Page 42 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

Lessia

T he reflections around her were wrong.

Lessia had realized it immediately because although she’d tried to avoid mirrors lately—which was how she’d caught Raine’s fear when he refused to look around so quickly—every time she accidentally met her eyes in the one hanging in the cabin she and Merrick had claimed on the ship, shadows of desperation had mixed with the light of the small hope that still burned inside her.

The hope that somehow, through everything, refused to be snuffed out.

She wasn’t entirely certain what she truly hoped for.

To stay alive?

For her friends to live?

For the world to become a better place?

Lessia shook her head.

The reflections around her didn’t have any of that in their golden eyes.

There was anger in one pair. Sorrow in another. Love in a third.

Fear.

Hurt.

Pain.

All the feelings she still carried inside her.

But it was the desperation and hope that kept her going right now. That got her out of bed. That had urgency coursing through her blood at all hours of the day and night.

She felt it now as well, but she’d promised Merrick she’d try to find a way out of her death sentence. And if she was entirely truthful… she wanted that for herself as well.

Hello, child.

The voice rumbling through her was warm, like her mother’s embraces whenever she hurt herself growing up, but Lessia still shuddered.

The voice was everywhere. In her mind, in her body, in her blood, filling this entire room, or whatever she was sitting in.

Bracing her hands on her knees, she fought against something wanting to bow her neck, to submit, to… give in.

That small, small ember of hope within her wouldn’t allow it.

She was done bowing.

So brave.

Lessia didn’t say anything as the melodic voice thrilled through her.

It sounded female—warm and kind and motherly—and it brushed her mind with a familiar swipe, albeit not as forcefully as Raine’s or Frelina’s mind touch: more elegantly, more… experienced.

This must be Evrene, the god of mind.

“You know why I am here.” Lessia didn’t phrase it as a question.

If this was a god, she expected they would know every last thing about her.

Her thoughts, wishes, and dreams, and especially her fears.

Of course I do, child. I watched you with the Guardian of Death. I saw the dreams you carved into his flesh.

“Can I have them?” she whispered, already forcing the question out, now, because she knew if she waited, she might lose the nerve.

The air hesitated for a second, but that second was enough for a never-ending hollowness to spread within her.

You may have some of them.

She didn’t need to ask which ones.

She could feel it in her brittle bones.

There was no hope of survival, not for her.

“When?” she asked softly, shocked that no tears burned behind her eyes.

She’d been surprised on the ship, too, after the wyverns had declared they weren’t fighting, that she hadn’t broken apart.

She’d been disappointed, yes, but at least… at least she was fighting. She was doing everything she could now to save Havlands—to save their friends. To make it right with the people she’d wronged.

With Loche.

With Frelina.

Soon.

Thissian had said the gods couldn’t lie, and met with these vague answers, Lessia believed him.

She didn’t ask for more details, as it was probably best not to know. Instead, she asked the question she’d wondered since she’d found out from Loche who the curse was really about.

“Why me?”

A soft rush of air blew through the room, almost as if someone had expelled a deep sigh.

Lessia waited quietly, the thoughts she’d tried not to allow into her mind when the others were around—since Merrick appeared to be reading her as well as Frelina and Raine, who literally could read minds—breaking free.

In the darkness of the night, when everyone else slept and the waves were the only ones hearing her thoughts, she had wondered why. Why her? Why had she gone through everything she had, just to… die?

All the hurt and the pain and fear, and then the friendship and love and happiness.

Our path for you might not seem simple, Elessia Rantzier.

But it is. The prophecy required someone who would be kept hidden from Rioner long enough that he or she would grow up.

That’s where your father came in. It needed you to experience love, both with your family and your friends, but also with Loche and Merrick, for your soul to crave it.

It needed you to feel pain, by Rioner’s hand and others, so you would never turn to it, never yield to the darkness your uncle has allowed to fill his soul.

We needed someone who wouldn’t seek power—who wouldn’t want to be queen—ruling the shadows.

Lessia stared at the reflection right before her.

It was the one who looked so in love—who smiled softly as she waved to Lessia.

She recalled the conversation she’d had with Merrick when they were on their way to Raine’s island.

He’d been right.

The gods had a hand in everything she’d done—that she’d experienced.

He is clever, the Guardian of Death. It’s why he was chosen for you, child. You did forge your own path. And even the gods couldn’t have foreseen just how brave you’d become.

Despite everything, a shadow of a smile touched her lips. “He is.”

Another clever man’s face flickered in her mind. Gray eyes she’d used to let consume her, but which now only spread that dark hollowness she tried to keep at bay.

He will smile again.

She’d only thought the question, but she wasn’t surprised the booming voice responded to the fleeting inquiry crossing her mind.

He’ll live. And to answer your other question: you needed him at that point in your life. You needed to see that not all those who lead are cruel, with blackened hearts. And he needed you as well.

“But they won’t need me any longer,” Lessia whispered as the reflection before her smiled again, perhaps in response to the god answering why she’d fallen for Loche first if Merrick was the one she’d always choose in the end.

There is a difference between need and want. Something they both shall learn.

Lessia nodded slowly.

In the silence that followed, she leaned her head back, looking up at the reflection above her, which seemed to be her own, and listened to her slow heartbeats, savoring each thud of life as it thrummed through the space.

She didn’t have any more questions about herself. They’d all been answered now.

She just needed to continue what she was doing—could feel that that was what remained of her fate—and make sure those she loved would be cared for.

“Will I see my parents again?” Lessia asked instead, bringing her eyes down and jerking back when she wasn’t met with her own strange amber eyes but instead her father’s and the blue ones of her mother.

They looked so real. So loving. So much like they had when she was growing up.

That I may not answer. We do not speak of the afterlife.

The voice sharpened for the first time, and Lessia realized she must have overstepped.

The room chilled as if a phantom breeze rushed through it, and the reflections of her parents cracked, their face contorting, and she didn’t know why but she shot to her feet, a cry falling from her lips when her parents also screamed in her mind—their voices so real she tried to cover her ears to drown them out.

But they were inside her.

Lessia’s eyes shut as she bent forward, trying to hold herself together as the cries only continued and continued. But she wasn’t afraid when arms locked around her, a cheek touching hers as he whispered her name.

Of course Merrick came for her.

She let him hold her until the blood-chilling sounds faded, and when they finally quieted, she spun around in his arms, dry sobs hacking out of her and her chest heaving from pain.

“I know,” Merrick whispered. “I know.”

He did know. She was sure of that, but even so, she cried into his chest. “I won’t see them again. I-I won’t?—”

Evrene hadn’t explicitly said so, but the wind that draped around her had been filled with a touch of despair and fear and loneliness—which hadn’t been Lessia’s—and she’d understood then.

“I won’t…” she echoed.

Merrick was quiet as she continued rambling to herself against his chest, wishing for the tears that, for some reason, refused her—though she knew they might relieve some of the tightness in her broken chest.

It was as if her body wouldn’t let her break. Not anymore. As if there wasn’t enough space left, with the determination and the fight and the promises she’d made to the living.

But it hurt. It hurt so much, thinking of the loving people she’d had the honor of being a daughter to, the ones she’d never see again, never speak to again.

“They d-didn’t know me,” she choked out as Merrick pressed her harder into his chest. “T-they died not knowing me. My mother… she didn’t even know I existed. And… my father…” A dry sob wrangled from her throat. “He only got to meet this version of me… the broken one… the…”

Lessia’s hands balled into fists against Merrick’s chest.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

“I know,” Merrick echoed, his hands running up and down her back in a slow, rhythmic motion. “I know.”

She nodded as he continued whispering the words.

He did know. Perhaps he was the only one who really did know her, and…

Maybe that would have to be enough.