Page 183 of The Sin Binder's Destiny
At war.
Riven moves. There’s nothing subtle about Wrath when it wakes. He’s all speed and blood. His blade sings through the air, trailing fire, and when it connects with the dragon’s claw, it explodes into sparks that rain down like dying stars. The beast snarls, but Riven doesn't falter. Heleans in, twisting the blade deeper, eyes lit with that furious, righteous heat that makes him impossible to stop and even harder to look away from.
Caspian’s next. He justmoves—his whips lashing out in slick, violent arcs of violet light. They don’t just strike; theybind.Lust made flesh, pulling power with every snap of his wrist. One wraps around the dragon’s hind leg, the other curls around its throat, and for a moment, just a breath, the thing falters. Held.
Pride doesn’t charge—itcommands.Lucien walks through the debris like it parts for him, sword glowing with darklight, cloak snapping around his legs like shadow obeys him. When he swings, it isn’t with desperation—it’s precision, control, the impossible weight of someone who hasnever lost.He aims for the eyes. For the ego. The blade slices across the beast’s cheek in a clean line that doesn’t bleed—but ithurts.
The dragon roars, the sound splitting the air down to the stone.
That’s when Orin shifts.
He doesn’t draw a blade. Hedevours.Magic ripples outward from his chest like a silent shockwave, the ground crackingbeneath him in a hungry spiral. Gluttony isn’t about indulgence—it’sneed, it’sconsumption, it’s everything you’ve ever wanted and couldn’t have and finally take in one breathless mouthful. The dragon’s fire curves toward him, tries to consume him whole—and then vanishes into his palm like it was always meant to.
He exhales.
The vault shudders.
Silas laughs. He’s not fighting. Not like the others. He’s watching. His fingers twitch, mouth stretched into something between joy and hunger. Envy doesn’t lash out—itreflects.The gold around him warps, mirroring the dragon’s hoard back at it in glittering illusions. One. Two. Five. Ten. Until there are too many, until the beast’s hoard isn’t its own anymore.
And that’s what breaks it. It screams,furious, wings unfurling in a blaze of destruction.
And I’m still standing. Still watching. Still not moving.
Lazy, they say.
Sloth.
And maybe that’s what they see—me leaning against a collapsed column, daggers loose in my grip, half-smirking like I’m detached from it all. But I’mwatching.I’mtiming.Because that’s the trick, isn’t it?
My sin isn’t sleep.
It’spatience.
And when the moment opens—When Luna shouts my name and the dragon rears back, about to slam its tail through Caspian’s ribs and crush Silas beneath a wall of coins—
I breathe in.
And stop time.
The vault freezes in motion. Gold caught midair like glittering ash. Fire suspended in spiraling arcs. Riven’s blade frozen a breath from the dragon’s eye. Luna’s hair curled in wind that doesn’t move. She’s still. Perfect. Beautiful.
I step through it all. Calm. Smooth. Unbothered.
I touch Silas’s shoulder and shove him sideways. I tilt Caspian’s foot just enough to shift his stance. I whisper something in Luna’s ear I’ll pretend later I didn’t say. Then I draw both blades, press them to the dragon’s exposed throat, and smile.
Then Ilet go.
Time snaps back like a whip.
Silas crashes down behind a pillar with a gasp. Caspian pivots, landing clean and sliding under the tail’s path. Luna exhales like I pulled air from her lungs and gave it back.
And my blades slicedeep.The dragonscreams.Not in pain.
Inrecognition.
“Time-bent,”it growls, recoiling.“You cheat.”
I shrug. “I adapt.”
