Page 117 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

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.