Page 39 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

Loche

L oche gripped his sword as he screamed “Zaddock!”

A groan sounded from one of the Fae twins, and Loche clutched his blade in one hand while grabbing Soria’s arm with the other so as not to accidentally stab her in his blindness.

Utter chaos, chaos in damned shadows, ensued.

Loche had no idea who he was fighting, but he pushed his way back to the railing, heart thumping in his chest, keeping Soria between the railing and himself as he slashed with his sword in the darkness.

“Zaddock!” he screamed again, worry for his friend breaking through the adrenaline rushing in his blood.

“I’m alive!” Zaddock responded.

Fucking thankfully.

“So am I, thanks for asking!” Kerym called out. “Not”—metal clangs echoed between the Fae’s words—“sure how much longer, though! Thissian?”

The silence that followed was worse than the sword that ripped into Loche’s arm at that second, worse than the fire rushing through the wound, worse than the horrible truths his mother had told him.

Fuck, fighting blind wasn’t any fun. Loche groaned as he tried to parry the blows, listening for the rush of wind that should betray them, but it never came.

More slashes did, though, coming from different directions—ones he could never anticipate.

Loche cursed again as he realized whoever he was fighting was playing with him.

“Coward,” he hissed as another slice dragged across his side, ripping his skin apart.

It didn’t cut deep, only fucking teased him.

“That’s no way to speak to your mother,” Meyah purred.

“You…” Loche felt Soria press against him, and he pushed back, refusing to let her get into harm’s way.

“You seem to have many names. Meyah. Mother. Whore. Eliana… wasn’t that what you…

you told me your name was?” He panted as another of his mother’s strikes bit into his skin, this time in his shoulder and deeper than the others.

Maybe she took offense at being called Eliana.

Or perhaps it was Mother that was the problem…

Loche laughed when she struck him again.

A hollow, brittle, stupid laugh.

He’d fucking die here.

Blind. Helpless. Useless.

By his mother’s hand, like he’d always feared growing up, when she’d been bigger than him.

When she’d been stronger—meaner.

When her punches left him with broken cheekbones and ribs.

When she let him starve until stars flickered before his eyes.

He laughed again as a sword slashed across his chest and hot blood trickled down inside his jacket.

“We… we’ve truly come full… full circle,” Loche got out as he refused to let his hand move to his chest—to press against the wound that must be deeper than the rest, based on how quickly it drained his energy. “I… I just don’t get why you didn’t kill me back then. Why… why wait until now?”

“This is more fun, isn’t it?” his mother chirped, amusement curving every letter.

The arm holding up his sword slackened at the sound.

She was enjoying this. Would enjoy killing him. Would surely brag about it after.

How she’d steered his entire life—the regent of fucking Ellow—only to kill him on a ship in the Eiatis Sea.

“No,” Soria hissed against his back when it curved. “You do not get to give up, regent. You do not.”

He could tell she was out of breath even if her words were sharp, and he wanted to ask her what the fucking point was.

Why couldn’t he give up?

The rebels wouldn’t back down. His people would suffer. Die.

So would his friends.

Lessia wouldn’t survive this.

He knew that now.

Soria pinched him. Fucking pinched him.

When he jerked forward, she snarled “Enough!” in a voice very unlike the one she usually favored. “You are hurting. And rightfully so. But the one you love is also hurting, and she’s fighting for her gods-damned life! You need to do the same!”

Lessia’s face flashed before his eyes.

Her furious eyes as she stood up to Craven—the defiance in her lifted chin as she stood before an entire audience who despised her. The hope blossoming in her beautiful face as she stared at him from the floor, begging him to love her even when he did everything he could to pretend he didn’t.

She never gave up. No matter what this life threw at her.

Fuck. If he died now, if he let Meyah win, Lessia’s life would get even harder, and… he owed her more than that.

Loche sucked in a breath, readying himself to pull up any final energy within him—to try to at least get one hit in, perhaps hurt Meyah enough to slow her down when Lessia and the others faced her—when water roared somewhere beneath him.

Wind surged around them, nearly making him stagger with its force.

Wood creaked and screamed, and he might not have the hearing of the Fae, but even Loche could tell it wasn’t natural.

His vision came back so abruptly, he had to clamp his eyes shut as the sun pierced them. Keeping his sword before him, Loche squinted until he was used to the cold sunlight and then sliced his gaze around.

Kerym stood above his brother, his eyes bluer than Loche had ever seen them, skin glowing and black hair whipping around his raging face, as the two half-Fae who had shadowed his mother fell to their knees before him.

A broken-off piece of their ship lay beside them, and Loche’s eyes flicked for a moment to the mast it had come from before landing on the new ship approaching them, where a group of people stood in the bow, their eyes focused so hard none met his own.

He followed their gazes one by one.

A wind—and not the one nature controlled—directed the sails on his ship and the new one, driven by one or two of the boys.

The mast he’d glimpsed before had been bent at an unnatural angle, and as he snapped his eyes back to the wooden piece on the floor, he realized it must have hit one of the Fae—probably the pale one that had blinded them all.

Water had also wrapped around their ship, holding it in place while drowning the smaller vessel on which his mother had arrived.

His mother.

Loche whirled around, nearly knocking over Soria as she slipped from behind his back, but he didn’t apologize when he found his mother running toward the stern, her dark hair flying behind her.

“No!” he screamed as he dropped his heavy sword to follow her. “She’s getting away!”

He wasn’t sure who he was screaming at, but he could hear someone following him as he sprinted after Meyah, and from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a rush of wind upsetting the sails before it whirled toward his mother.

But just as it reached her, the air shimmered, and a large eagle took his mother’s place, using the damned wind to get up and out so fast none of them had a chance to reach her.

“Fuck!” It might have been wishful thinking, but Loche still pulled the knife he’d once won off Zaddock and threw it with all his might after the bird.

The sun blinded him for a second, but a screech echoed across the seas, and although he couldn’t see, he could feel it—feel that the throw that he’d fueled with Lessia’s hope, the vow he’d taken to protect his people, and perhaps, just the slightest bit, his hatred for that woman—hit true.

A hand landed on his shoulder when he could finally make out the world again, and when the bird was nowhere to be found in the sky, he turned to find Zaddock’s face a few inches from his.

“She’ll get what’s coming to her,” his friend promised in a low voice.

Loche only nodded.

She would.

If not by his hand, by another’s, because after what happened here today… there would be war. It was inevitable at this point.

The rebels, Rioner and his Fae, the Oakgards’ Fae, and whatever the mixture of Ellow’s and Lessia’s band of warriors were called would come head-to-head soon.

Probably in the next week, if he’d kept his days straight.

If he didn’t kill Meyah, and Lessia didn’t… Rioner or any of the other Fae surely would.

She might be a strong shifter, but he’d read about the havoc the Fae could wreak. None of the people on this ship would likely be alive by the end of it, not unless any of them ran, and based on the looks on their faces, he doubted that was a path any of them would start down.

His eyes drifted toward Kerym, who pulled his bloodied brother to his feet.

He’d been wrong to question whether they were as lethal as the rumors stated.

There was nothing kind in Kerym’s blue eyes. Nothing soft in his tense body. Nothing human in the snarl as he stared down at the pale Fae, who’d made a low whimper.

Even so, Pellie literally skipped up to Kerym, placing a small hand on his arm when he made a motion to again pull the sword he must have already sheathed.

Loche couldn’t hear what she said, but it must have been something that broke through the haze of fury that wrapped around the warrior, as he didn’t follow through on whatever he’d planned for the Fae kneeling before him.

The other vessel was nearly beside their own now, and he moved his eyes back to Zaddock, noting the blood dripping from the blade still in his hand and realizing his friend must have been more successful in his attempt to fight.

He was opening his mouth to tell him thank you when something whistled through the air.

Zaddock jerked, pain filling his eyes.

Loche hadn’t been frightened earlier.

Not really—not when everything had been chaos and darkness and violence and pain.

But now? When his friend’s eyes widened in agony, that terrifying fear—the one he hated that he still felt—gripped the regent, chilling his blood until it felt like ice flooded him.

The other Fae—the one suppressing magic—limped up behind them, another sharp weapon ready to fly playing between his fingers.

A fucking throwing star.

Loche didn’t think. Hurtling himself forward, he aimed to tackle Zaddock to the ground, praying he wouldn’t kill him by forcing the one already stuck to his back deeper.

He realized at the last moment that it wasn’t necessary.

A whirlwind of blonde hair flew onto their ship, the small figure throwing what looked like a kitchen knife at the curly-haired Fae, and the knife hit its intended target, right in the eye of the Fae, who had also noticed the movement and turned her way.

He tumbled to the ground the next moment, the throwing star falling with him, clinking as it settled onto the wood.

Loche, who’d managed to stop himself from knocking Zaddock over, let his jaw drop as Amalise didn’t even lose speed when she spun in their direction, running up to the equally gaping Zaddock and pulling the star from his back in one swift movement.

His friend, to his credit, only allowed himself a low groan, although Loche could tell he wanted nothing more than to double over at the pain that must consume him, given the dark stain spreading across his light tunic.

Amalise pulled off the scarf she’d had wrapped around her neck, and while she tied it around Zaddock in haste, her fingers seemed gentle, almost probing, as they whispered across his body.

Zaddock just stared.

Stared as she checked on the improvised bandage. Stared as she whirled again, running back to check that the Fae was truly dead. Stared as she called to the others to hurry up as they piled onto their ship.

It wasn’t until Amalise tilted her head toward his friend, her lips lifting into a slow smile, that Zaddock appeared to snap out of it.

Loche tore his gaze away.

What brightened his friend’s eyes was nothing short of devotion, and while he was happy for him, Loche just…

he couldn’t. Instead, he approached Geyia and Steiner, who were being helped onto the deck by some of the Faelings, and he noted Kerym and Thissian doing the same, dragging that pale Fae between them.

But his lips curled ever so slightly when he heard Amalise tease, “You appear to be the only one in need of saving, Mr. Brooding Overprotective Soldier Man,” with Zaddock’s quick response following: “If you’re the one doing it, I’ll put myself in harm’s way every day.”