Page 60 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)
Loche
T he mood across the ships couldn’t be more different from the one of last night.
Gone was the passion and bristling energy and laughter, and in their places a suffocating silence stretched out across the sea, allowing even the faintest murmur that might occur across the thirty or so ships now floating in what he hoped would be an impenetrable row to be heard by everyone.
Loche glanced around the ship where he stood. They’d ended up deciding to keep Rioner’s ship in the middle, with him and Lessia and the Fae who would not be atop the cliff standing in the center of it, while Zaddock and Ardow led his best troop of soldiers in the bow.
Around them, each ship was filled with armed soldiers, all bearing the Ellow crest on their chests or arms, and behind them, atop the dark cliff jutting out over the vessels, Kerym and Raine led the best archers, with the Faelings who would fight dispersed between them.
The bluest eyes he’d ever seen collided with his own, and he quickly looked away when Iviry’s gaze swept across his face from where she stood beside Merrick, Lessia, and Thissian.
Y-you’re my mate.
Loche couldn’t even begin to consider the implications of this, even if he somehow sensed her around him now, like a shadow that wasn’t his own but followed him all the same.
They’d stared at each other for what felt like an eternity before Loche had excused himself and retreated to his room, where he’d spent the night looking out the window at the stars and moon that reflected in the too-calm sea.
He’d felt her eyes on him all morning, when they’d eaten a quick breakfast and then made all the final preparations, but she hadn’t approached him, and for that he was thankful.
What would he even say?
What could he offer her but disappointment?
Loche shook his head as one of the two copper-haired sisters strolled up to the group of Fae, her hair not as fiery as Iviry’s but still so similar that he looked away, instead tracking Lessia, who cast him a quick smile as she passed him on her way to the stern, where that terrifying sea wyvern rose from the water, large droplets rushing down her long neck and glistening atop the thick dark spikes lining her violet-scaled body.
The scene before his eyes seemed too tender, too sweet, for a beast and half-Fae, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away when the wyvern settled her head against Lessia’s body while she wrapped her arms around it, whispering something Loche couldn’t pick up into the creature’s ear.
“Their bond is a fierce and fragile one.” Merrick placed a hand on Loche’s shoulder, a gesture the regent would have felt the urge to shake off only a few days ago but that now filled him with a strange sense of gratitude for the Fae.
“They are made of the same cloth, those two. History has seen it before, like it shall see it again. In war?—”
“Unlikely allies find that the threads of their souls are woven from the same loom, that they were bound together even before the birth of their realm and their gods. That their past is linked as their future always shall be.” Soria smiled as she approached them, not the Fae, as Loche believed she’d first intended.
Merrick frowned at her, his hand dropping from Loche’s shoulder. “You know our old sayings?”
“They’re not your sayings. You Fae always think you come up with everything, don’t you?” Soria tsked before continuing. “Their truth comes from the magic of our worlds, from those who see it and guard it and mold it.”
“So they come from the gods, then?” Loche asked when he felt Iviry’s eyes on him again, turning more toward Soria as she sidled up beside Merrick.
Not that he’d ever heard of the saying Soria and Merrick were referring to, but everyone believed the gods had created these realms, even if neither humans nor Fae worshipped them anymore.
Soria threw her head back and laughed. “The gods have as much to do with it as this ship, my dear regent.”
He kept his eyes on her when he caught Iviry and Thissian walking up to them, the former throwing her long hair over her shoulder as she stared at Soria.
“You’re a guardian,” Iviry exclaimed. “As soon as I saw you, I felt it, but I couldn’t believe… Not here… But the magic in your veins screams for you to free it.”
“A guardian,” Merrick mused. “I didn’t know we had those in this realm.”
“We don’t.” Thissian shook his head, his dark ocean eyes sharp as he stopped before Soria. “Do you know what you are?”
She glared up at the raven-haired Fae, and once again, Loche felt something strange from her. As if this small woman truly was more than met the eye.
“Of course I do.” Soria dragged a hand through her short hair, her eyes challenging as they swept across each person in the group. “My sister and I have always known.”
“Have known what?” Lessia joined them, and Loche was secretly glad he wasn’t the only one who appeared utterly confused as he stared between the Fae and whatever Soria was. “What’s going on?”
“You have a guardian in your midst,” Iviry responded, and if Loche hadn’t known better, he might have thought something had happened between the two of them because Iviry’s tone had a slight frost to it, and there was a mirroring hint lining Lessia’s usually warm eyes.
“And what’s a guardian?” A crease twisted the skin between her brows as Lessia looked from Soria to the others.
“You might know us better as witches.” Soria’s smile took an apologetic form. “We call ourselves guardians, as we’re meant to keep the balance of magic in worlds where that balance is needed not to give one kind of creature too much power.”
“Witches…” Lessia seemed to taste the word, each letter rolling slowly off her tongue. “But we don’t have witches in Havlands? I read all about your kind when I was younger. My… my father used to tease me that I’d become obsessed… but being able to cast spells… I found it so fascinating.”
“Well, you’ve had me and Pellie here for a few years.” Soria winced when Lessia’s frown deepened. “I’m sorry I never told you.”
“Why didn’t you?” Lessia met Loche’s eyes as she chewed on her lip, and he could tell she wasn’t sure whether she should be worried about the sisters’ secret.
Merrick couldn’t, either, apparently, as he stepped closer to her, making sure she wasn’t standing alone as she stared out across the group.
“I…” For a moment Soria’s eyes rose to the cliff where her sister should be standing, then came back to Lessia’s.
“We were sold to someone in Havlands when we were very young—as a secret weapon this person could wield should they need to. But then you noticed us that day… noticed the sadness and fear the person pretending to be our mother instilled in us, and you didn’t just walk away.
You saw us, Lessia. And then you did something about it. ”
Soria shook her head, her smile returning. “We knew you were special then, and we could see you needed help, so we stayed… perhaps too long, but when we began to find out other things about you, we were in too deep, and we knew we needed to see this through.”
Lessia appeared lost for words, her hand slipping into Merrick’s as a million thoughts raced across her face.
“Can you help us with protection today?” Iviry broke in. “I… I traveled to a realm far away from here once, and the witches there could cast protection spells that would ward off enemies. They had me walk in circles for an entire month before they deemed me a nonthreat.”
A whisper of hope brushed Loche’s skin—hope that he’d thought he’d quelled—until Soria shook her head. “Our magic doesn’t work here. You already sensed it.”
“Iviry can read others’ magic,” Merrick whispered to Lessia, but Loche realized he did it loudly enough so he also could hear the information. “She’ll be able to tell Thissian who to drain first.”
Loche couldn’t stop himself from looking at Iviry then, and when she found his eyes, something in his gut turned, but not in a bad way, and he didn’t immediately look away this time.
That was when the drums started.
The group fell silent as the loud rumbling rushed across the sea, followed by the harsh sounds of trumpets and war cries—many human but some entirely animal.
Loche stood frozen as ship after ship appeared on the horizon, the sun’s orange light illuminating them from behind, making them seem larger than he knew they really were.
Lessia moved swiftly beside him, and the entire group looked on as she waved the wyvern away, telling her to join the hundreds who’d begun popping up out of the sea, their colorful scales shining against the dark water and forming a rainbow barrier to his nation lying behind them.
When the beast followed Lessia’s orders, which in the end were more like begging, the group faced forward, and moving nearly as one, they approached his soldiers in the bow, backs straight and chins raised high as they waited for the ships sailing straight for them.
Voices from his people joined the eerie drums and noises, and he couldn’t let himself look directly but he knew people were embracing, saying goodbye and good luck, and he could barely stand it when Lessia tilted her blanched face to Merrick, who’d taken the spot beside Loche, and whispered, “I’m scared. ”
Loche’s hands formed tight fists, his eyes going unseeing as Merrick pressed his forehead against that of the girl with the golden hair and eyes and whispered back, “So am I.”
The Fae’s words made fear drive its harsh claws into Loche’s chest, and for the first time, he let himself feel it.
He was scared too.
So fucking scared.
Not for himself but for Ellow, for his people, for his friends who stood all around and above him.
A hand touched his, and while he didn’t look to the side, he somehow knew it was Iviry, could feel her fear mixed with determination and focus.
“For Ellow,” she said quietly, but with so many Fae around her, they all heard it, and despite fear keeping a strangled grip on his throat, something else thickened it as well when the two words began echoing all around him.
“For Ellow.”