Chapter 22
Hanna
The fear hit me like a wave—sharp, cold and wrong.
I bolted upright in bed, my heart pounding, but the panic wasn’t mine. It was his.
Savla’s.
The bond vibrated through my chest like a plucked wire, too tight, too frantic. Something was hurting him.
I threw on a sweater and shoved my feet into shoes. Ribbon was already waiting at my door with a wooden spoon in his mouth and a determined glint in his huge eyes.
“Ribbon?” I whispered. “What—?”
He chirped, dropped the spoon, and hopped toward the elevator with purpose.
“Oh dear Goddess Mother. Fine. Lead the way,” I grumbled.
He led me straight to Savla’s workshop. By the time I climbed the stairs, my pulse felt fused with his. I was still connected to him somehow, through our bond.
I didn’t knock. I pushed the door open—and froze.
He sat on the floor, elbows on his knees, head bowed and his breathing ragged. His hair was tangled, glitter still caught in the strands but now there was ash smeared down his jaw. His hands trembled around something small and wooden in his lap.
A carving?
His eyes shot up when he heard me. They were haunted and afraid. Not of me—of something bigger.
“Hanna,” he rasped. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I felt you,” I whispered.
The words made him flinch as if I’d struck him. He looked away immediately.
“It wasn’t— It’s not the bond,” he whispered. This was the closest he’d ever gotten to admitting that he felt the same.
I stepped closer. “Savla—”
“It was just a nightmare.” His voice sharpened. “That’s all.”
“That’s not all,” I said gently.
“It is.” He forced the words out like he needed them to be true. “It means nothing.”
But his hands shook around the carving. Ribbon hopped inside, chirped, and dropped a yellow leaf at his knee.
He didn’t even look at it. He swallowed hard, his eyes flicked toward me and then away.
“I saw my father,” he said finally, his voice low. “The day he died in battle.”
I eased closer. “Savla…” I started, but I didn’t know what to say.
I knew that the three brothers were orphans, but I didn’t know much more than that.
“He walked straight into a spellfire line,” he continued, staring at the floor. “Didn’t raise a shield. Didn’t fight back. Didn’t… care.”
His jaw tightened, trembling with the memory. “He had no reason to live once my mother was gone. The bond gutted him. It left him a shell. And I—” He swallowed roughly. “I watched it kill him long before the war did.”
He clenched the carving tighter. “And now I…” His breath cracked. “I can feel something trying to form. Something I don’t want. Something I won’t allow.”
My chest tightened, but I pushed aside his words. They were words of pain, not logic and I wasn’t going to take them personally.
“You’re scared,” I whispered.
“No.” He snapped it too fast. Too hard. But after a long moment, in a quieter voice, he said, “Yes.”
I knelt in front of him. “Savla. Whatever you felt—whatever this is—I’m not your mother, and you’re not your father,” I murmured, wanting more than anything to cup his cheeks, but I held myself back. I couldn’t afford for him to push me away.
His eyes flashed, pained. “I can’t risk it.”
“You’re not risking anything,” I whispered.
“I’m risking you.”
My breath caught, but then he shut himself down completely. It was like dropping a metal shutter.
“It isn’t real,” he said stiffly. “The bond isn’t—it’s not what you think. It’s just residual magick from working together. From stress or... or from proximity.” He forced a scoff. “It’s nothing.”
The bond pulsed—hard—as if offended. He ignored it.
I’d asked Zara about it. About the bond that formed between mates and she’d explained that in the beginning, it was just a tiny thing that pulls you together.
But over time it would grow. Especially when you spent time together.
Savla and I spent lots of time together and the bond had grown into something that neither of us could ignore for much longer.
“I won’t let fate decide my life. Or yours.”
So he wasn’t rejecting me. He was rejecting the possibility of what we might be. My heart ached with the weight of it.
That was when Ribbon hopped forward and gently dropped another object between us. My sock.
Savla blinked at it, confused. “Why do you have her sock?”
I groaned. “He steals whatever he thinks someone needs. Last week he gave me one of your chisels.”
Ribbon croaked proudly. Savla stared at the sock, then at Ribbon, then at me and a strangled sound escaped him—half laugh, half disbelief.
“He’s…” He rubbed his face. “He’s absurd.”
“He’s comforting you,” I said softly.
Ribbon puffed up in agreement. Savla stared at the toad, and for a brief moment… he cracked. Just a little. A tiny, exhausted smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
But it was gone in an instant. He looked down at the carving that he was cradling again—ash smeared across the shape of my silhouette, his own half-covered.
I tried to study it, but I could barely see it in his huge hands.
What I saw of myself though... it was beautiful. I was beautiful. Through his eyes.
“This can’t happen,” he whispered.
My breath hitched. “Savla…”
“I can’t let it,” he said, voice trembling. “You don’t understand. You think it’s destiny, or fate, or something hopeful.” He shook his head. “But it’s not. It’s a curse and I won’t drag you into it.” He stood abruptly, backing away from me. “Hanna, you need to go.”
The pain in his voice cut deeper than his words. I rose slowly. “If that’s what you want—”
“It’s what’s safest,” he whispered.
That was another lie, but it was one he needed to believe. He wouldn’t let the bond be real—not when it terrified him. Not when it reminded him of everything he’d lost.
I stepped toward the ladder, my heart aching. Ribbon scrambled to his feet and trotted after me, dragging another of Savla’s wooden spoons as a parting ‘gift.’
Savla didn’t turn around. He didn’t move and I was pretty certain he didn’t even breathe. But I felt the bond pulse again as I left. It was stronger now. Unavoidable.
Unwanted—by him. Undeniable—by me.
I didn’t mean to fall apart. I made it down the stairs, past the landing, past Ribbon—who hopped anxiously after me with the spoon still in his mouth—and into the elevator, jabbing at the button for my floor when all of a sudden—my knees buckled.
I sank onto the cold floor, my hands shaking, my breath sharp and shallow. The night pressed around me in a way that felt both too heavy and too empty.
It all flooded in at once. The fear in his eyes, the denial in his voice, the nightmare I felt pulse through his bones.
And the bond—Goddess Mother, the bond.
It throbbed like a bruised heartbeat beneath my ribs, warm and aching, trying to reach for him even as he pushed it away.
“Savla,” I whispered into my hands, voice breaking.
The bond shimmered and answered. There was a faint echo in my chest that wasn’t mine.
It hurt. Not physically—not like a wound or a burn—but in that way hope hurts when someone tells you you’re not allowed to keep it.
I sucked in a shaky breath and wiped my face. Ribbon nudged his massive, damp head into my shoulder, croaking softly.
“I’m okay,” I lied.
Ribbon croaked again—doubtful. I pressed my forehead against his warm side.
“I just… I don’t know how to help him,” I gasped. A sob clawed up my throat before I could swallow it down. “He’s so scared of the bond. Of what it could make him become. Of being like his father.”
Ribbon shifted his weight, curling protectively around me. My voice dropped to a whisper.
“What if he never lets himself want me?”
The bond pulsed again—low and painful—like it hated the idea as much as I did. I stayed there until the trembling in my hands finally softened. Ribbon eventually nudged me into standing again and I wandered into my apartment with his help, wobbling on my feet.
And still—Savla lingered under my skin. He was breathing with me, hurting with me but trying not to.