Page 5 of The Sin Binder's (The Seven Sins Academy #4)

I should be furious. Should be clawing at the air, ready to tear into Caspian like I’ve done for far less. He stabbed her. He stabbed Luna. And not metaphorically—no, this wasn’t a betrayal wrapped in lies or loyalty twisted sideways. This was a blade, real and sharp and in her. Right near her heart.

But I’m not mad.

Because he looks like hell.

Caspian sits on the floor, legs folded in like a child who doesn’t know how to carry his grief upright. His knees are pulled tight to his chest, his bloodied hands outstretched and trembling, fingers twitching like they’re still trying to undo what they did. The silver stains his skin like guilt that doesn’t want to dry. And gods, the look on his face. It’s not blank, not shocked. It’s shattered. He’s drenched in shame, soaked through with it, and it’s so loud in the room I swear I can hear it humming off of him.

He reeks of it.

Not blood.

Guilt.

I lean against the archway across from him, one foot propped up on the wall, arms crossed like I’ve got nothing better to do than watch him fall apart. But I don’t speak. Not yet. Because there’s nothing I can say that would twist the knife deeper than he already has.

And Luna… my Luna… she’s resting. Breathing steady in her room. Pale, still, stitched back together by Riven’s careful hands and Ambrose’s begrudging, golden touch. She’s okay. For now. But it was close. Too close. I could feel her slipping. I felt it in the bond when she went still—like someone ripped a hole straight through my fucking ribcage.

And now?

Now we wait.

Riven’s pacing the hallway just outside her room, half his shirt soaked in blood that isn’t his and all of it useless fury. Ambrose sits like a storm behind glass, drinking something that isn’t helping, arguing with Riven in sharp, venom-laced phrases that don’t land the way they mean to. They both want to make sense of what happened. Both want someone to blame. Both think talking will fix what just tore through all of us like a blade.

But I already know the truth.

Branwen.

She vanished the second Luna went down, Lucien and Orin ripped from the battlefield like puppets on strings. Like the show was over and she didn’t want to deal with the aftermath. Classic fucking Branwen—make the cut, disappear before the bleeding starts.

And now we’re left to bleed for her.

I glance at Caspian again, still unmoving, still folded into himself like he can hide inside the cage of his own limbs. His eyes are fixed on nothing. Not Luna’s door. Not me. Not even the floor. Just… inward.

I almost feel sorry for him.

Almost.

But then I think about Luna’s blood on my hands, and my jaw tightens all over again. I push off the wall and walk over to him, stopping just short of his shadow.

“You ever touch her again,”

I say, voice low, too quiet, “and you won’t get the chance to feel bad about it.”

He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t blink. Just swallows hard and nods.

There are plenty of problems circling the Hollow like vultures. Branwen vanished with two of our strongest. Riven’s one sharp word away from splitting the world in half. Luna’s unconscious after almost dying.

But somehow, this—this new twist—is the worst of them.

Caspian says he’s no longer bonded to Branwen. Or he wasn’t, until the moment he stabbed Luna. It wasn’t just an attack—it was a binding. A new one. The blood on his hand, the cut he pressed to her wound—his blood mixing with hers as she bled out. It shouldn’t have done anything. It shouldn’t be possible. But we’ve never had two Sin Binders alive at the same time before. No one knows the rules anymore.

And now, apparently, Caspian’s half-bonded to Luna.

Half.

Which is almost worse than none.

He hasn’t spoken since the moment he yelled the bond was broken. And that—the silence—is what makes my skin crawl. Caspian’s never shut up in his life. He’s indulgent and smug and maddeningly dramatic. He talks. He makes everything worse by talking. And now he’s just… mute. Like even he doesn’t trust his mouth anymore.

“Say something,”

I snap, more for the sake of noise than anything. “Anything. I don’t care if it’s poetry or a death wish, but this whole brooding prince act is seriously fucking with me.”

Nothing.

Riven’s stops behind me, sharp, erratic steps that shake the cracked tile beneath his boots. He hasn’t looked at Caspian once. Not since the binding revelation came out of his mouth and settled over the room like poison. He hasn’t said it, but I know what’s circling inside him.

He doesn’t trust it.

And he sure as hell doesn’t trust Caspian.

Not now. Not with Luna still weak and the idea that someone—anyone—might finish the bond before she’s strong enough to defend herself.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t drag you outside and let him take a shot at you,”

I mutter, motioning behind me toward Riven, who lets out a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a growl.

Caspian finally looks up. Just barely. And the devastation in his eyes is worse than any smirk I’ve ever seen from him. It’s hollow. Cracked.

“I don’t want to finish it,”

he says, voice hoarse and barely there. “I didn’t want to start it.”

It lands like a punch.

Because we all know Caspian. He had to have wanted the bond with Luna. But this? This wasn’t seduction. This wasn’t strategy. This was something darker. Something wrong.

“I didn’t choose it,”

he adds, voice breaking.

And Riven stops pacing. Just watches him—eyes narrowed, teeth bared, every part of him coiled like he’s trying to decide whether to believe him or kill him where he sits.

And me?

I look between them, between the blood on Caspian’s hands and the war still echoing in the bond—

And I realize we’ve crossed into something new.

Something we can’t undo.

Because if Caspian’s telling the truth—if Branwen’s bond shattered when his blood hit Luna’s—then we’ve changed the rules of this war.

“She’s got a few days,”

I say, pushing off the wall with a sigh like I’m just tired of hearing myself think. “Let her decide what to do.”

The room doesn’t move, but it tightens. Every breath drawn feels like it has claws.

“You want her to finish bonding with him?”

Riven’s voice cuts across the silence like he’s already halfway to grabbing me by the throat. He doesn’t yell—he doesn’t need to. There’s enough threat in his tone to make the walls shrink. “He could kill her. You think this isn’t a setup? He could be here because Branwen left him to finish what she started.”

I shake my head before he finishes. Not because I don’t get it. Not because I’m blind to the risk. But because I was there. I saw it. And I’m the only one who’s not clenching his jaw like he wants to eat Caspian alive.

“I don’t think that’s what this is,”

I say quietly. “He could’ve stabbed her in the heart, Riven. He had the angle, the strength, the power. He had her.”

I pause, running a hand through my hair. My fingers come back sticky with blood that isn’t mine, and gods, I hate the way it feels under my nails.

“But he didn’t,”

I go on. “He hit her shoulder. It was high—too damn close—but still. If it were me? Under Branwen’s leash? If I wanted Luna dead? She would be.”

Riven doesn’t answer, but he turns slowly, pacing again, the kind of pacing that digs grooves in the ground. His magic sizzles in the air behind him, hot and impatient.

“I think,”

I continue, glancing at Caspian—still silent, still soaked in guilt, still not defending himself—“I think he flinched. Last second. Like something in him pulled.”

Ambrose mutters something from his corner, too low for me to catch. Probably a curse. Definitely disapproval.

But I don’t stop.

“Besides,”

I add, quieter now, walking the thought out loud, “Branwen. Why did she leave? Why didn’t she finish it? Why didn’t she make Caspian finish her off? She had Lucien. Orin. She could’ve used Caspian if she was still holding the bond.”

No one says anything.

Because the answer is obvious.

“I think she lost him,”

I say. “I think something snapped. Maybe it’s the dual binding thing—maybe it’s Luna’s magic pushing back. I don’t know. But Branwen doesn't walk away when she’s winning. She didn’t retreat. She ran.”

Riven stops pacing. His eyes narrow.

Caspian lifts his head just a fraction, like he’s hearing it too, feeling it—the shift in the narrative. From traitor to something else.

Something more dangerous. Something more ours.

Caspian’s voice cracks the silence like a whip—raw, brutal, too loud in a room that’s been holding its breath for too long.

“She’s not in my head anymore,”

he says. Quiet first. Like he’s confessing. But it builds. “I don’t know how it happened… but I can feel the bond trying to form with Luna.”

My gut tightens.

Riven doesn’t miss a beat. “So you get rewarded for trying to kill her?”

His voice is ice on stone—flat, cruel, and lethal.

“I didn’t fucking want to!”

Caspian explodes. He’s on his feet now, blood still crusted on his fingers, his face blotchy and uneven with rage. “It felt like I was stabbing myself! You have no fucking idea, Riven, what it was like—so please—spare me your judgmental superiority right now!”

His chest is heaving. His eyes are wild.

“I’m fucking broken,”

he spits, shaking. “Do you think I want to sleep with Luna?!”

That silences the room.

Even me.

I stare at Caspian, the wild edge of him I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. He’s not just angry. He’s unraveling. The kind of undone that doesn’t scream manipulation—it screams grief. Screams a man who was turned into something else and is only now starting to feel his own skin again.

He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes like he’s trying to press the memory out of his skull.

“I didn’t want it,”

he mutters. “Not like that. Not forced. Not on her knees. Not scared of me.”

I glance at Riven, who’s stone now, unreadable. That’s worse than fury. Because Riven feels. He burns. But right now, he’s still—and that means he’s considering the possibility that Caspian isn’t lying.

And gods help us all if he’s not. Because that means Branwen’s lost her grip. It means the rules are changing again.

And I don’t know who Luna’s going to be on the other side of this.

But I know one thing—I’m still going to love her. Even if every one of these beautiful, broken bastards burns the world down trying to.

“Let’s all calm down,”

I say, holding my hands up like I’m about to break up a bar fight instead of a gathering of the most powerful assholes on this side of the Hollow. “Riven, go talk to Luna about it. I’ll take Caspian back to his room, babysit him until she decides if she wants to fry him or forgive him.”

Riven doesn’t move. His jaw ticks, his gaze glued to Caspian like he’s waiting for one more excuse to end him. The kind of stillness that comes before a slaughter. But I step between them anyway, because someone has to be the voice of reason, and today, apparently, that’s me—God help us all.

“Look,”

I say, softer now, voice dropping like I’m trying not to spook a wounded animal. “Luna needs to wake up with her own mind, not yours in it. You don’t get to make this call for her. None of us do. If she decides to kill him—great. I’ll even hold him still. But that choice? That’s hers.”

Riven’s eyes flash, but I see the break in him. The restraint. He doesn’t like it. Doesn’t trust it. But he nods once. A curt, bitter slice of movement. Then he turns and storms out, the sound of his boots against the marble like war drums fading down the hall.

I exhale, slow.

Then I look at Caspian, who still hasn’t moved from the spot where he tried to vomit his soul out. His hands are shaking again. Or maybe still. I can’t tell.

“C’mon, Lust Boy,”

I mutter, gripping his elbow and hoisting him up. “Let’s get you tucked in before you accidentally start bonding with the furniture.”

He doesn’t resist. That alone scares the hell out of me.

As I guide him through the hall, the silence between us isn’t comfortable—but it’s honest. He doesn’t try to talk. I don’t joke. Not right now.

This is beyond what happened with Luna.

Yeah, the stabbing was the worst of it. Obviously. You don't skewer your maybe-almost-soulmate in front of a wrathful demigods and walk away with a slap on the wrist. But right now, as I watch Caspian shuffle beside me like his body’s still catching up to the horror of what he did, I realize something deeper's been gutted.

He’s like a bird with too much weight tied to its wings. Not frail. Not delicate. Just barely holding it together. The Caspian I know—the one who weaponizes seduction, who preens in front of any reflective surface like it owes him rent—he would’ve made a show of this. Shrugged, smirked, spun the guilt into something poetic. But this Caspian? He hasn’t said a word since we left the war room. His gaze stays low, steps shallow, like the ground beneath him isn’t real.

And suddenly, as we round the hall toward his door, it hits me.

“Oh shit,” I mutter.

Caspian glances at me, just the faintest flicker of interest. Like even curiosity costs too much right now.

I wince. “Did I…? I did, didn’t I?”

I’m talking to myself now. “Godsdammit, I definitely cleaned your room this morning.”

He stops walking.

“...You what?”

I throw him a grin, exaggerated and ridiculous, hoping it might un-glitch something in his brain. “I might’ve... done a little light redecorating while you were gone.”

His face doesn’t move, but there’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile. Not even close. But something. A ghost of the Caspian we knew before everything came undone.

I nudge the door open with my boot and gesture grandly. “Ta-da! Welcome to Casa de Veyd. Now featuring alphabetized potions, folded silks by color and emotional trauma, and—just for you—a fresh set of sheets not reeking of your usual musky tragedy.”

The door creaks open to reveal exactly what I feared.

Flawless.

I made it too perfect. The throws are arranged in cascading gradients. The books are stacked in meaningful symbolism. His incense is lit, and his bed… his bed looks inviting enough to make the most celibate monk reevaluate his life choices.

Caspian walks in, slow. Like he's afraid of breaking it. He doesn’t say anything. Maybe he just needs a clean place to fall apart. So I stay. I don’t leave, don’t fill the silence. I sit on the velvet bench near the foot of his bed and pull out one of the lemon pastries Elias smuggled from the kitchen.

And I wait.

Because the decision hasn’t been made yet. But whatever Luna chooses—he’ll need someone to help him stand. Even if it's just the chaotic idiot who reorganized his lingerie drawer by how likely it is to seduce a queen.

Caspian lowers himself onto the edge of the bed like he’s aged a thousand years in a day, and not in the hot, immortal, tortured-warrior way he usually carries himself. No—this is worse. It's cringe. His movements are slow, awkward, not quite dramatic enough to be purposeful. Just sad. And dirty. Gods, he's so dirty.

His coat’s stained—dried blood crusted down one sleeve, mud on the hem, a smudge of ash across his jaw like some poetic war paint that’s lost the war. And now he’s getting it all over the damn bed I cleaned this morning. Crisp linens. Perfect throw pillows. That stupid lavender sachet I stuffed under the mattress as a joke.

Ruined.

“Okay, that’s a hate crime,”

I say, grimacing. “You’re desecrating sacred ground. I spent hours on those sheets, Cas. Hours. You’re literally bleeding on my pride.”

He doesn't respond. Just sits there, spine curved, hands dangling between his knees like his bones aren’t sure how to hold him anymore. His eyes are on the floor. Or maybe somewhere past it.

I cross the room in three long strides and slap a hand to his shoulder, not gently. “Shower. Now. You smell like battlefield despair and betrayal. Which, yes, is probably accurate, but also gross.”

Still nothing.

“Come on, don’t make me get Elias,”

I add, crouching to meet his eyes. “He’ll try to bathe you himself, and no one recovers from that.”

Caspian finally blinks, just once. Then, hoarse, “I don’t want to be alone.”

It’s not a plea. Not even a whisper. But it’s real And it undoes something in me.

I soften, just enough. Still obnoxious. Still me. But my voice lowers a notch. “Okay, then we compromise. I stay in the room, and you go to the bathroom. You clean all this… existential grime off, and I sit out here and make sure no one plots a murder or a marriage while you’re naked and vulnerable. Deal?”

He finally nods, slow and stiff, and drags himself upright. The moment he turns his back, I mouth a silent thank the gods and start stripping the soiled bedding before it haunts me.

And as the door to the bathroom clicks shut behind him, steam already starting to roll beneath the doorframe, I toss the ruined pillow into the fireplace, flop backward onto the remaining clean half of the mattress, and sigh loud enough for the Hollow to hear.

“Please, Luna,”

I mutter. “Wake up soon. The emotional labor in this house is unsustainable.”

Ambrose

She sits up like death never touched her. No struggle, no groan of pain—just that sharp inhale as if she’s waking from a dream that followed her too far. The bandage on her shoulder, once soaked in blood, is now a useless afterthought. Elias’s stunt worked, for once—compressed time, isolated the injury, rewound the damage. Clean. Neat. Unnatural. She's whole again.

I wish I could say the same for the rest of us.

Riven stands to her right, arms crossed like he doesn’t want to be here, which would be more convincing if he weren’t so damn close to the bed. His jaw is tight, his words clipped as he lays it all out—Caspian’s fractured bond with Branwen, the attempted murder that looked a lot like a mercy kill gone wrong, and the strange, twisted half-connection now pulling him toward Luna like fate forgot whose side it was on.

She listens. Doesn’t interrupt. No dramatic gasp. No fury, no tremble in her spine.

Just a nod.

And then she asks, “Is Caspian okay?”

I blink.

Riven makes a sound like he’s been punched in the gut. He stares at her like she’s lost her mind. And me? I almost laugh.

Because of course she asks that. Of course the girl who bleeds and still walks asks about the man who made her bleed. Of course she’s thinking about him, about what it cost him, not just what it did to her. It's infuriating. Admirable. Na?ve. Dangerous.

“You’re asking if he’s okay?”

I murmur, voice low but laced with ice. “He stabbed you, Luna.”

She looks at me, slow. Calm. And it burns.

“And he stopped,”

she says, as if that changes anything. “He didn’t finish the kill. He pulled the blade out. He—”

“—left a hole near your heart,”

I snap. “Pardon me if that makes me question his redemption arc.”

Riven doesn’t say anything. He’s still looking at her like she’s speaking another language, one written in pity and madness.

But Luna… she just exhales. Looks down at her hand like it might give her answers none of us have.

“Something broke in him,”

she says softly. “And I think it’s the only reason I’m still breathing.”

I step back. Because I’ve been in enough negotiations to know when I’m not the one in control anymore. She’s already made up her mind.

And gods help us if she decides to give him a second chance. Because whatever’s coming next? It won’t be forgiveness. It’ll be fire. Wrapped in silk. Spoken in her name.

Riven’s voice doesn’t falter, but I can tell he hates the words as he says them. That rough edge under his usually brash tone isn’t anger this time—it’s fear. Or something near it. A feeling he doesn’t wear well. He stands near the foot of Luna’s bed, arms crossed, his weight shifting subtly as if his body wants to pace but his pride won’t allow it.

“The bond wasn’t completed,”

he tells her.

Luna sits upright, pale but steady, her fingers curling slightly into the blanket draped across her lap. She’s silent, absorbing each word, and I watch the way her throat bobs once. It’s the only sign of distress she gives.

She meets his eyes. “And?”

“And you have a few days,”

Riven says, jaw tight. “Before the magic turns in on itself. If you don’t complete the bond, it’ll try to consume you. You’ll get sick. Fast. There won’t be a second warning.”

A pause stretches between them, heavy and deliberate.

She breathes in like she’s going to speak, then stops. Rethinks. Finally, “So what are my options?”

I tilt my head. Curious, but not surprised. Of course she wants a choice. The illusion of control always tastes sweeter to those who’ve never had it.

“You complete the bond,”

Riven says. “And survive. Or… you don’t. And you don’t.”

“That’s not exactly a buffet of choices, Riven.”

“Welcome to being tied to a Sin,”

he snaps, and I catch the flicker of guilt that flashes through him immediately after. He doesn’t like snapping at her. That bond of theirs has made him softer around her edges, and that softness is fraying now, turning raw and afraid.

Luna looks away, just slightly, her gaze shifting to the side like she’s staring at something only she can see. Maybe she is.

I step forward from the shadows, slow, unhurried, my presence peeling into the room like smoke through a crack in the door. “You always wanted to be different, didn’t you?”

I murmur, letting my voice brush against the back of her spine, soft and sharp all at once. “Now you are. One bonded to three. One binding to a fourth. A thread pulled from the gods' own spool.”

She turns to look at me. No fire. No venom. Just that unreadable calm that drives me fucking mad.

“So what do you think I should do?” she asks.

I smile, slow and cruel. “Oh, darling, I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’m here to watch what happens when you do it.”

Riven mutters a curse under his breath and drags a hand through his hair, already at the edge of violence again.

She nods once, slowly. “Give me the time, then.”

And the way she says it—not begging, not bargaining—just final, like the decision is already unfolding inside her... it tells me exactly what I need to know.

She’s not going to choose between survival and power.

She’s going to make them the same thing.

isn’t usually the kind of chaos you take seriously. He’s the prankster, the interruption, the kind of manic distraction you throw at a wall just to see what sticks. But this? The way he’s looking at me—wide-eyed, panicked, actually trying to whisper like the hallway has ears—it’s enough to get my attention. That’s rare. So I follow him, if only to see what’s shattered his ridiculous composure this time.

He yanks me just far enough from Luna’s room that the door clicks shut behind us, then spins, hair a mess, voice pitched low and fast. “Okay, so don’t be mad, but I think I broke him.”

I stare. “You think you broke Caspian.”

nods like that’s a perfectly reasonable sentence. “He’s crying, Ambrose. Actual tears. Like... snot. It’s really gross.”

I narrow my eyes. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!”

he insists, hands up like I’m seconds from smiting him. “I mean—I was just watching him like you told me to! You know, making sure he didn’t go full dark prince and stab anyone else. I even brought snacks. But then I asked if he wanted to play cards—because I thought he needed a distraction—and he said something about his hands still being dirty from her blood, and then he just—”

flails. “Waterworks. Full meltdown. And now I’m... here.”

I close my eyes for one long breath. “You brought snacks to a trauma spiral.”

“Don’t say it like that,”

he mutters. “I brought his favorite. Those little salted caramel things. I’m trying.”

A muscle in my jaw tics. I shouldn’t care. Caspian’s unraveling is long overdue. He’s too composed. Too smooth. Something in him always begged to be cracked open—and now that he has been, the last thing I should do is patch it up.

But Luna will care.

And right now, everything revolves around her.

“Stay here,” I say.

“What if he stabs me?”

“Then I’ll let Elias laugh at your funeral.”

shudders dramatically but doesn’t argue. He presses himself flat against the wall like he’s a child avoiding a bedtime, and I slip down the hallway toward Caspian’s door. My hand lifts, hesitates.

Then I open it without knocking.

Because is right.

Caspian is crying. But it’s quiet. Contained. No sobs. No theatrics. Just him, sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped, face in his hands like he’s trying to disappear inside them. His body’s still that dangerous thing—coiled and long, nothing soft about it—but this version? The defeated one?

It’s almost worse.

I step in. The door clicks behind me. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even look up.

So I say, “Pull yourself together.”

Because I’m not here to soothe. I’m here to see what remains.

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even breathe different. Just flips on his side, a pillow that he pulls over his head like that’ll make him disappear—like if he can’t see us, we can’t see him crumbling. His back rises with shallow, uneven breaths, and his body stays tight, coiled in on itself like he’s afraid if he unravels, there won’t be anything left. His sobs, muffled under the pillow, are quieter now, but not gone.

And I hate that I can’t ignore it.

I step farther into the room, slowly, like I’m trying not to scare a wild animal. I don’t sit. I just watch him, this once-golden creature reduced to something brittle and shaking. He was always polished, smooth, always too good at looking composed no matter how much rot lurked underneath. But now that polish is stripped. Branwen didn’t just use him—she hollowed him out.

I knew he wasn’t in that bed by choice. But I didn’t think she could do this. Not to him. Not to the one who wielded desire like a blade, who used lust like armor. She didn’t just break him. She unmade him. And now he’s crawling in the aftermath, drowning in guilt that keeps looping back—guilt over Luna, over the blood on his hands, over Branwen’s voice still echoing somewhere in his head.

“I knew she was dangerous,”

I say, more to the shadows than to him. “But I didn’t think she’d get you like this.”

Still, he doesn’t move.

“She’s gone now,”

I continue, letting my voice go flat. “And you… you’re here. That has to mean something.”

He shifts slightly. Not enough to look at me. Just enough that I catch the edge of his voice—raw, exhausted, like he’s scraped the words out from someplace deep.

“She made me want it,”

he whispers. “Made me think I liked it. Sleeping in her bed. Obeying. Stabbing Luna. It was all her, and still... I didn’t stop.”

“You couldn’t,”

I tell him, and this time I do sit. On the edge of the chair nearest the bed. “That’s the thing no one wants to admit. You were under her. Not just her hand. Her power. She burrowed into your head until your choices weren’t your own. She possessed you. Not in the way I do. Not cleanly. She filthied it.”

A pause. His fingers tighten in the sheets.

“I still stabbed her,”

he mutters. “Still cut her open. Doesn’t matter if it was her voice or mine. Luna looked me in the eye. And I—”

“You flinched,”

I interrupt. “You missed the heart. You didn’t want to, and you didn’t. You’re here now. That’s the only reason she’s breathing.”

His voice breaks on a laugh that sounds more like a choke. “You think that earns me something?”

“No,”

I answer, leaning forward, letting my fingers lace together. “But it means you’re not past saving.”

He finally turns, just enough to glance at me, red-eyed and hollow. “And what do I do until then?”

“Sleep,”

I say. “Eat. Shower. Breathe. Stop apologizing.”

He stares. Then buries his face again in the pillow like he can’t handle hearing it.

I rise. Move to the door.

“You’re not forgiven,”

I say before I leave. “But you’re not abandoned either.”

Then I close it, leave him with the silence. He’s not the only one Branwen broke. But he’s the first to admit he’s shattered. That’s something.

It might even be enough to start putting the pieces back together.

is pacing like a madman outside Caspian’s room, his boots scuffing the ancient stone floors in a rhythm too erratic to be anything but agitation dressed in chaos. His shirt’s halfway untucked, and his fingers are doing that twitchy thing again—like he can’t decide whether to punch a wall or hug someone and call it a joke. When he sees me, he stops mid-stride, eyes flicking over my face like he’s trying to read the damage before I can say a word.

“Well?”

he asks, voice pitched low, but still unmistakably —coated in sarcasm, dipped in worry. “Is he dead, or just emotionally constipated?”

“He’s not dead,”

I say, dryly. “Though if he keeps wallowing, he might drown in his own guilt.”

lets out a breath and runs a hand through his hair, messing it up further like he’s punishing it for existing. “I tried talking to him. Told him some of my best jokes. Even did the thing where I pretend to be a ghost haunting his regret. Nothing. Guy just looked at me like I kicked a puppy.”

“He’s not ready for jokes.”

“He’s never ready for jokes.”

leans against the wall, head thunking back against the stone. “I don’t know what to do with him when he’s like this. He’s all…”

He gestures vaguely with both hands. “Feelings. And sadness. And like, poetic tragedy bullshit. I’m not built for that.”

“No,”

I agree, “you’re built for chaos, misplaced flirtation, and setting things on fire.”

“Exactly.”

He grins, briefly. “And charming the hell out of your girl.”

I glance at him, sharp. “She’s not mine.”

snorts. “You keep telling yourself that, Ambassador. Maybe one day it’ll be true.”

Before I can answer, the door behind me clicks shut. Caspian didn’t come out, but the weight of him still lingers in the air, heavy and haunted. I ignore ’s smirk, push off the wall, and start down the hallway.

“Where are you going?”

he calls after me.

“To see Luna,”

I answer, without turning around. “Someone has to tell her Caspian’s not going to slit his wrists with his own reflection tonight.”

follows, of course. He always does. A shadow made of noise and nonsense. But when he falls into step beside me, his voice drops.

“Do you think she’ll finish the bond?”

The question hangs between us like smoke.

“She has to,”

I say. “Or it’ll kill her.”

“But what if it kills her anyway?”

he murmurs.

I don’t answer. Because I don’t know.

But I know this: Luna has already survived things that should have broken her. And if she chooses to tether herself to Caspian—to that blood-soaked bond still pulsing between them—I’ll be there to make sure she survives again.

I pause outside Luna’s door, one hand resting on the polished wood, and take a breath I don’t need. She’s just inside, probably sitting upright with that too-calm expression she wears when she’s already picked her answer and is waiting for the rest of us to catch up. That’s what she does—lets the world fall apart around her while she stands in the middle, daring the wreckage to touch her. But this? This will touch her. Caspian always did.

She asked if he was okay.

That question keeps chewing at me like something rotten. She bled for him. Nearly died because of him. And still—still—she asks if he’s all right, like her heart forgot who it belongs to. Or maybe it just never learned how to protect itself in the first place.

I could lie to her. Tell her he’s healing. That he’s quiet. That he’s eating and sleeping and not curled up in his bed like a child who’s lost more than his dignity. But the truth is a different beast entirely, one I don’t know how to deliver without it baring its teeth.

I step inside. She looks up immediately, those stormy eyes locking on me with the kind of focus that makes a man feel dissected.

“Is he okay?”

she asks again, softer this time.

I sit on the edge of her bed, ignoring the way Riven’s hackles raise across the room. He stays silent, because we both know Luna will decide, not him. I study her face—no tears, no cracks. But something flickers behind her gaze. Guilt, maybe. Or something more dangerous.

“Physically, yes,”

I say carefully. “He’s not bleeding. Not unconscious. Not dying.”

Her shoulders ease, just slightly.

“But his mind?”

I continue, and my voice sharpens around the edges. “That’s a different matter. He’s unraveling.”

Her lips part, but no words come.

I lean in, resting my forearms on my knees. “Branwen didn’t just use him. She broke him. Every command. Every time she pulled the strings. Every time she made him touch her, made him smile through it. It’s not just guilt for stabbing you, Luna. It’s the shame of waking up and realizing he’s been hollowed out and filled with someone else’s will.”

She exhales shakily, and I see it—the moment the empathy strikes. Her fingers curl into the sheets. Her gaze drops.

“He thinks he doesn’t deserve you,”

I add. “And honestly? He might be right. But that doesn’t stop the bond from pulling him toward you anyhow.”

Her voice is barely above a whisper. “Did she… command him to stab me?”

“Yes,”

I say finally. “She told him to finish you. But that moment… the hesitation? That was his. He flinched, Luna. He didn’t stab you in the heart because somewhere in that fucked-up wreckage of his mind, he still chose you.”

She nods, once. Then again, slower.

“And now,”

I finish, “you have to decide if you’re going to let that bond complete itself. Or let him break all over again.”

And I wonder—how many more of us she’ll have to save before she realizes she’s the one bleeding dry.