21. Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty One
Eldrake
The Mirror Room door clicked shut behind me, and I didn’t stop walking until I hit cold stone and silence. I braced my hands on a table in the archives, chest heaving like I’d just fought something. Maybe I had.
Her. Us. It. A Riftbond.
Gods.
I’d felt it snap in that Gods-damned truthroom.
Not during the bathhouse, like I’d feared. That night had only frayed the cord—lit a match near it. But this… this was the fire catching.
The Rift didn’t whisper this time. It shouted. Us—laid bare. Not in skin, but in soul.
Every thought I’d buried. Every vision I’d forced down. The things I swore I wouldn’t let myself want, not really. They bled out into crystal walls like confessions. Like prophecy. Like punishment.
Her pain. My longing. That field. That child.
I pressed my palms to the stone harder, as if pressure could force it all back inside.
It wasn’t just desire. That’s what terrified me. If it were only hunger, I could survive it. I’d survived worse. But this ? This was tether. This was soul-threading. This was the Rift choosing— for us .
“Riftbonds were rare. Unpredictable. Dangerous.” And most of them didn’t end well.
Some burned out—slowly, over years, both parties drained by jealousy and lust until they were shadows of themselves.
Some detonated—one half dying and the other following in a flare of magic too big to control.
Some… changed . Not just magic. Lineage .
Riftborn children born of bonded pairs were said to carry the Rift inside them . Not just tethered, but core to their being. Unstable. Unstoppable. Twisted by power they hadn’t earned. It was one of the reasons bonding was forbidden before the Great Change.
I had read the reports. I’d seen the transcripts.
“He lost her in battle. Two minutes later, the sky cracked open and swallowed the command tent. Nothing remained. She tried to cut the bond. It took half her village with it. Their child disappeared at three years old. The Rift flared for weeks, killing anyone that came within ten miles of the village.” I looked down at my hands.
They were shaking. Not from fear of death.
From fear of what I might do to her. Eva didn’t know. She couldn’t know.
To her, the vision had been erotic. Embarrassing. A magical slap in the face from her own subconscious. She had no idea what it meant. That the Rift doesn’t show you what you fantasize . It shows you what you’re already building. Quietly. Permanently.
And in the bathhouse, when I pulled her into my lap, when I kissed her like I needed her to live—that’s when it snapped into place. I had already felt it then. The pull. The thrum. But I’d lied to myself. Told myself it was control unraveling.
It wasn’t. It was us becoming something I couldn’t undo.
And now? Now I was standing in an empty room, trying to breathe around the weight of it.
Part of me wanted to stop fighting. To let the Rift drag us under together and call it fate — because I wasn’t scared of loving her.
I was scared I already did. And that loving her meant I could destroy her—just by existing.
I looked down at the table. At my reflection warped in the polished obsidian.
My eyes were wild. My skin pale. My lips still tasted like memory.
I couldn’t tell her. Not yet. Because once I did, it would be real for her too.
And then we wouldn’t be two people in want anymore.
It would just be taking away another one of her choices that she deserves to make.
We’d be two halves of something the Rift designed . And nothing good ever came from letting it choose for you.
After hours combing the archives for anything— anything —that spoke of a Riftbond ending well, I came up empty. Every account ended in ruin or madness, every warning repeated until my head throbbed. Sleep would serve me better than chasing ghosts.
I trudged back through the tunnels toward the ship, the damp stone dripping overhead like a clock counting down. When I pushed through to the mess hall, I found something worse than exhaustion waiting for me.
“Eldrake.” Fen’s voice wasn’t sharp. It was cold. And that was worse.
She and Felix sat at a shadowy table in the corner of the mess hall, twin expressions of “we know what you did” carved into their faces.
Shit.
I stopped three steps away, bracing for the hit. “Evening,” I said carefully.
Felix didn’t return the greeting. “When were you going to tell us?”
“Tell you what?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“That you left our fucking squad over a chance to get laid,” Fen snapped, low and vicious. “Seriously, Eldrake? You ditched us for a girl?” Her words weren’t loud—but they carved straight through my chest.
“Julian told us this morning,” Felix said, his hand moving to Fen’s shoulder like he could temper the sharp edge of her glare. “We thought it was a joke.”
I exhaled slowly. “I was going to tell you?—”
“You should’ve told us first,” Felix cut in, his warmth sharpened by hurt. “We’ve followed you through fire, Drake. And you vanish to play house without a word? Not your best moment, love.”
“This isn’t just about Eva.” I sighed, preparing.
Fen leaned forward, eyes blazing. “Then what the hell is it about?”
I hesitated. Because this was the part that changed everything. I sat down, the guilt sinking in like cold water. My voice came quiet, but heavy.
“I think my Dragonblood finally… chose someone.” Felix stiffened. Fen blinked once. “I think… I bonded.”
Silence.
“You what ?” Fen said, like she’d misheard.
I nodded once. Slow. Felix’s face went blank. Not calm. Not composed. Just emptied.
“You don’t mean—” Fen started.
“Eva,” I said. Another silence. This one louder than shouting.
“She doesn’t know,” I added quickly. “She can’t. Not yet.”
“Of course she doesn’t. Because you’ve been too busy sneaking around, too busy letting her curl up in your lap and forgetting the rest of us exist.”
“Julian thinks I’m pretending to seduce her for the mission,” I said. “If he finds out it’s real—if he finds out I’m bonded—I lose her. Pulled off her protection detail. I’ll lose everything . I’m not letting that happen.”
“You bonded,” Felix repeated quietly. “Drake… that’s not a feeling. That’s a fuse.”
“I know.”
“This could blow everything wide open.”
“I know .”
Fen leaned back, arms folded like armor. “And what then? You marry her? Pop out little Dragon-Seer kids who torch the curtains?”
“ Fen— ”
“You bonded, ” she snarled. “Without telling us. Without thinking. And now the Rift owns you.”
I met her eyes. “You think I don’t hate that? You think I wanted this to happen?”
“That’s the problem,” she said flatly. “You did. ”
Felix sighed, rubbing his temples. “Look. I get it. She’s fierce, she’s beautiful, she makes soup. You’re a goner. But lying to us?” His voice softened, almost sad. “That’s what stings, big guy.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “I’m going to tell her,” I said.
“When?” Fen demanded.
“Tomorrow.”
Felix arched a brow. “Tomorrow as in actually tomorrow, or the Drake-special brand of ‘tomorrow’ where you mean never?”
“I’ll ask her to dinner,” I said.
Fen’s mouth twisted. “Oh, great. A date. That fixes everything.”
“I don’t know how else to do it. I want to tell her in a way that matters.”
Felix’s golden gaze softened, though his words didn’t. “She’s already bonded, love. She’ll hear it whether she wants to or not.”
They were both quiet after that. The worst part? They weren’t wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I said at last.
Fen didn’t answer. She shoved back from the table and stalked off, boots echoing sharp against the stone.
Felix stayed. He watched her go, then turned back to me with a sigh. “You’re lucky we love your dumb ass,” he said.
I huffed out a bitter laugh. “Doesn’t feel like it.”
“It’s not supposed to,” he said. “Not when you’ve fucked up this badly.” He clapped my shoulder and left me in the echoing silence.
My hands still trembled.
If we can’t be apart, we might as well be together.
The thought settled in my chest like a weight I hadn’t asked for—but couldn’t put down. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. A single line was all I had the nerve for. More than that would betray the quake still running under my skin.
Tomorrow. 7pm. Date?
—D.
I folded the note and stuffed under her door. One message, one promise. Now all I had to do was live up to it.
Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.