Page 57 of The Sin-Binder’s Fate (The Seven Sins Academy #1)

I walk the perimeter, my boots cutting deep into the frost-laced earth, the weight of my coat heavy with concealed weapons.

The invisible barrier looms before me, unseen but felt, the air thick with the static hum of ancient magic, a cage that refuses to rust, no matter how many times I try to push against it.

I lift a hand and press my palm to nothing. And nothing is exactly what stops me. A wall that doesn’t exist, but keeps me locked inside all the same.

Beyond it, they wait.

The army no longer lingers in the shadows.

They’ve made their presence known. No more whispering through the forests, no more fleeting figures slithering between the trees.

Now, they stand, a mass of writhing, bone-thin bodies, their limbs too long, their faces obscured by shifting voids of smoke and shadow. Wraiths.

They’re not of this world. Not anymore .

Stripped of flesh, of identity, of the last remnants of what they once were, their forms shift and undulate, as if they’re held together by something far more unstable than bone.

Some are nearly skeletal, their ribcages gaping like cracked cages, others hunched, grotesque things with clawed fingers dragging through the snow.

But it’s their eyes that are the worst. Not because they have them. Because they don’t. Just voids, depthless, endless, sucking in all the light, as if they exist to consume, to take and take and take.

I drag my tongue across my teeth, grip tightening around the hilt of the dagger strapped to my belt. The one lined with runes, ancient and greedy, one of many. My coat is heavy for a reason, stitched with weapons, artifacts, charms imbued with magic long since stolen.

Because that’s what I do. I take. Magic, power, strength, I hoard it. Stack it high, layer upon layer, until I am something unmovable. Until I have everything and no one else has anything.

And yet. I can’t take my own freedom.

I roll my shoulders, shaking off the irritation as I watch them, the wraiths.

They don’t move forward. They just watch.mWaiting.

For what, I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter.

They’ll come eventually. They always do.

And when they do? They will find that I am greed itself.

And I never let anything go without taking something in return .

Daemon Academy was built like a fortress, and for good reason.

The walls of black stone curve around the school like jagged ribs, their towering spires stretching into the storm-choked sky.

The outer courtyard is laced with spells older than the foundation itself, and somewhere beneath my feet, the wards pulse, trying to hold.

But magic is fickle.

And so is war.

The land beyond the barrier has been stripped bare, the trees reduced to skeletal remnants of what they once were, the branches gnarled and barren.

Snow falls in slow, deliberate spirals, each flake dissolving into black slush the moment it touches the cursed ground.

The sky is nothing but swirling iron, heavy and unmoving, as if the heavens themselves are watching, waiting.

The wraiths linger, but they are not alone.

Shadowed figures move behind them, too solid, too wrong to be mere ghosts.

They wear armor that looks stitched from darkness itself, the metal glinting with a strange, sickly sheen.

Some stand on the edges of the wraith horde, their postures almost languid, like they have all the time in the world.

Others crouch low, their bladed limbs twitching, waiting for a signal that has yet to come.

But it’s not them I’m looking for.

It’s him.

Somewhere out there, Dorian is waiting too.

I wonder if he’s watching me right now. I wouldn’t put it past him, the bastard always loved theatrics, loved knowing exactly where to cut when the moment was right.

I tighten my grip around the relic at my hip.

Good. Let him watch. Let him see. Because the moment that barrier falls, I am coming for him .

A slow exhale leaves me, frost curling from my lips.

Lucien is out there, walking straight toward the storm, toward Severin, toward whatever deal he thinks he can make.

Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it won’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter because this, this right here, this battlefield, this cursed land where death is waiting like a patient lover, this is inevitable.

And I do not mind a waiting game.

Because greed?

Greed always wins.

I drag my gaze away from the battlefield and back toward the school.

The grand estate looms in the distance, its gothic towers sharp against the storm-choked sky.

The sprawling campus should feel untouchable, Daemons don’t build things that can fall, but tonight, the Academy feels small.

A cracked fortress waiting to be swallowed whole.

And she’s standing at the center of it.

Her dark hair is pulled into a loose braid, strands escaping in the howling wind.

She’s wrapped in a coat that’s too big, Orin’s, most likely, but beneath it, she holds Riven’s weapon.

Not just any blade, but something forged from his Wrath, something that flickers in and out of existence like it’s caught between this world and something worse.

She shouldn’t be touching it.

Riven wouldn’t give it to her unless he had no choice. Or unless she pulled it herself.

I swear under my breath, jaw locking as I study the way she grips the hilt. Unsteady. But not uncertain. That’s the problem. There’s no hesitation in her. She’s standing next to Riven, and he watches her like he’s waiting for something.

Like we all are .

The others are scattered across the grounds, preparing for what comes next.

Silas and Elias are setting up spell lines, illusions twisted into something far more lethal than simple tricks.

Caspian lingers near the entrance, arms crossed, face blank, but his power coils around him, an invisible snare waiting to snap.

This is war

And it’s all for her. The girl who shouldn’t exist. The girl who shouldn’t matter. The girl who does.

I wonder if she understands. If she can feel the weight of it. The inevitability. If she knows what we’ve sacrificed just to keep her breathing, just to keep her standing here with a weapon too heavy for her hands.

Severin plays at being a ruler, but he’s a storm without direction, and soon, it will break. Everything will. And when it does, who will be left standing?

Lucien steps out onto the battlefield like he owns it.

Like the gods carved it for him alone. His boots crush the frostbitten grass as he moves past me, his pace slow, deliberate.

The wind claws at his coat, the silver filigree along the hem catching the dim, fractured light.

His weapons, twin sabers forged in his own power, hang against his sides, gleaming like they’ve already tasted blood.

Lucien doesn’t draw them.

Not yet.

Pride doesn’t beg for war. He welcomes it.

I watch as he strides forward, stopping just before the boundary. The place where none of us can cross. Where the leash around our throats tightens. He stands there, just shy of it, gazing into the darkness beyond, waiting .

Because Severin has to come now.

Lucien made sure of it.

The storm overhead churns, heavy with something more than ice and ruin. Power ripples through the night, thick enough to taste, as the first wraiths shift at the edge of the unseen barrier, their movements too smooth, too wrong.

Jagged bodies, humanoid but stretched, distorted, hollow where they shouldn’t be. Their hands taper into razored claws, their mouths split too wide, too eager. Shreds of spectral armor cling to their bodies, black as void, stitched together with veins of something alive.

Lucien stands there, poised at the precipice, his stance loose, relaxed in the way only a killer can be. He tips his chin up slightly, jaw tight, expression carved from stone. His power hums around him, pressing against the air, baiting.

And then he speaks, voice smooth, calm.

"I’m waiting, Severin."

The battlefield stills. And then, from the dark, a voice answers.

"So wait."

Severin emerges from the dark like a shadow with bones. Where Lucien radiates precision, power honed to an art, Severin is something untamed. A wound in the world left to fester, spreading its rot through everything it touches.

His armor is black, but not like metal, like void. It moves as he does, the edges curling like smoke, swallowing the air around him. The plating is ridged, spined, something that breathes, shifting as if it's alive. His helm is absent, revealing a face carved from violence .

Sharp, angular features, all cold symmetry, but his mouth, his mouth was made for cruelty. His lips pull into something that isn’t quite a smirk, isn’t quite a sneer, but lives somewhere between.

And his eyes.

They burn.

Not like Lucien’s icy blue, but red-black, charred at the edges, fissures of ember that haven’t quite gone out. They are pits of a dying fire, not because they’ve lost heat, but because they have been reduced to pure destruction.

Lucien clenches his jaw. I know that Lucien likes his enemies predictable. Severin is not. He is chaos made flesh, ambition without chains, and he has waited for this moment for years.

“You took your time,” Lucien says, voice smooth, but edged.

Severin tilts his head, considering. Amused.

“I wanted you to sweat.”

Lucien doesn’t.

Severin exhales through his nose. A slow, measured once-over, as if tallying what we are worth.

His gaze lands on Luna. His lips part slightly, his expression shifting, calculating. Taking her in. And then he smiles. And something inside me goes cold.

Severin’s smile is a knife’s edge, sharp enough to cut without even touching. He looks at Luna like she’s already his, already a game piece he’s won. But it’s Lucien he wants to sink his claws into first .

"A Sin-Binder," Severin muses, his voice rich, decadent, rotten beneath the surface. He lets the words roll over his tongue like they amuse him. "Again?"

Lucien doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink. His control is a thing forged in fire, a thing he’s had to temper every time someone tried to remind him what happened the last time.

Severin steps closer, his armor shifting like something breathing. Feeding.

"And here I thought you learned your lesson after the last one."

Luna stiffens beside Riven. I glance at her from the corner of my eye, watch her fingers twitch around the hilt of her weapon. She doesn’t understand what’s being said, not fully. But she understands enough.

Severin’s smirk widens. "What was her name again?" he asks, faux curiosity laced with malice. "Ah, that’s right. Maeve."

The name falls between them like a stone thrown into a bottomless well.

Lucien’s fingers twitch, barely perceptible, but I see it.

Severin does too. And the bastard laughs. A low, dark sound full of cruel delight.

"She screamed, didn’t she?" Severin tilts his head, his tone almost conversational. "I remember it. The way she begged. The way she reached for you, thinking you could save her." His gaze drags over Lucien’s face like a hand pressing against a bruise. "But you couldn’t. Could you?"

Lucien doesn’t answer. Because we all know the truth.

He couldn’t .

Lucien, Pride, the unshakable, the untouchable, stood and watched as the last Sin-Binder bled out in the snow.

"Tell me, Lucien," Severin hums, folding his arms across his chest. "What do you think this one will sound like when she dies?"

Luna takes a step forward, wrath rippling under her skin.

I exhale through my nose, fighting the urge to smirk.

She has no fucking clue what she’s doing, but I’ll give her this, she’s got fire .