Page 126 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

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.

Chapter 26

Frelina

She hated this place.

Frelina knew her face should mirror the emotions within her—the anger and frustration and, if she was honest, the fear at being alone here in this strange world—but the reflections staring back at her carried none of that.

There was sorrow in every face as she spun and whirled to find anywhere without a haunted version of herself looking at her, but in every pair of amber eyes, there was only sadness and despair.

“Stop it,” she muttered when the urge to curl up into a ball to hide from the wide eyes tracking her nearly overtook her. “Stop it.”

Instead of giving in to the impulse, Frelina closed her eyes, drawing deep breaths to calm herself.

In and out through her nose.

But the air did little to calm her racing heart, and when a deep, melodic voice broke through the strange humming noise—the one she thought she might have heard before but couldn’t place—she was ashamed to admit she jumped a foot in the air.