Page 68 of The Sin-Binder’s Fate (The Seven Sins Academy #1)
"Luna, go find Riven."
I freeze. Not like before, when his illusions made me pause, uncertain where to move. This is different. This is, what the fuck?
"Now." His voice is tight, his usual teasing lilt absent.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I try to move toward him, but his illusions won’t let me. They aren’t just there to distract Malachi. They’re keeping me away.
"Luna." His voice is sharper now, urgency threading through it. "Move. Find Riven."
The shimmer expands, warping, closing in around them. I can’t hear what they’re saying anymore.
I shake my head. "Silas- "
"RUN."
The force of it slams into me. Not a suggestion. A command. My legs move before I realize it. I spin, shoving past his illusions, heart pounding, breath shallow. I don’t know what’s happening, don’t know why Silas can do this, but I don’t stop to question it.
His voice is still ringing in my head, but it’s drowned out by the battlefield, by the deafening roar of creatures, spiders, wraiths, things that shouldn’t exist. I don’t know where Riven is, only that he’s ahead, somewhere past the chaos, past the swarm.
I can feel him, tethered to me through something deeper than sight. Like gravity pulling me forward.
But they’re in my way.
A spider lunges, a monstrous, chitinous thing with needle-sharp legs, its body slick with an oily black sheen. I drop low, sliding beneath its grasp, my sword whistling through the air as I slice up through its thorax. A crack, then a wet, splintering sound as it collapses.
Another is already behind it.
They move too fast. Climbing over each other in a cascading wave of legs and fangs, snapping, clicking. My blade sings as I carve through them, but there’s always another, always more.
Too many.
"LUNA!"
The world slows. My head snaps up, instinct overriding battle. And there he is. Riven. A short distance away, but it may as well be miles.
His expression, wrong.
Panic shouldn’t be on his face. Not him. He doesn’t panic, doesn’t falter. But right now? He’s wrecked with it. His blade is already swinging before he’s even fully seen me, cutting through anything in his way like they’re paper, like they’re nothing.
He’s coming for me. Fighting toward me. And I, I can’t reach him.
A spider leaps between us, too close for my sword, too fast. I twist, my arm snapping up just in time to catch its fangs against my forearm instead of my throat.
Pain explodes through me, sharp and hot, and I wrench my arm back, shoving my blade into its underside before tearing it free.
But it costs me.
I stumble.
I look up again, Riven is losing his mind. His movements are violence incarnate. Fury sharpened into a blade. There is nothing controlled about him anymore, nothing measured. He isn’t just fighting through the creatures to get to me.
He’s erasing them.
His blade swings out, red streaking through the air, and four spiders collapse before they even realize they’re dead.
He moves through them like a storm, his body drenched in blood that isn’t his, his teeth bared in something feral.
One tries to leap onto his back, he catches it by the throat midair, squeezing until its exoskeleton shatters in his grip.
I force myself forward, my legs burning, lungs screaming. He’s too far, and I’m not going to make it, and,
"Luna!"
I don’t stop running until I crash into him. The impact is jarring, a collision of breath and blood and battle-worn bodies. Riven’s hands are already on me before I can speak, rough and demanding, gripping my arms, my waist, sliding over my ribs as he twists me in place, searching.
"Are you hurt?" His voice is pure gravel, wrecked with something sharp. His hands grip harder, forcing me to look at him.
"I'm fine," I say, breathless, because I think I am. My body is still vibrating from the run, from the fight, from the absolute panic of trying to reach him. My heartbeat is too loud in my ears to be sure.
But he doesn’t believe me. He spins me, fingers digging into my skin, his eyes scanning over me with a lethal kind of focus. His hands shove my bloodstained shirt up, pressing over my stomach, my ribs, my shoulders, like he's expecting to find something he missed .
I catch his wrist. "Riven, I said I’m fine."
His jaw clenches, and for a second, I don’t think he’s going to stop. Then his grip loosens just enough. Not enough to let me go, he never just lets go, but enough for his voice to come through.
"What the fuck happened?"
I open my mouth, but there’s too much to say. My pulse is still too fast. My body still feels wired from the fight, from Silas’ voice in my head, from the way I couldn’t tell which one was him, and then,
"Silas." His name falls from my lips, and something in Riven’s face changes. His expression was already dark, but now?
Now it’s something worse. A storm forming behind his eyes.
"What about Silas?" His voice is lethal.
I swallow hard. "Malicah came."
Riven stiffens.
"He was riding some kind of, thing, this monster, this hellhound," I say, words tumbling too fast, trying to get it out before the memories choke me. "Silas, he pushed me back, he used his illusions, and then I heard him in my head. He told me to run."
Riven’s fingers tighten.
"He said it twice. And the second time, he was, " I hesitate. Because how do you describe fear when it comes from someone who never feels it? ", he was panicked, Riven."
Riven steps back like I just struck him.
His hands fall from my arms, curling into fists, his breathing coming in measured inhales that don't match the absolute rage seeping from his body.
"When?" he demands. "When did you last hear him?"
"A minute ago, maybe less. "
He exhales sharply, then his head snaps up.
Orin materializes at my side like he was always there, as if he'd been waiting just beneath the surface of this broken, bloodied world to reappear at the worst possible moment.
His expression is unreadable, but his eyes flick to mine, assessing, absorbing, understanding.
"Stay with her," he orders, barely sparing Orin a glance. Then he takes off.
Straight into the fight. Straight for Silas. Straight into hell .