Page 123 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

One of his hands flew to his chest, and he pressed against the quickening beats there as that voice sounded again.

If this is the price… if in the end she chooses him… is it still worth it?

Merrick swallowed against the pain, but he didn’t hesitate as he declared, “Without a fucking doubt.”

The voice was quiet, but he could feel the flickers of curiosity in the air.

“He is a good man,” Merrick forced out. “And if… if she chooses him but that means she’s still alive… I will be grateful for it every day of what is left of my wretched life.”

The image of Loche and Lessia embracing disappeared.

Just evaporated as if it had never been there at all.

They call you the Death Whisperer here, don’t they?

Merrick was about to snap that he didn’t give a shit and that wasn’t what he was here to talk about, when something—that feeling he couldn’t explain—warned him against it.

He remained quiet instead, just watching the empty whiteness ahead.

Such a cruel nickname for someone sensitive enough to connect with all souls. Even the ones who have passed on. You truly are one of my sons.

So he was talking to Preysaih, the god of death, then.

Great. He was apparently the most vindictive of them all.

I see you think us evil, Guardian of Death. But we are merely trying to teach our children the lessons they require in life, giving them the tools they need to survive, like any parent would do. Like you’ve taught the Rantzier girl how to survive this far.

“What the fuck are we going to learn from Lessia dying?” Merrick growled, whipping his gaze around but only meeting the eyes of his own strange reflections.

You shall see.

But Merrick barely heard him as the real Lessia, the one with the reddened wrist, with the tangled hair and pale skin, stumbled into his line of vision.

He started banging against whatever was before him—what kept them apart.

But it was useless, and he could only watch as she sat down, crossing her thin legs and somehow appearing to understand more quickly than he had done that the gods wanted them there to listen—wanted to test them.

Chapter 25

Lessia

The 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.