Page 66 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile (Compelling Fates Saga #3)

Lessia

L essia could still hear the horrible sound of the snake ripping into Thissian’s body, how its fangs had cracked through his rib cage, punctured his lungs, and burrowed deep into his flesh before Merrick killed it.

She had never wished for something as much as she wished she could have given Merrick more time with Thissian, because the devastation across his face was like nothing she’d seen before.

But the fighting didn’t let up.

The world around them continued, even if one of the good ones, perhaps even one of the great ones, who’d spent centuries in it, no longer did.

After throwing two of her last three daggers to keep more rebels away—she refused to part with the one Merrick had gifted her—she had to drag the Death Whisperer to his feet and order him to help her move Thissian’s body to the side.

Lessia tried to cover his broken limbs with a piece of black tarp whispering in the wind, and all the while she prayed his body wouldn’t get injured further, mostly for Kerym, but also for herself and Merrick and anyone else Thissian’s gentle soul had touched.

Like her father, he deserved a hero’s journey into the afterlife.

When she finished, Merrick had snapped out of his static state, but he remained a step before her as they started toward the others, no longer allowing any space between his body and hers as his sword slashed through the rebels daring to come close and his other hand held on to her with a grip that nearly restricted her blood flow.

Perhaps the one good thing Thissian’s wasteful death had brought was that it seemed like their side had found some renewed energy.

It was as if they all fought for the Fae warrior—for his sacrifice—pouring everything they had into what Thissian had died for.

For the people on these ships to live on.

But even so, Loche’s eyes shone with tiredness when she found them, and Ardow wasn’t holding back his cries of devastation as another half-Fae fell at his hands.

Even Soria, who had been staying away from the worst of it, was bloodied and dusty now, hollow-faced, having had to defend herself against two shifters who’d separated her from the others.

It was all so damned useless.

Lessia clenched her jaw as she followed Merrick, seemingly set on helping Iviry as she struggled against that terrifying cat.

Everywhere around them lay dead bodies, and the floor was thick with blood. Loche’s soldiers, some with their masks still on, were strewn across the deck—only a few of those brave men who’d decided to remain in the bow still fighting beside their leader.

Rebels were mixed amongst them, their faces in death no longer twisted with anger but soft, lonely, young…

A group of Faelings who looked too similar to those she’d grown up with lay together, eyes shut, almost as if they’d decided to live and die as one, and Lessia briefly wondered if she’d recognize any of the faces if she looked closer.

Not that she would. She knew now what Merrick had once spoken of. War… it wasn’t anything other than waste. Pure useless fucking waste.

She tore her eyes away from the bodies as Merrick’s almost unnatural movements—the ones that made her realize he was as impacted as she was—added more to the piles on the floor.

They finally made it to Iviry, and with Merrick’s help, the Fae female cornered the shifter.

It appeared they’d both gotten a few strikes and bites in, as Iviry panted, holding a hand clutched to a deep injury in her arm, while the feline jerked, limping backward as it hissed at Merrick, who continued driving it into a corner, his snarls as animalistic as the ones from the cat before him.

When Merrick lifted his sword, the air flickered, and he hesitated when a woman, perhaps in her mid-fifties, with black hair and gray eyes, tumbled to the ground, eyes sharp but unable to hide her fear as they fixed on the Fae’s blade.

Iviry did not. Storming forward, she bared her sharp teeth, pushing Merrick out of the way when he didn’t strike, and lifted her sword.

“Don’t!”

It was as if that one word from Loche broke through any and all spells of fury Iviry had been under, and while she frowned, her hand fell to her side, the tip of the blade scratching across the wood as it met it.

Loche’s breathing was as heavy as his mate’s when he stormed forward, ducking under a dagger that whistled over his head—a dagger belonging to someone Ardow took down in the next second, as he tried to follow—before he slid to a stop beside Iviry.

Lessia was torn between watching and running for Ardow, who now fought the last three rebels on their ship, but when Merrick growled and stomped toward them, taking out two before they even had the chance to turn around, she kept her gaze on Loche and the two women staring at him—the gray-eyed one from the floor and Iviry from the other side of the sitting woman, the Fae female looking as if she would rather continue to fight the shifter than talk to the regent.

“She is to be taken prisoner,” Loche said quietly, but not without firmness.

The shifter started cackling—a wild, manic cackle—before she responded, “So my son cares for me after all.”

Lessia didn’t have it in her to react to the shifter’s words, and neither did anyone else, which seemed to anger the woman, from the sneer marring her face.

Iviry looked from the shifter who Lessia now knew was Meyah, the rebel leader, to the regent, and while confusion danced over her beautiful features, she didn’t ask, something Lessia knew Loche would appreciate.

And even though Iviry didn’t look her way, Lessia saw a moment of understanding, a dip of Soria’s chin as she approached the Fae, which Iviry returned a moment later.

“I do not care for you.” Loche sounded almost bored.

But Lessia knew better. He was exhausted. Utterly, devastatingly exhausted. She could tell the Fae with the fiery hair also understood it from how she stepped around Soria, moving discreetly to his side, although she made no move to touch him.

When he continued speaking, his voice went in and out, his face looking as run down as Lessia felt.

Glancing around, seeing all his men dead on the ground…

Even Zaddock was nowhere to be seen.

She also stepped toward the human ruler, and Loche threw her a look—one of gratitude—as he ordered, “I need you to call off your people.”

Loche’s arm swept to their right, and as Lessia followed it, she realized most ships had fared far worse than their own, more rebels piling onto them from the second and third row, with screams and panic and fear trailing off them like smoke from a fire.

To their left was the same thing, and when Lessia’s eyes moved upward…

She couldn’t. It was complete devastation up there, with bodies lying on almost every other step of the winding staircase, and on the plateau, those shifters had gathered, not a single one of their own people in sight.

“I’m here.” Merrick’s hand pressed against her lower back, and all she could do was nod as she leaned into him, not allowing her thoughts to drift off from what was happening before her eyes.

“I said call them off!” Loche’s voice rose an octave when his mother threw her head back and laughed that awful laugh again—the one Lessia now recognized, even if the shifter bore her real form.

“I will… not,” Meyah got out in between cackles. “You will have to kill me, son. If you have the guts. But alas… they won’t stop then either.”

The muscles in Loche’s jaw worked as Ardow limped up to Lessia’s other side, and she touched his hand as he placed it on her shoulder.

A harsh breath rushed through the regent’s teeth as he picked up one of the daggers Lessia had thrown that hadn’t lodged in someone’s gut or chest, and Lessia couldn’t look as he brought it to his mother’s throat.

The pain exploding in his eyes wasn’t for Meyah.

Merrick seemed to understand it as well, as he shuddered beside her, pressing the side of his body to her own as she stared out across the ocean.

The pain in Loche’s eyes was for himself. For the person he’d become once he killed his mother.

For the person he’d leave behind.

After today… Lessia understood it completely.

She’d counted her kills. Sixteen rebels, many her own age, had fallen at her blades. Sixteen souls she’d have to remember the rest of her life, and perhaps even in the next one.

“Do it. Don’t be a fucking coward for once in your life, and do it,” his mom hissed, and Lessia’s gaze drifted farther out across the sea, toward where the wyverns still floated and then to where…

Where were the Reinsdor ships?

Lessia spun around as Loche said something to his mother, the words fading into the wind as her heart began beating harder.

“No,” she breathed as her eyes snapped to the southwest, where the tallest part of the rocky island behind them towered, a straight, dark wall driving its way deep into the sea, the waves crashing harshly against it.

Almost half their ships had been forced over there, forced between the curved edges that jutted out on either side.

Nearly as many rebel ships blocked their exit, the thick chains falling from them into the sea betraying how they’d anchored themselves there, making sure Loche’s ships could not escape while the fighting continued.

The struggle was still as loud and frantic as theirs had been in the beginning—the humans and rebels over there were more evenly skilled—but that wasn’t what made the last of Lessia’s verve leave her and crawl through the gaps in the wooden planks beneath her.

It was the hundred-foot wave chasing the Reinsdor ships toward that same inlet, how the wave curved around them, allowing them only to sail forward.

It was the armada of Fae ships behind it, a gilded one in the middle—the one that she knew Rioner must be standing in, in the bow, directing the wave.