Page 71 of The Sin-Binder’s Fate (The Seven Sins Academy #1)

The earth beneath us is nothing but scorched remains, the blackened maw of destruction stretching out as far as I can see, a graveyard of the things that tried to kill us, and the ones we couldn’t save.

The sky is a bruise above us. The acrid scent of burning flesh lingers, mixing with something else, something unnatural, something wrong.

And through it all, I feel it. The emptiness.

Silas.

Riven.

Gone.

It isn’t just an absence. It’s a severing, a hole inside me where something should be. My body is rested, thanks to Elias suspending us, letting time stretch until we woke fully healed. But there’s no healing this.

And then there’s Lucien. He didn’t rest. Didn’t stop.

He stayed awake while we slept, watching.

Now, he stands at the edge of it all, his gaze distant, unreadable.

He hasn’t spoken since we woke. His hands are at his sides, limp.

His shoulders carry something too heavy.

His foot moves absently, swiping at nothing.

Lucien doesn’t move absently. Ever.

Orin stands near me, arms crossed, but his focus isn’t on the dead. It’s on Lucien. Elias shifts beside him, usually so casual, but his brows are drawn in something dangerously close to concern.

And I… I can’t take it anymore.

“We need to move,” I say, my voice steady despite the weight pressing in on my chest.

Lucien doesn’t respond.

I step closer. “Lucien.”

Nothing. I exchange a glance with Orin. He nods once.

“We need you to tell us what’s next,” I try again, firmer now, pushing through the ache in my bones, the void inside me where Silas and Riven should be. “You know where to start. Tell us.”

His fingers twitch. Then, slowly, he exhales, his shoulders shifting. He doesn’t look at me. Instead, his foot swipes the air again, slow, methodical.

Orin takes a step forward. “Lucien.”

His jaw tightens.

I move closer, standing just a breath away. “You need to lead us.”

That gets something. A flicker of something sharper. And finally, finally, his gaze snaps to mine. His eyes are bloodshot, hollow, stretched thin with something dark .

I brace for him to snap, to tell me to shut up, to shove past me, to become a storm.

Instead, his voice comes out low. Rough.

“I don’t know where they are.”

It’s not an admission of failure. It’s an admission of impossibility.

Lucien doesn’t know how to find them. For the first time since this started, Lucien looks lost. And that? That terrifies me.

Lucien’s voice is flat, controlled. But I can hear it, the fracture underneath.

“The barrier is gone.”

Elias shakes his head once, arms crossed over his chest, scowling. “That’s not possible.”

Orin tilts his head, but there’s no humor in it. Just calculation. “The barrier has stood for centuries.”

Lucien doesn’t argue. He just looks at Orin. Waiting. A silent command.

Orin exhales and steps forward, moving toward Lucien. I watch carefully, trying to feel for anything, but there’s no shift, no static hum of magic pressing against me. No invisible wall standing firm. Nothing.

Lucien stops a few feet away and lifts his chin. “Here. This is outside the barrier.”

Orin stares at him. His lips part slightly, then close. Testing. Feeling.

Lucien takes another step back. Further .

Orin’s eyes narrow. “That’s-” He stops. Mouth shutting. He steps forward once, then again. Further.

Elias watches, his posture losing some of its usual lazy slouch, his gaze sharp. “What does that mean?”

Lucien doesn’t answer right away. He waits. Thinking. Calculating. Trying to put together the puzzle while the pieces burn in his hands.

“This is how Severin got Riven and Silas out,” he finally says. “The only thing keeping us here was the barrier. Without it…” He exhales slowly. “There’s nothing holding us anymore.”

My stomach twists.

No barrier.

No limits.

Elias drags a hand through his hair, his mouth pressing into a grim line. “If the barrier’s down, why can’t she feel them?”

Lucien’s silence is worse than any answer he could have given. I already know. But when he finally says it, it still feels like the world shatters beneath my feet.

“Because Riven and Silas aren’t in this world anymore.”

Caspian stops beside me, his gaze flicking to Lucien. “You’re sure?”

Lucien’s expression is unreadable, but his voice is absolute. “I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t. ”

Ambrose exhales sharply, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves like this conversation bores him, but I see the tightness in his jaw. He doesn’t like this. None of them do.

“We’re wasting time,” Elias mutters. “If we know where they are, we need to go.”

Lucien’s mouth curves, but it isn’t a smile. “And how do you propose we do that?”

Elias frowns. “You said the barrier is gone. If Severin got them out, we can get them back.”

Caspian drags a hand through his hair, his jaw flexing. “If it were that simple, we’d already be gone.”

Ambrose tilts his head slightly, considering. “The Void was fractured. Spells placed to keep things from getting in and out.” His golden gaze flickers to Lucien. “And yet, he got them out.”

“That’s what we need to figure out.”

Riven and Silas were taken through a locked door. A sealed cage. Severin didn’t just find a way in. He ripped through something that shouldn’t have been touched.

Lucien’s head tips back, studying the fractured sky above us. “If the Void was broken, then we need to find where the crack is.”

Silence.

Caspian’s lips part, then press together. Ambrose’s fingers drum once against his thigh. Orin shifts, rolling his shoulders as if shaking something off.

Lucien lowers his gaze back to them. “We find the fracture.” His voice is low, certain, edged with quiet fury. “And we go through.”

The conversation shifts from the unbearable silence of realization into something colder. Sharper. The Void. The fracture. What lies beyond .

"We have no idea what’s on the other side," Elias says, his voice level, but not calm. "Could be nothing. Could be everything."

Caspian exhales through his nose, rolling his shoulders like he’s shaking off something that unsettles even him. “Severin wouldn’t have taken them if he didn’t know exactly where they were going.”

Ambrose’s golden eyes flicker, calculating. “He got in. That means there’s a way out. It’s just a matter of finding it before he decides to use them against us.”

That thought chills me to my bones. Silas. Riven. Trapped somewhere outside of this world. Somewhere I can’t reach them, can’t feel them. My bond to them is nothing but a gaping wound where they should be.

Lucien is unreadable. He’s listening, but his mind is already ahead of us. Calculating. Strategizing.

I force the words out. “What do we know about the Void itself?”

Elias sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. “It’s a prison, a wasteland, a graveyard. All depending on who you ask.”

Orin watches me, expression unreadable. “It wasn’t meant to be touched. Not by us.”

“But it was.” I swallow hard. “Severin proved that.”

Lucien speaks then, and the room stills. “If he tore through it once, he can do it again.” His voice is low, edged with a kind of controlled fury. “And that means we can too.”

I hold his gaze. “So how do we get through?”

Ambrose hums, tilting his head. “That depends. If the Void is fractured, then the way in is unstable. It won’t be one passage. It’ll be shifting, closing, collapsing on itself. ”

Elias nods. “Which means the longer we wait, the harder it’ll be to follow.”

Orin’s fingers tap against his thigh. “And if we go in blind, we may not come back.”

I exhale, my pulse pounding. “We don’t have a choice.”

Lucien watches me for a long moment, something unreadable flickering through his eyes. Then he turns to Elias. “We’ll need time magic to track the exact moment the fracture was used. Can you do that?”

Elias scoffs. “I can try. Might kill me, though.”

Lucien doesn’t react. “Then don’t die.”

Ambrose smirks. “What a touching sentiment.”

Lucien ignores him, his gaze shifting to Orin. “And you? Can you drain whatever energy is left behind to stabilize the rift long enough for us to go through?”

Orin’s lips part, then press together. “I don’t know.” His eyes flick to me. “But I’ll find out.”

The plan comes together in sharp, clipped exchanges, no wasted words, no room for hesitation.

Lucien paces, his movements controlled, deliberate. “Orin, Ambrose, Caspian, you’re staying behind.”

Caspian, who has been watching the conversation with sharp-eyed amusement, scoffs. “The hell we are.”

Lucien ignores him. “Blackwell needs help containing what’s left of this disaster. The Academy is in ruins, the students are scattered, and the barrier is gone. We don’t know what else might slip through now that Severin has ripped reality apart. ”

Ambrose leans back against a broken pillar, arms crossed. “And you expect us to just play babysitter while you and Elias go marching into the Void?”

Lucien exhales slowly, his patience thinning. “Not babysitter. Damage control. If this place collapses completely while we’re gone, then whatever we find on the other side won’t matter.”

I glance at Orin, expecting him to argue. But he’s watching Lucien with a depth of understanding that unsettles me.

“You want us here in case you don’t come back,” Orin says, voice even.

Lucien meets his gaze without flinching. “I expect to come back. But I’m not arrogant enough to think it’s guaranteed.”

Ambrose studies Lucien with cool, predatory amusement. “That almost sounded like humility.”

Lucien’s lips curl, but there’s no humor in it. “Don’t get used to it.”

Elias sighs. “He’s right.” He tilts his head, cracking his neck. “We’re not all going. The Void is unstable, and if too many of us enter at once, we risk severing whatever passage still exists.”

I exhale slowly, my stomach twisting. “So it’s just us?”

Lucien nods. “You, Elias, and me.”

A pulse of something dark flickers through me. This is real. We’re going.

Orin’s gaze finds mine. “You’ll be the key to finding them,” he says, voice edged with something softer than usual. “The bond is severed, but if they’re still alive, you’ll feel them. You’ll know.”

I nod, swallowing past the weight in my throat. “I won’t stop until I do. ”

Lucien turns toward Ambrose and Caspian. “Hold this place together while we’re gone. And don’t do anything stupid.”

Ambrose smirks. “Define stupid.”

Lucien doesn’t take the bait. “We leave at dawn.”

Elias rolls his eyes. “Dramatic. You just don’t want to leave without making sure Luna sleeps first.”

Lucien doesn’t deny it.

I don’t argue. Because I’ll need it.

I move to stand at the edge of what remains of Daemon Academy, staring out at the abyss beyond. Somewhere out there, beyond this world, beyond the reach of my bonds, Riven and Silas wait.

If they’re alive.

No. I refuse to entertain anything else. They’re alive. I would know if they weren’t. Wouldn’t I?

Lucien has retreated into calculation, into his mind where things make sense, where he can strategize.

Elias drifts between exhausted silence and sharp, cutting humor, but I see the weight pressing down on him.

Orin and Ambrose still linger near the ruins, speaking low, watching the horizon.

Caspian has disappeared into the night, either dealing with his own thoughts or avoiding them entirely.

But me?

I am rage and resolve. I am loss and longing. I grip the hilt of the blade at my hip. Silas’s weapon. Riven’s fire. Pieces of them are still with me. But it isn’t enough. It will never be enough.

The Void is waiting. It whispers in the back of my mind, a gnawing presence, a call that I don’t understand. A promise. A warning.

I press my fingers to my ribs, to the bonds that no longer tether me to them.

The silence where they should be is unbearable.

Riven. Who fought like wrath incarnate, who held me in his arms with a violence that felt like safety.

Silas. Who was a disaster wrapped in illusions, who fell apart the moment he touched me, who is always a little too much and never enough all at once.

And they are gone.

I close my eyes and inhale, breathing in the ruin around me, the blood-soaked earth, the ash in the air. I will find them. I will tear through whatever Severin has built, whatever impossible prison he has constructed, and I will bring them back.

I don’t belong to him. And neither do they.

The wind shifts. Behind me, Lucien speaks. “Get some rest.”

I don’t turn to him. “I won’t sleep.”

A pause. “Then stand there all night. But when the sun rises, we leave.”

My fingers tighten around the blade. Dawn is coming. And with it, war .