All Chapters of The Binding: Chapter 71 - Chapter 77

The Thing that Steps ThroughSaxaWe all cram into Jana and Lief’s home, bodies filling every inch of the downstairs.The house isn’t built for meetings. It creaks like it resents all the boots, all the breath, all the voices layered on top of each other. Wolves sit on the arms of chairs, on the floor, leaning against walls, pressed into corners.No one is relaxed.They pretend, a little. A joke here, a snort there. But their shoulders tell the truth.Outside, the land is missing a piece.No amount of pretending changes that.Eirik stands near the hearth—not above us, not on a raised step—just there. The room orbits around him anyway.Jana sits behind Leif, one hand around his wrist like she’s tying him to this world with sheer stubbornness. Gran watches everything. Ingrid is angled toward the window as if she expects it to lunge.Kaia leans in the doorway, still as carved wood, her gaze distant. Elias sits cross-legged near my feet, chin tilted up, fingers tapping lightly against hi

The Year of No Turning BackSaxaWe don’t sing.No candles.No cake.No cheerful announcements.Someone shuts the door against the night like it personally insulted them.The house exhales.A trapped kind of exhale.I don’t sleep. Everyone else drifts off in layers—ingrid first, slumped in the chair like she fought the dark and lost, Jana last, her hand still wrapped around Leif’s wrist like she’s afraid he’ll dissolve into mist if she lets go.The house creaks in the way old houses do, like it remembers other winters, other nights like this.Eirik finally disappears down the hall after making one more loop through every room, like checking on us will keep the world together.It won’t.But I love him for trying.Elias and I end up sharing the couch again, feet tangled in the same blanket. We face opposite directions like little kids do—except neither of us is little anymore.Midnight crawls away, the house begins to breathe.And the question I’ve been holding for two months presses u

The Breaking PointSaxaThe second the door shuts my world explodes.Not outside.Inside me.I don’t remember crossing the threshold. I don’t remember walking past Jana or gran, or elias. I am suddenly just–Moving.My hands hit the table, hard.A mug tips. Crashes. Shatters.Somebody says my name.I don’t hear it.“He just–” my voice cracks upward into something too thin to hold. “He just walked up like he owns the world.”Another cup goes flying. Wood scrapes. The room jerks sideways.“He said daughter.” the word scalds my mouth. “He walked in here and said daughter like he gets to do that. Like he gets to STILL BE-”I don’t know what I throw next. A spoon, a bowl, a chair leg, it doesn’t matter. Everything feels wrong, everything feels too small. My chest won’t open. My ribs are cages nailed shut.Jana flinches. Gran goes completely still. Elias’ breath audibly catches.“I hate him—” it claws out of me. “I hate him, i hate him, I HATE HIM__”It doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like