Page 4 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

He still lay there beneath her, chest unmoving and face serene, the bloodied sword beside him and the wound it hadcaused still oozing blood, pumping it from his gut, and Lessia fought another cry weaving its way up her throat.

Focus,Merrick’s voice snapped.

I’m trying,she wanted to scream back, but the words caught in her throat when she dug her fingers further into his arm.

Her eyes trailed the golden skin.

Thesmoothgolden skin.

As she released her grip, her eyes followed the marks her nails had left.

But…

There was no dark traitor mark.

She glanced at the other arm, but it was as smooth as the one she’d held—no raised scars, no black letters contrasting against his skin.

Lessia moved to look at her own arms, realizing with a start that the skin on them, too, was smooth and unbroken.

No traitor mark.

No outline of the blood oath she’d once sworn.

It… it wasn’t real.

This wasn’t real.

She pushed at her mind, forcing it to focus.

What was the last thing she remembered?

There had been water.

A ship.

The king.

Loche and Merrick standing before her.

Suffocation.

Something warm being pressed into her hand when cold lips collided with hers.

Pain shooting up that same arm when heavy wetness surrounded her.

She took a shallow breath.

The king had figured out she was the one the curse spoke of.

And this?

This wasn’t real.

She could see it now.

The muddled edges of her consciousness, the mistakes that whichever of Rioner’s guards was doing this to her had made, the impossibility of being back in her childhood home.

Lifting her head and making her stiff legs straighten, she captured her father’s eyes again.