34. Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Four
Felix
I woke to dripping.
Not mine, for once. Real water, persistent as a torturer. It counted time into a shallow puddle by my ear—drip, drip, drip—until I considered prying out one of the rusty nails in my bench and hammering it into my skull just to stop the rhythm.
The dungeon smelled like a grave: mildew chewing the air, iron thick as pennies, and the sour aftertaste of blood.
Torches burned green with Riftlight, sputtering as the wards drank and hummed beneath the stone.
The Vyrmin down the hall shifted now and then, claws dragging a rhythm out of sync with the dripping, a scrape like a blade testing its own edge.
Fen snored in the corner, light and dainty. Most would call it sweet. I called it an insult that she slept like a pampered cat in this pit.
So when I heard a chain scrape next door, I thought maybe the dripping had finally made me hallucinate. Then a muffled curse, raw and low.
“Fuck you.”
Ah. Eva was awake.
“Eva?” I rasped, shuffling to the bars despite the ache where a Vyrmin had tried gnawing my ribs. “It’s Felix. Fen and I are here—next cell over.”
A pause. Then, sharp as a blade: “You knew.”
It wasn’t the venom that cut me. It was the pain strung through those two words.
“What did we know?” I held up my hands through the bars, palms open, placating like she was a spooked animal—and she was, wasn’t she? A cornered one, bleeding and betrayed.
She limped forward into the torchlight, one eye swollen near shut, wrists torn raw by iron cuffs. She was pale, filthy, furious. “Don’t lie to me. You knew about him. About Drake. About all of it.”
Fen pushed to her feet behind me, bristling. “Eva, you’ve been hurt. Drugged. You’re not—” Her voice still sounding rough will sleep.
Eva laughed, a sound like shattering stone. “Fuck you. No more lies. No more.”
I pressed my forehead to the bars, breathing slow. “Eva, tell me what you think you heard.”
Her words tumbled sharp, broken. “Julian, Drake, whispers about what a good actor he was. Every kiss, every touch, all a job. A con.” Her breath hitched; her nails cut crescents into her palms until blood welled. “He never wanted me. Not really.”
That was the twist of the blade.
I let my head thunk once against the bars. “Eva,” I said, flat, “Drake’s in love with you.”
She laughed again, sharp, ruined. “Don’t. Don’t say that.”
Fen crouched near the bars, voice steady but softer than I’d ever heard. “It’s true. I’ve known him half my life. He’s never looked at anyone like he looks at you.”
Eva shook her head, trembling. “He was faking it.”
“Think,” I pressed. “You’d already agreed to Riftreach. What did he gain pretending? Why risk weeks of his neck for a con that makes no sense?” I gentled my voice. “Eva, that pull between you—it wasn’t your imagination. The Rift noticed.”
Her gaze snapped to mine. “The Rift?”
“Yeah.” My throat was tight, words sticking. “It has… motive. Once in a while, it threads two people together so tight neither can shake it. That’s a bond.”
She recoiled like I’d named a curse. “No.”
“Yes. And not the kind you’ve read about in Ness’s tomes. Not a chain. This one’s rarer. Stranger. A love bond.”
Her lips shaped the word like it burned. “Love?”
Fen’s voice was almost a whisper. “It means you chose first. The Rift didn’t force you. It followed.”
Eva’s breath stuttered. Then her face hardened. The stone hummed. Not the wards this time. Deeper. A pulse. A heartbeat that wasn’t mine. Wasn’t hers.
Eva’s body arched. Muscles spasmed as if the Riftlight itself tried to crawl under her skin. Her eyes rolled back, white catching the green torchlight. Chains rattled as she fought both vision and ward.
“Eva!” Fen gripped the bars, but the wards sparked, hissing against her hand.
Eva convulsed, breath torn from her throat. Then, a whisper: “D-Drake… I feel him. He’s coming.”
The Vyrmin outside hissed, retreating a step. The torches guttered, shadows bending like they knew the name too.
I stared at her, helpless, as the pulse hit again—stronger, closer—and realized whatever truth I’d meant to finish had just been cut off by the Rift itself.