Page 67 of Bad Bunny
“Wait.” I step back, just out of reach.
I test the bond again and find nothing but grief. The kind of grief that comes after a funeral. The kind that happens when something is gone for good.
“How?” I ask him, my voice sharp. “How will the Amulet of Springtide protect me?”
His gaze drifts over the clearing, the flowers, the grass, the place where my mother’s body disappeared, anywhere but my face.
The amulet glints in his fist. The chain swings faintly, the way my cage did earlier.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
A measured, merciless rhythm. It hangs between us like something poised to fall.
“I told you already,” he says. “It’s a tide that washes you clean. Removes all trace of my world so my uncle can no longer track you.”
Wash me clean.
The words hit wrong. Puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit.
“Remove all trace?” I repeat slowly. “What does that mean?”
The moment hangs.
The bond throbs again with sorrow. Loss. Devastation.
“I mean everything,” he answers finally.
Everything.
The silver threads inside the emerald unknot, and that’s when I understand.
“You mean you,” I say, tone flat. Voice dull. My eyes narrow on him.
Sorren doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.
The truth is written in the way his face angles slightly away from me, as if he can’t bear to face me head on.
“It removes you,” I say, my voice going cold. “Fromme.”
His eyes flick to mine, then away.
My body goes tense, but not with grief. With rage.
“Our bond.” My pulse hammers in my ears. “It severs our bond.”
He closes his eyes. Just for a second, but it’s all the confirmation I need.
Veskar draws back slightly into the taller grass.
“You were going to do it,” I whisper as the knowledge claws at my chest. “You were going to erase yourself from me.”
The betrayal burns hotter than the ice of the cage ever did.
“You decided that for me.” My hands ball into fists. “You thought that was okay? To take the bond away from me?”
Sorren’s voice goes low. Strained. “I’m trying to protect you.”
