Page 62 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

Because what was there to say?

Chapter 11

Frelina

Her tears had finally dried.

Frelina’s cheeks were stained from the salt that mingled with the dust and blood there, but she didn’t move to wipe them. Instead, she kept her gaze on her father’s crumpled body, letting her eyes wander from the dark stain on the wood to his dusty uniform to his unseeing eyes, which remained open, staring into the nothingness that was death.

The pain that had felt as if it would burst out of her, cracking her rib cage wide open, had also softened.

It hadn’t disappeared, but it was as if the pain were shifting, finding room to fill every one of her cells, rebuilding her from within.

She’d thought the worst day in her life would always be the one when she said goodbye to her mother. Watching the woman who had raised her—the person Frelina loved the most in her small world—waste away, and not being able to stop herself from picking up her mother’s visions of pain and suffering…

Frelina slammed her eyelids shut.

It had been awful.

But today? Today had been worse. Not just seeing her father—the only person she’d had for years—die.

But seeing—fucking feeling—how it broke Elessia…

Frelina couldn’t help but whimper.

It had been so clear to Frelina, so clear to the brothers beside her, that when Elessia realized it hadn’t just been one of the guard’s visions, something irreparable shattered within her sister.

And when Elessia started hurting herself, not to numb the mental pain but because she believed there was no other choice? Bile still burned Frelina’s throat after refusing to take her eyes off her sister’s turmoil. As if by watching she could absorb some of it, take over the heavy burden Elessia appeared to carry alone.

I love you. I love you so much. Please, please don’t let him die too,Elessia had whispered as she dragged her broken body out of the room.

Frelina’s heart hadn’t been able to take it.

Especially not when a vision followed—one Frelina was certain her sister hadn’t shared with anyone: an image of a crumpled paper, of a sentence that had altered Elessia’s course forever.

For only in their ultimate sacrifice can a new world be born—the world they have dreamed of, battled for, and wept over.

Another whimper forced its way out of her.

“It’s all…” Kerym started, but then trailed off.

He finally decided on “We’re here,” apparently realizing as well as she did that nothing would ever be all right again.

Turning her head in his direction, she met his eyes when the ship lurched violently.

“What was that?” Thissian straightened from where he’d folded into himself, his arms wrapped so tightly around his legs that his ankles were white.

“I don’t…” Kerym startled when the vessel tilted again, something loud thundering above them.

The entire ceiling seemed to vibrate, and for a second, Frelina was worried it might cave in. But then it stilled again, although the silence that followed was almost worse.

“Wh-what is going on?” Frelina asked shakily.

That couldn’t have been Elessia, could it?

Her sister might have had determination blazing in her gaze when she left the cabin, but she didn’t have any abilities that would shake a large ship like this one.

“I don’t know,” Kerym muttered. “Come here, little Rantzier.”