Page 149 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

Her heart swelled as she cast a glance back to the ship, where Merrick watched her as he always did, while Frelina and Raine seemed to be occupied with their endless teasing on the deck above him.

They’d be all right. She had to believe that.

Merrick had been happy when he realized there was still some hope within her, forcing her to continue their journey, keeping her spirits up even when it seemed like he expected her to break apart each night she snuggled into his arms.

He just didn’t realize it wasn’t for herself.

Ydren made a sharp sound, jerking her neck so hard that Lessia almost fell off.

“What did you do that for?” she snapped at the wyvern when the latter turned her lethal head to glare at Lessia.

The soft glow from Lessia’s arm shone bright even in the cold wintery light that had yet to break into full spring in Ellow, and like she had ever since that stone merged with her, she somehow understood what the wyvern was thinking.

“I’m not pitying myself.” Lessia glared back at her. “I am not. I am merely enjoying whatever time I have left.”

The wyvern scoffed, sending streams of water through her nostrils.

“What do you want me to do!” Lessia snarled, unable to keep from showing the beast her teeth, although they had little on Ydren’s razor-sharp, feet-long ones. “I’m fighting as much as Ican. I will fight for them, but I’ll also fight for myself. I am not planning on rolling over and dying, if that’s what you think!”

The wyvern hissed at her, the rush of the air splashing more water onto Lessia’s face, and Ydren’s violet eyes flashed as they stared into her own.

“I know you’re strong, Ydren.”

It wasn’t a struggle for Lessia to lower her voice. They’d had this fight every day since they started the journey back to Ellow.

It had started with Lessia refusing to allow Ydren to join the war, telling her that the other wyverns were all staying back.

But the wyvern wasn’t having it. She’d pouted and cried and pleaded with Lessia every day for her to change her position. Had told her repeatedly that if Lessia allowed her to fight, Ydren could protect her, make sure the king didn’t come near her.

But Lessia didn’t want to. Ydren might be older than she was—somewhere around seventy years in the way humans counted—but Auphore had told Lessia enough for her to realize Ydren was barely more than a child still.

Like the Fae, wyverns could live almost forever unless injured, but they didn’t mature as quickly as the Fae did.

Ydren was technically an adolescent. A clever and stubborn one, Lessia thought as Ydren began the soft whimpers that she knew damn well broke Lessia’s heart.

Her heart, but not her resolve, because if she wanted to somehow get all the wyverns to fight willingly, sacrificing one of their own—a near child, at that—was probably not advisable.

A large tear snaked its way down Ydren’s snout, lingering on one of her scales before it fell into the sea beneath them, and the beast’s sad eyes held on to Lessia’s.

“I would miss you too,” Lessia croaked, holding on for her life not to let her shaking hands lose their grip on the spikes lining Ydren’s neck as the wyvern’s sorrow struck her chest like a fist.

“I’d miss all of you,” she continued, throwing another look at the ship and trying to keep the warmth in her chest from being overtaken by the fear of leaving them all behind. “I’d miss you so much.”

Ydren blinked at her, and Lessia could tell the wyvern was holding back more tears.

“I can’t say it’s all going to be fine.” Lessia smiled through the words she knew were harsh, but she’d appreciated how Merrick never lied to her—never tried to gloss over the truth—and wanted to do the same for her new friend. “But this is life, Ydren. The life the gods created and we try to navigate. It may not be fair, it may not be fun, but this right here… it’s living. It’s fighting. It’s loving. It’s… all I can do.”

Ydren opened her maw in a silent cry, one that Lessia knew could have echoed across the ocean but that the wyvern quelled for the fear of rebels getting to them before they could get to their friends, and Lessia stroked her soft scales, trying to share some of the calm that had settled within her at the Lakes of Mirrors.

The godshadgiven her time.

She’d realized that when she’d spoken to Evrene.

They’d given her a loving family.

They’d given her friends she couldn’t even dream up.

They’d given her not one but two loves.