Page 197 of The Sin Binder's Destiny
Something that sounds likehers.
I step back into the shadows before she can catch me watching again.
The crest carved into the obsidian pillar is wrong. I don’t need to study it. I knew it the second my gaze swept over it. The lines are clean, the geometry nearly flawless—but there’s a tilt in the central ring, a subtle warping of the balance that throws everything off. Branwen’s imitation is clever. Almost convincing. But not enough.
I should mark it. Move on. Focus.
Instead, I stay.
Because she’s still in my periphery.
Luna.
And gods forgive me—Ilether stay there.
She’s bent over slightly, scanning the crest etched into another pillar, fingertips ghosting along the ancient grooves like she’s reading a forgotten scripture. The runes hum for her, drawn to her presence, glowing the way they never glow for anyone else. She moves with that careless, devastating grace she doesn’t even seem aware of—like she’s the eye of the storm, and the rest of the world rearranges itself just to orbit her a little longer.
She’s a fuckingmasterpiece. Every line of her—intentional. Every shadow that curves across her skin—holy. And whatever flaws she might carry, she wears them like they’re just another form of armor. Beautiful. Brutal. Inviting you to bleed if you dare touch.
And I do dare.
That’s the worst part. Because wanting her is a war I didn’t prepare for. The others love her openly. Silas fawns. Riven burns. Caspian aches. Even Elias, for all his snark and flinching humor, craves her with the kind of devotion you can’t fake. They reach for her because they can. Because they’ve alreadyfallen.
I’m the only one still trying toresist. Because I know what I become when I love something. And I refuse to become that manfor her. But watching her now—head tilted, lips parted slightly as she reads, her magic flaring faintly beneath her skin like it wants to be seen—I feel the unraveling. Slow. Silent. Complete.
I’m not immune.
Not to her.
Not anymore.
My hand is resting against the false pillar when I feel movement at my side. A familiar one. Orin, of course. He’s always where no one else is looking—except me. I feel him there before he speaks, and still, I brace.
“You’re not reading that pillar,” he says, quiet, calm, just short of amused.
I don’t look at him.
“And yet I’m standing in front of it.”
“Ah. Sothat’swhat passes for subtle these days.”
He folds his hands behind his back like we’re in some diplomatic court, not trapped in a collapsing pocket realm built from the bones of our past mistakes. He doesn’t push. Orin never pushes. He merely exists long enough for the truth to rise on its own.
“I know what I’m doing,” I say, finally.
“I don’t doubt that.” He pauses. “I’m only curious if you know what you’refeeling.”
I give him nothing. But the silence answers him anyway.
Orin turns, glances over his shoulder toward Luna—who hasn’t noticed us. She’s laughing at something Silas said, though she doesn’t turn fully toward him. It’s the kind of laugh that’s half real, half reluctant. The kind that hides something sharper beneath it.
“She sees everything,” Orin murmurs. “Even the things you think she doesn’t.”
“I don’t need her to see me,” I mutter.
“Then why do you look at her like that?”
That stops me. I let the pillar go, the hum of magic beneath my palm fading like it’s been dismissed. Orin steps back into the shadows without waiting for a reply, leaving me there with a pillar I never wanted to study, and a woman I can’t stop watching.
