Page 14 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

Lessia

“ L essia!”

“Lessia! Come on!”

“Come back to us!”

Something shook her, and she groaned against the pressure building across her temples, squeezing her eyes shut harder when it exploded into what she could only describe as lightning hitting her mind from within her skull.

“Please…”

Lessia halted the move she’d made to fold into herself when the small voice followed the male ones.

“Please, Lia.”

Frelina.

That’s who that agony-filled voice belonged to.

Fighting against everything wanting to shut down within her, Lessia pried her eyes open.

She was surprised she could take in the scene before her—that there wasn’t a blindfold in place—but the feeling didn’t last long when Frelina’s distraught face came into view, the tracks down her cheeks betraying the tears that had broken through the layer of dust clinging to them all.

Sitting against the wall between Kerym and Thissian, who looked almost equally distressed as they stared back at Lessia, Frelina let out a small hiccup, her tear-stricken face seeming so young, so lost, as she met Lessia’s eyes.

“I’m glad you’re alive.” Kerym tried for a lopsided smile, but it didn’t reach anywhere near his eyes. “That cut on your head didn’t look too good.”

Frowning, Lessia tried to reach up to touch her hair, but although she was no longer tethered to the wall, her hands were bound behind her back, and she could do little more than bend her elbows.

She didn’t need her hands when she pushed up to sit from the floor. Her head pulsated, and the warm trickle down her still-bare back confirmed that she must be bleeding.

But why was she bleeding?

She found Frelina’s eyes once more as she racked her jumbled mind.

She remembered Torkher carving something into her skin, and with a quick glance, she could confirm Merrick’s name was etched all over the parts of her body her eyes could reach, dirt and what must be coal dust already settling within the healing wounds.

She remembered the king.

Water.

Her father…

Lessia whipped her head around, icy terror seeping through her veins.

As soon as her gaze snagged on the limp body on the floor, on the dark stain spread out beneath it, she slammed her eyes shut.

It had to be a dream.

A nightmare.

Not real.

Her shoulders lowered.

Of course. It was Torkher using his magic again. He’d done this to her before.

Every person she’d loved had lain on the floor of this ship at some point.

Even Merrick, who wasn’t anywhere near this cabin, had taken her father’s place.

Opening her eyes again, Lessia shook her head.

She was too weak to use her magic, her body completely drained, so Torkher must have physically tortured her to get her mental walls down.

That wasn’t new, either, and it would explain the deep wound in the back of her head.

A humorless laugh bubbled up her throat, and she threw her stare around the room, knowing already she wouldn’t find the Fae guard.

He never showed his face in these visions…

“You can stop now, Torkher! I already figured it out. You can’t hurt me with this anymore! I know you’re making me see it!”

She was getting better at realizing when he used his magic, even when it seemed as real as this vision did.

“Lessia,” Kerym called softly. “It’s not Torkher.”

She laughed again as she met his blue eyes. “You have to say that, you know. You always say these things.”

Frelina burst into tears again.

“And you always cry like this. Apart from when it’s you lying there.” Lessia cocked her head as she stared at the fake sister, at how she lost her breath from sobbing so hard.

Torkher was truly going all out with this one.

“Listen to me.” Thissian shifted so his chains squeaked. “And look at me.”

This was new. Thissian had never spoken to her before. Her visions of Kerym’s brother were usually of him crawling up in a corner of whatever room Torkher conjured.

As Lessia turned her head his way, she wondered whether the intense pounding within it would remain or perhaps even intensify once Torkher released her mind.

Thissian’s blue eyes bore into hers, and she couldn’t help but stare at how similar he looked to his brother, even with the sorrowful expression darkening his beautiful features.

But the longer she met his eyes, the more she realized they weren’t a mirror of Kerym’s at all.

Where Kerym’s eyes were blue like the sea around Midhrok or the cerulean crystals sometimes found in the caves back in Vastala, Thissian’s eyes were dark, like the evening sky right before the stars began shining or like the deepest parts of the lakes in Ellow.

She wondered for a brief second how that happened, until Thissian interrupted her thoughts. “It’s not a vision, Elessia.”

When she began rolling her eyes, Thissian snarled softly, and she barely had time to react before he threw something at her. Something that hurt as it bounced off her bare skin.

“Use it,” Thissian hissed.

Shifting forward as much as she could, she twisted her torso so her hands could grip the sharp stone that had fallen to the floor.

Staring at it—or as much as she could, with her hands barely able to pass her hips—she asked slowly, “What do you want me to use it for?”

This was also new.

They didn’t usually interact this much.

The thing in her hand was a part of the stone wall from behind Thissian, the edge looking as sharp as either of the daggers she’d brought, but still, it wouldn’t be enough to break through the cuffs around her wrists.

“What do you think? Hurt yourself!” Thissian urged.

She lifted her eyes, and a smile spread across her face as she met each pair of eyes of the three visions before her.

Of course.

Torkher wanted her broken.

Rioner wanted her broken.

And if she killed herself in this vision…

Lessia shifted the stone into her left hand, twisting the right one painfully to line up her wrist with the sharp edge.

“Wait! What are you doing?” Kerym exclaimed. “Just prick yourself to see that this is real!”

Lessia ignored him as she pressed her wrist down, moving it from side to side.

Fuck, that hurt.

Had visions always hurt this much?

Blood started welling around the stone, and the smell of it made Lessia dizzy.

But she continued.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

“Fuck! What the fuck, Thissian! Stop her!” Kerym was screaming now, but she still disregarded him.

Better give Torkher and Rioner what they wanted so they’d let her real friends and family go.

If she had to kill herself in a dream to accomplish it… then so be it.

“Stop!” Frelina cried. “It’s not a vision! You’re hurting yourself!”

Lessia’s wrist pounded in rhythm with her head now, but she continued the movement until the stone’s sharp edge hit something hard.

She couldn’t help the nausea slamming into her when she realized it was bone, and her own gagging joined Kerym’s and her sister’s cries.

“It’s not real.” Lessia hummed the words to herself as she pressed harder, her neck bent and eyes transfixed on the dark blood pumping from her arm.

She didn’t have time to escape the boot that slammed into her, knocking her over and forcing the stone from her hand.

“What the fuck?” Lessia lifted her head, closing her eyes for a beat as darkness pressed at the corners.

When she opened them again, Kerym was lying across the floor, his bound arms over his head as he stretched to reach her.

Frelina’s face was red and blotchy, her breathing shallow as she tried to do the same as the male beside her, and Thissian stared at her from Frelina’s left with wide, sunken-in eyes.

“Lessia, listen to me. Listen to me closely.” Kerym scrambled backward as he tried to right himself. “I know it hurts. But you need to let the pain in. Your father… Alarin… he is dead.”

Something tugged at her heart, like a jolt shooting through it.

But she shook her head. “I know this isn’t real.”

“It’s real,” her sister cried. “It’s… that’s him. He wouldn’t do it, Lessia. He wouldn’t break your bond.”

Lessia tried to push her hands into the floor, but she quickly abandoned the idea when her wrist screamed at her and a gasp flew from her lips.

That really hurt.

Instead of sitting up, she twisted her body to look back at her father again.

Then she moved her head to stare at Frelina.

Then back to her father.

Break their bond.

The king’s face flashed before her eyes.

I won’t do it.

Then something else glimmered, something the king had held in his hand. Something with an amber tint to it amidst the sparkling silver.

A dagger.

A thud followed the dagger’s reflection.

No. No, this couldn’t be real.

Because if it was…

I won’t do it.

A whimper worked its way up her throat.

Father.

She curled onto her side so she could face the body.

The next sound stuck in her throat as she began crawling toward him, using only her legs and ignoring the splinters that lodged in her bare breasts and stomach, her torso pressed against the floor as she inched forward.

“Father,” she whispered when she reached the body. “Please.”

But the amber eyes staring back at her were filled with nothing.

And the hand she managed to touch with her own when she squirmed on the floor…

It was cold.

Hard.

As if…

He’d been dead for a while.

She heard her heart break then. A crack that must have spanned realms, that must have shattered every silence in Havlands and every realm beyond, echoed within her mind.

He was dead.

She didn’t have to look back at the group to realize this wasn’t a vision.

It had been a fool’s hope—her mind trying to protect her.

Perhaps even her mind breaking a little… perhaps even breaking a lot.

Like the king wanted.

He wanted her broken and dead.

Lessia moved her gaze from her father down to herself.

Her exposed chest was scratched, blood—dried and fresh—mingling with the dirt lying like a sheen of sweat over her skin, and she again glimpsed the carvings Torkher had entertained himself with.