“This is exactly what training is.” He crouches slightly, eyes locked onto mine, voice dark and unforgiving. “You want me to slow down? Go easy on you? Hold your fucking hand?”

My fingers dig into the snow-damp dirt. “I want you to not kill me.”

His smirk is cruel. “Then figure it out.”

The ground beneath us rumbles again, a slow-building quake radiating outward.

I feel it this time, not just through the earth, but through him.

Through the way his muscles tighten, through the way the air thickens with the weight of his power, like the whole fucking world is waiting for him to explode.

I don’t have time. I don’t have a choice. He’s going to end me if I don’t stop him first. But how?

I grit my teeth, digging my heels into the dirt as the ground shakes harder, trying to throw me off balance.

I inhale sharply. Wrath. His power is violent. Destructive. It moves things, tears them apart. It pushes. I focus on that, on the sensation crawling up my legs, on the pull of his power as it snakes through the earth.

The moment he moves again,

I push back. Hard.

The earth bucks beneath us. And for the first time, Riven stumbles .