When the first Binding Pin was drawn out, I thought I was going to die.
It wasn't pain. It was molten iron poured straight into my meridians, grinding through me inch by inch along the seams of my bones. I knelt before my parents' graves, my fingers gouging into the earth, blood dripping from the corner of my mouth onto the headstone.
Tristan finally panicked. "Stop!"
He rushed forward, but Caleb raised an arm to block him. Tristan's eyes were red-rimmed. "She'll die!"
Caleb looked at him coldly. "Now you're afraid she might die? Were you afraid when you smashed her head open and made her kneel on broken glass? Were you afraid when she was being threatened with her sister's severed finger? Were you afraid when she was forced to put on mourning robes for a dog?"
Tristan froze where he
