37. Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Seven
Evandra
I gasped as I slammed back into my body.
The dungeon reassembled around me in jagged, overwhelming pieces—stone, rust, blood, mold.
It was all too real, too loud. But none of it could drown out what I’d just seen.
Not the sickly glow of the Vessel. Not the voice of the God made of shadow and rot.
Not the words that had hooked into my chest and refused to let go.
The soul of the Dragon.
The phrase echoed in my bones, vibrating with truth I wasn’t ready to face. Vyper asked Azh’raim how to control me—how to own me. And the answer was Drake.
My head throbbed. I clutched at my temples, fighting the tide of memory.
But worse than the vision was the feeling that had followed it.
A pulse, like a second heartbeat—not mine, but his .
I’d felt it. Not just through memory. Through something more.
Something alive. A tether between us, suddenly sharper. Thicker.
My stomach turned.
“Eva?” Fen’s voice came through the fog. “What happened?”
I looked at her, and for once, words didn’t come easily. “I saw him,” I said at last. “Vyper. In the chamber. He was communing with Azh’raim through the mirror.”
Even saying the name sent a ripple of nausea through me.
“He asked how to control me. And the God told him the price. He said Vyper would have to offer what I desire most.”
A pause.
Fen’s mouth tightened. “Drake.”
I nodded slowly. “He knows about the bond.”
I waited for their reactions—shock, confusion, disbelief. But none came. Instead, they exchanged a look. “Tell me what it means,” I said quietly. “The love bond. Tell me more. I need to understand.”
Felix looked at me, and for a moment, he hesitated—like he was deciding how much of the truth to soften. Then he sighed and crouched beside me.
“There are a lot of kinds of Riftbonds,” he began.
“Most of them are… well, trash. They form in battle, in bed, in trauma—pick your poison. Burn hot, burn fast, and usually burn someone alive. But your kind?” He tipped his head, a faint, crooked grin on his filthy face.
“Rare. The archives call it a love bond. Not lust. Not obligation. Resonance. The Rift sees two idiots choosing each other completely and goes, ‘Oh, sweet, let’s immortalize that drama.’”
“And how do you know which one it is?” I asked, voice hoarse.
Felix smiled faintly. “That’s the thing.
You don’t know right away. But there are signs.
Emotional bleed, stronger when one of you is being a reckless dumbass.
A magnetic pull when you’re apart. Dreams. Visions.
Sometimes, if the Rift’s feeling spicy, you even get flashes of each other’s perspective.
” He arched a brow. “Tell me you’ve never peeked out of his eyes? ”
I blinked. “What?”
“Some bonds allow flashes of shared perspective,” Felix said softly. “It’s rare, but it happens.”
And I thought of it—Colin’s death through Drake’s eyes. My fall off my horse, seen not from me but him. Gods. How long had the Rift known? How long had Drake?
I looked down at my shaking hands. “Why didn’t anyone tell me this could happen?” They exchanged another knowing look.
“Wait,” I said slowly, cold blooming in my chest. “You knew?”
Felix winced. “Eva?—”
“You knew.” I suppose they must have guessed about the bond. But I hadn’t let myself see it—that they knew, and stayed silent. And Gods, that silence hurt most of all.
Fen blew out a breath and dragged a hand through her dark hair. “Drake told us. Before we left.”
“You didn’t think I had the right to know?” I snapped.
“We didn’t know if it was real-real,” Felix said quickly. “Drake wasn’t sure, and you were still recovering. He said he was waiting for the right moment. Which, for the record, spoiler alert—there is never a right moment to tell your girlfriend, ‘Surprise, cosmic marriage contract.’”
My pulse spiked. “So instead of letting me decide for myself, you just let him sit on it? Like it wasn’t my life?”
“Eva—” Fen started.
“No.” I pushed myself upright, wincing as my wounds protested. “You don’t get to defend this. This bond—whatever it is—it connects my soul to his. That’s not a small thing. That’s not something you keep to yourself.”
Silence.
Felix stood in his cell. “You’re right,” he said softly. “We messed up.”
The admission made something inside me unravel just a little. I looked down at my trembling hands. “I felt it,” I whispered. “Earlier in my vision. Something pulsed. Like a second heartbeat. Like he was—like he was there. ”
Felix nodded. “That’s how you know. Love bond.”
I stared at the floor. “He should have told me.”
“I think he was scared,” Felix offered gently. “Not of the bond—of losing you. Of what it might mean if you didn’t want it.”
I let out a breath, shaky and raw. “I don’t know if I do.”
Fen raised a brow. “You don’t want to be bonded to him?”
“I don’t know what I want!” I shot back. “I don’t know if this feeling is love or if it’s fate. What if it’s the Rift making choices for me?”
Felix gave a little half-smile. “Then let me ask you this. If the Rift didn’t exist—if there was no magic, no fate, no bond—would you still want Drake?”
The answer came faster than I expected. “Yes,” I said. “Of course I would.”
“Then it doesn’t matter,” Fen said, voice soft but firm. “Rift or not, you already chose him.”
I looked at her, then at Felix, the heat in my chest shifting. It wasn’t anger anymore. Not fully. It was the weight of knowledge, settling in like a new gravity.
“So what now?” I asked. “Vyper’s going to use this. He thinks Drake is my weakness.”
“He’s wrong,” Fen said. “Drake is your anchor. You just proved it—by reaching for him across the bond.”
Felix smiled. “And if I had to bet on someone turning a bond into a weapon against the Gods, it’s you.”
I swallowed hard, heart pounding. “Then let’s make sure Drake survives long enough to see what happens when the Rift chooses love.” I thought for a moment. “I have to warn him,” I said, my voice low but urgent. “He doesn’t know. He’s walking straight into Vyper’s hands.”
Felix blinked. “Eva?—”
“He doesn’t know what they’re planning,” I snapped. “He thinks we’re just bonded in the usual way—whatever that even means. He doesn’t know they’re using him to get to me.”
Felix blinked, then softened. “Eva—look, I love your ambition, but logistics. We’re locked in a moldy box. You can’t even stand, let alone storm the gates. So how exactly do you plan on warning him?”
“I don’t need to stand.” I closed my eyes. “I just need to find the thread.”
The silence around me sharpened as I pulled inward. The dungeon fell away—the cold, the pain, the stink of old blood. All that remained was the tether. That sliver of silver warmth in the dark. It pulsed like a heartbeat. Not mine. His.
The bond wasn’t faint anymore. It had swelled—alive and bright, responding to danger like it could sense something hunting us through the dark. My pulse matched it, syncing to a rhythm that wasn’t entirely my own.
Drake , I whispered down the thread. Please… hear me.
My fingers curled around the bars beside me, grounding myself in the pain. I clung to the memory: the Vessel’s glow, the God’s growl, Vyper whispering about “the soul of the Dragon.” I gathered the vision like a flame cupped in my hands and shoved it down the tether—hard.
It was like trying to force a letter through the eye of a needle. The wards squeezed tight, crushing the magic until it felt like I was shoving fire through a pinhole. My ribs ached, my throat tore, and still I pressed harder, harder, until something gave.
The surge roared up through me—burning behind my eyes, splitting my skull. Gods, it hurt. But beneath the agony I felt him. Somewhere far away. His breath catching. His mind reacting.
Come on, I begged silently. Feel it. See it.
A sound escaped me—half gasp, half sob—as the current slammed back through me like a wave. I collapsed against the stone wall, panting.
When I opened my eyes again, the world tilted sideways.
“I don’t know if it worked,” I whispered, pressing a hand to my chest. “But I had to try.”
Fen crossed her arms and leaned against the bars, her eyes sharp with resolve. “Then we buy him time. However we can.”
Felix nodded, rolling his shoulders like he was limbering up for a tavern brawl. “Fine. We get out. We find the armory. And then we make Vyper regret he ever learned your name. Maybe even regret he was born, if we’re feeling ambitious.”
I pulled myself upright slowly, ignoring the scream of my bruised muscles. Something was shifting inside me—some deeper layer of my Rift opening like a second skin. Not just to protect myself. To protect him . “Fen—tell me more about that pit you saw.”
Her expression darkened. “It’s near the guard barracks. Riftborn prisoners. Dozens. Maybe more. Some looked too weak to stand.”
“We can’t leave without them,” I said. “We don’t just escape. We liberate .”
Felix frowned. “We’ll need weapons. I’m good with my fists, sure, but I’m not that good. You try defending fifty half-starved prisoners barehanded and see how long you last.”
Fen nodded grimly. “I’ve been watching the guards. There’s a gap in the patrols just after the next shift. If we time it right, we can slip into the supply room and grab enough blades to arm a dozen fighters. It’s tight, but it’s there.”
My jaw clenched as I pushed to my feet again, swaying once before catching myself on the bars. “Then we prepare.”
The chains at my ankles clinked softly, like a warning.
I looked toward the heavy door, and for the first time, I didn’t feel small. I felt like fire waiting for kindling.
“Vyper thinks I’m something he can own,” I said. The metal beneath my palm began to hum. “He’s about to learn what happens when you back a Seer into a corner.”