Luna
This place is wrong.
And yet it wants me.
The stones beneath my boots pulse faintly, like they remember my name even if I never spoke it aloud. The trees arch in unnatural curves overhead, their roots half-buried in ash and half in something darker, something whispering. I can feel the land’s resentment, a steady burn beneath my skin like I’ve trespassed somewhere sacred and desecrated it just by existing.
But the pull is there too. Not desire. Recognition.
I’m not welcome. I’m needed.
So I keep my mouth shut.
Lucien and Orin walk ahead of me, their backs rigid with the weight of Branwen's chain. I don’t dare speak—not because I’m afraid of them, but because I’ve seen what happens when my voice reaches them. I saw Lucien’s nose bleed like his brain was trying to claw out of his skull just to escape the sound of me. I saw Orin’s hands tremble like the air around me was laced with poison.
So I walk. Silent. Listening.
Their conversation with Elias and Silas is clipped, cautious. Riven doesn’t bother speaking unless it’s to snap at one of them, and he’s close again, too close. I feel his gaze grazing my skin like a brand, constant and unrelenting, like he's waiting for me to disappear again. Like if I collapse one more time, he’ll burn the world down out of spite.
Lucien’s voice threads through the group like a blade—sharp, precise, meant to cut. I’d missed it. Gods help me, I had. That low, lethal cadence that always sounds like he’s calculating how best to dismantle you.
And Orin… he’s always given me his voice freely. Like he knows I won’t misuse it. Like he wants me to have it, even if it carves him hollow. I don’t think the others notice the way he walks just a few steps behind Lucien, as if shielding him even now, even when it costs him. Or maybe they do and no one wants to say it out loud—how Orin keeps giving parts of himself away and none of us know what’s left inside him.
Lucien won’t give me anything. Not willingly. Not kindness. Not comfort. Not truth. He speaks to me like I’m a problem he still hasn't solved, like he wants to scrape me off his boots and yet can't stop stepping in deeper. And gods, it hurts—because I don’t know if he’d even notice if I died.
No, that’s not true.
He would notice.
He’d be relieved.
The thought cuts deeper than it should, like I carved it on the inside of my ribs and now can’t stop bleeding from it. I try not to think about how my death would affect them, but it rises anyway—unasked, unkind.
Would Orin mourn me? Would he fold his hands and offer silence to the gods who never listened?
Would Elias crack a joke and fall apart between the punchlines?
Would Silas lose himself entirely—without ever making me promise to stay?
Would Riven tear the world in half?
And Lucien—Lucien would exhale like a burden had finally been lifted.
Wouldn’t he?
He glances back then. Just a flicker of movement. His eyes catch mine, just long enough to pin me in place, and something shudders in the space between us. Not warmth. Not hate. Just that unbearable thing that lives in the silence between enemies who could’ve been something else if the world had twisted just a little differently.
I drop my gaze before I fall into it.
Elias clears his throat like he’s about to say something stupid, and I bless him silently for it.
“So... is it just me, or does this haunted wasteland have a weird boner for ? Because I swear that rock just moved when she walked past it.”
Silas gasps dramatically.
“You mean I’m not the one this sentient death forest wants? Betrayal. Actual heartbreak. I feel used.”
The grin he throws me is crooked, ridiculous—and makes the whole world feel a little less heavy.
But the laughter dies fast, because the wind shifts. And the path that had been clear just moments ago has vanished into mist and shadow.
Daemon is remembering us again.
And it’s not in a kind mood.
We walk like we’re headed to execution. The worst part is—none of us say it. Not out loud. Not even in the sideways glances or clipped questions that might pass for care. But the truth lives in the space between our footsteps. It clings to our backs like shadow-spun chains, whispering what no one dares admit.
Lucien and Orin are walking to their doom.
It breathes between us like fog—damp, choking, inevitable. Branwen will take them because she can. Because her hooks already live under their skin and all she needs is proximity. A breath. A word. A slip. And she’ll own them again fully.
And what will I get back?
If we find Ambrose and Caspian—what shape will they be in? Will they even want to come back? What parts of them will Branwen have scraped raw, carved out, replaced with her poison?
What will I lose chasing them?
What have I already lost?
The thought slithers into me like venom, soft at first, then burning—what if I don’t get Lucien and Orin back? Not the versions I’ve fought beside. Not the ones who’ve bled for me. Who’ve resisted the pull of her command, even as it tried to tear them apart from the inside out.
What if this is the fracture?
The moment the prophecy rewrites itself. The moment the story decides I’m not enough. Not strong enough. Not right enough to hold them all. Seven deadly sins… bound to one human girl. One fragile, mortal girl who barely knows who she is on a good day and has no idea what she’s becoming.
Maybe the gods realized they made a mistake.
Maybe they sent Branwen to balance the scales. Another binder. Another center of gravity. Another mouth to whisper their names in the dark.
And I hate that I think it. That it makes sense.
Because I don’t feel ready to hold them all. I never have. Every bond tightens something inside me—makes me stronger, but also less myself. I’m not breaking, but I’m changing. And I don’t know where ends and what I’m becoming begins.
But still. Still.
I want them.
Even the ones who resist. Even the ones who look at me like I’m the blade pressed to their throat. I want Riven in all his fury, Elias in all his sarcasm, Silas in all his chaotic devotion. I want Orin’s silence and wisdom, his steadiness and shadows. I want Caspian’s unspoken loyalty and Ambrose’s knowing smirk that sees too much. And Lucien…
Gods, Lucien.
I want the one who hates that he wants me. The one who would rather rip himself apart than admit he feels anything at all. The one who snarls my name like it’s poison and still positions himself between me and every possible threat.
Even now, as we walk this cursed path, I feel him—not close, but close enough. Guarding me without admitting it. Silas chatters beside me, Elias makes crude jokes under his breath, and Riven scans the trees like they’re all about to come alive and attack.
But Lucien is there.
He always is.
And it’s that unshakable, maddening truth that makes my chest ache.
Because I know I’ll lose him.
Maybe not his life. But him—Lucien Virelius, the man who has never bowed to anything, will bow. Branwen will make sure of it. And when she does, when she cracks open that bond and drinks everything he is…
What will be left for me?
What version of him will come back?
What if I’m not enough to call him back at all?
The path doesn’t end. It swallows. A cluster of trees forms where there wasn’t one seconds before—gnarled limbs twisting together like fingers breaking bone, their bark black-veined and pulsing. Not with light. Not with life. But something older. Hungrier. Something that remembers us.
We all stop.
Silas bumps into me from behind, muttering a quie.
“shit—sorry,”
like he forgot how to walk again, his hand landing on my shoulder like he needs to confirm I’m still real. Elias curses under his breath, the sharp edge of humor gone from his voice. Riven goes still beside me, and I can feel the change in him—like a fuse waiting to catch.
Every instinct in me wants to ask what the fuck we’re looking at. Wants to name it, to defang it with language. But I know better. Lucien’s shoulders are tight, controlled in the way that means his Dominion is flaring under his skin. Orin’s eyes aren’t on the trees. They’re on me. Warning.
So I keep quiet. Even as the silence presses in.
The trees weren’t here before. This isn't natural. This is the Hollow's memory rearranging itself. Punishing us. Testing me. The limbs twitch. Shift. I feel something brush across my mind, slick and sweet and venom-laced. A whisper that doesn’t use words, just intent—come closer, little light. Come see what you were.
Elias steps up beside me, loud on purpose.
“Okay, so either the forest just developed a very dramatic flair for landscaping, or we’re all about to get sacrificed to a tree cult. Anyone packing holy water? Anti-druid spray?”
He says it like a joke, but there’s an edge under it. A tightness in his jaw that betrays how very not-funny he finds this.
Silas leans into me again, lowering his voice.
“You think if I start stripping, the trees will get shy and move?”
I don’t look at him. If I do, I might laugh—and I can’t risk even a whisper with Lucien and Orin this close. I just shoot him a look. He grins like I kissed him.
Lucien steps closer to the line of trees, not touching, just watching. I feel the moment Branwen pulls at him—his breath stutters, his eyes glaze for half a second, then he’s back, jaw clenched so hard I think it might crack.
Riven shifts beside me and finally says it.
“We can’t go through that.”
“Then where the hell do we go?”
Elias asks, his voice hard now.
“Back into the Hollow? The dead halls?”
Silas turns toward the edge of the trees, tilting his head like he’s listening to something we can’t hear.
“I think it’s showing us something. Not blocking us.”
I glance at him.
His grin is gone. He’s serious.
Riven moves forward first, slow, careful. He doesn’t touch the trees. He just circles. Testing. Feeling. I follow him with my eyes but don’t move. Not yet.
And then Lucien’s voice—quiet, low, almost strangled.
“It wants her.”
It takes everything in me not to respond.
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t need to.
“She doesn’t speak,”
Orin says beside him, calm, measured.
“She listens.”
Orin looks at me for the briefest second—just enough time for me to understand.
It’s going to make us choose.
This doesn’t make sense. Branwen’s waiting. That much is certain. We’re on the path she left behind—Lucien and Orin both pulled by the leash she still keeps wrapped around their throats. The Hollow obeys her. The ruin of Daemon echoes with her laughter. So why would the path—her path—suddenly seal shut with gnarled, writhing trees?
Unless it isn’t her doing.
Unless this place, this memory of a school that shouldn’t exist, is turning against her too.
Or us.
The idea wedges itself beneath my ribs. Sharp. Twisting. We were supposed to be the invaders. The trespassers. But what if the Hollow isn’t loyal to her anymore? What if it’s stalling us because it knows what’s waiting on the other side?
Or worse—what if Branwen’s stalling us?
The others are still arguing behind me, voices low and strained. Silas calls the trees rude. Elias offers to seduce them. Riven hasn’t stopped watching me since the branches began to grow. I feel his gaze like pressure against the back of my neck, like I’ve already done something he’ll kill me for.
But I don’t turn around.
I step forward.
The first tree rises like a beast on broken limbs, bark etched in curling, jagged runes that hum just beneath the surface. It isn’t magic—it’s memory. This place is remembering something. Someone.
Me.
I don’t speak. Can’t. Not with Orin and Lucien close enough to be ripped apart by a single word from my mouth. Branwen would hear it, feel it, use it. Twist it into something I can’t undo.
So I keep my lips pressed shut and raise my hand instead.
The tree leans.
Subtle. A shift of the trunk, a ripple through the branches. Like it’s watching me. Like it’s waiting. My fingers hover just inches from the surface, the air between us thick with static and something older. Wilder. Something that recognizes what I am becoming even if I don’t yet.
The moment before contact stretches impossibly long. The others stop speaking. The only sound is the wind dragging its claws through the dead leaves, and the pulsing whisper that isn’t a voice at all—but I feel it in my bones.
You are not hers.
The words are ancient. Carved not into language but existence. And they don’t feel like a warning.
They feel like a choice.
Behind me, someone shifts. Footsteps crunch. Riven’s breath cuts through the quiet. “.”
His voice is sharp. Not a plea. Not a command. But something tighter.
I don’t pull back.
Because for the first time, I don’t feel the Hollow pushing me away.
I feel it pulling me in.
And maybe that’s the point.
Maybe Branwen built this world to trap them—but I was never meant to follow her rules.
But I think…it’s more than that.
The thought uncoils in my skull, slow and suffocating, curling beneath every half-formed instinct I’ve been trying to ignore. If what I’ve learned about the Sin Binders is true—if we all come from the same ancient, blood-soaked line—then Branwen isn’t the anomaly. I’m not either.
We’re echoes.
Split from the same lineage, splintered across generations. And this place—this warped, haunted skeleton of Daemon—it doesn’t feel like it belongs to her.
It feels like it remembers me.
Not just my footsteps. Not just my voice. My blood.
The runes carved into the bark shimmer faintly beneath my palm now. Not with power. With recognition. Like this thing—this monstrous, living relic—was carved to obey one voice, and that voice isn't Branwen’s. Maybe never was.
What if the Hollow isn’t just reacting to Sin? What if it’s responding to the Binder? And what if it can’t tell the difference between us anymore because the difference doesn’t matter?
Branwen didn’t steal this place.
She inherited it.
Same as me.
The bark is rough. Cold. But it pulses beneath my skin, slow and thick, like a second heartbeat not my own. Magic coils around my fingers, not threatening, but familiar. Like a long-dead animal curling up beside me, deciding—for now—not to bite.
And then everything shifts.
The trees open.
No creaking, no snapping. Just a slow shudder as the trunks twist aside, the pathway beyond them reshaped in silence. The clearing ahead yawns like a mouth—and I feel it in my gut. The wrongness.
Because this time, it’s not Branwen waiting at the center.
It’s what came before her.
A structure rises out of the fog like bone built into cathedral—sharp, animalistic, primal. Not Daemon Academy. Not anymore. This is older than its stone. Older than memory.
It’s nestled in the ravine like a secret that shouldn’t have survived.
Stone and bone and twisted thatch, the village spills downward in uneven steps, each house perched on the edge of collapse but held together by some ancient, stubborn magic. The roofs are dark with soot, their chimneys coughing out smoke that doesn’t smell of firewood—but something older. Bitter. Metallic. The kind of scent you carry in your lungs for days after.
And between it all—lanes not paved but worn into the earth, paths packed by centuries of footsteps that no longer echo. The forest doesn’t end where the village begins—it wraps around it like it’s keeping the place trapped. Or protected. Or both.
The sky changes here. Colors bleed through in unnatural shades—bruised violets, sickled silvers. The clouds churn low enough to lick the tips of the cathedral spires, that massive, grotesque silhouette perched like a god above its supplicants. Its bells are silent, but I feel them vibrating in my chest, the memory of sound that hasn’t been heard yet.
Elias whistles low.
“Nope. I’ve definitely died here before in a past life. Probably after making a joke about someone’s goat.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,”
Riven mutters, arms crossed like they’ve been chained that way.
But it’s Silas who leans forward, eyes lighting like we’ve stumbled onto buried treasure.
“Tell me I’m not the only one who remembers this place.”
He jerks his chin toward the slope.
“That tavern right there—bottom of the hill, the one with the hanging sign shaped like a fang? They had ale that could make your bones sing.”
Lucien doesn’t look at him. He’s staring at the village like it’s a wound reopened.
“That ale was laced with powdered root and sinstone.”
Silas shrugs, grinning.
“Exactly. Fun.”
I don’t speak. I can’t—not with Orin and Lucien walking in range of my voice. But I feel the pull in my chest, stronger now. The place knows me. Not in name. In blood. Something in it sings to the part of me I’ve barely begun to understand—the part Branwen tried to take. The part that was never hers to begin with.