Page 191 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

They stood like that until Merrick’s mumbles became harder, louder, more focused.

“No,” the Fae snarled. “I won’t accept this.”

“Merrick,” Kerym tried, his tear-stricken face the mirror of his friend’s.

“No!” Merrick was screaming now. “This can’t be happening! I refuse! Do you hear that! I fucking refuse! I… I am getting her back. I have… have to do something!”

“There is nothing you can do,” Soria said softly as she tried to approach the Death Whisperer. “It was prophesied by the gods, Merrick. And so it shall be.”

“Fuck the gods!” Merrick screamed back at her. “Fuck them and fuck fate and fuck everything! Lessia hated all of that!”

The air started whirling, oily layers wrapping all around them.

“Merrick, no!” Kerym sharpened his tone. “You’ll kill all of us.”

Merrick’s eyes were wild as they flew across the group, the darkness in them deep enough to swallow them all. “Do you think I give one shit?”

The world exploded.

Loche wasn’t sure whether Iviry was still in his arms as whispers flooded the air, the floor, his mind, his body.

They were everywhere.

If he thought he couldn’t breathe before, it was nothing compared to now.

The air shifted, and Loche could hear them so clearly now—their voices brushing against every inch of his skin. They were everything and nothing, and he couldn’t move as they pressed against him, pushed everywhere, until the entire world went dark.

Chapter 43

Lessia

Her hands flew to her chest, and Lessia gasped when she couldn’t find the dagger that had hurt so badly.

Glancing down at herself, she frowned.

She wasn’t wearing the damp fighting leathers anymore.

Instead…

Was this one of the dresses her mother had made her growing up?

It was, she decided as she placed her hands in the soft grass and pushed herself to a seated position. She recognized her mother’s stitching, the beautiful golden patterns she liked to sew into their dresses to accentuate her and Frelina’s hair and eyes.

Lessia splayed her fingers over the cotton, straightening the blue skirt before getting to her feet and looking around.

Home.

She was… home.

Ahead lay the forest she’d been riding in growing up. Behind her were the cliffs and the water that remained warm year-round. And to her left… that was their house, the door invitingly open as if it just waited for her to enter.

She wondered momentarily if this was another trick, if she’d perhaps never escaped Rioner’s capture and this was one of Torkher’s visions.

But it didn’t feel like it.

It felt real.

She could smell the grass and the salt in the wind.