Page 68 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile

“It’s the stone.” Merrick squeezed her hand when she continued staring at her skin with her mouth open. “It chose you.”

The stone?

Loche’s face, the rough kiss, flashed before her eyes.

He’d given it to her.

“It chose me?” Lessia echoed as she watched the warm glow fade when Ydren pulled back from touching her arm.

“It did. Of course it did.” Merrick’s eyes were pure silver now, and she fought the urge to look away when they swept over her with so much pride she almost couldn’t stand it. “When you touched water with the stone in your hand, it chose to merge with you. It deemed you worthy.”

“He’s right.” Raine’s voice rumbled across the deck, and Lessia spun around so quickly that Merrick’s hand was ripped from hers, and even Ydren let out a protesting noise.

Lessia threw Merrick a quick smile as he pulled her back, snaking his arm around her waist to keep her close as first Raine, then Ardow, then Kerym and his brother, and finally her sister and the guard exited the hatch.

Raine nodded toward Ydren. “The stones choose whether the Fae wielding them are worthy of their power. They haven’t worked since the R… since your family abused them. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the first time since the war centuriesago. They’re absorbed within you—live with you until you die—allowing you to call upon the wyverns when you’re in need.”

Lessia nodded slowly, glancing from Ydren back to the group.

She staggered when her gaze landed on her sister’s tear-stained face, more tears wanting to gloss her eyes when Frelina tried for something Lessia suspected should be a smile but which seemed more of a broken grimace.

Lessia was about to step toward her sister when Raine froze, then whirled around and put a muscular arm around her sister’s shoulders, pulling her small frame against his.

Sharing a quick look with Merrick, whose silver brows snapped together in the same way she expected her own did, she decided not to say anything.

If Raine wanted to protect her sister…

Who was she to interfere?

Instead, Lessia cleared her throat. “So… where are the rest of the wyverns, then?”

The voices she’d heard when Rioner was choking her must have been them. And there had been many.

Ydren made a soft sound, and something about it had the hair on Lessia’s arms rise.

Slowly turning away from the group, she found the wyvern’s eyes.

The seconds that passed seemed like they lasted an eternity, the cold that had begun running up and down Lessia’s arms spreading across her body.

“They’re not coming, are they?” she whispered when Ydren’s eyes clouded.

The creature shook her head so fast that droplets of water flew around her, and Lessia’s stomach sank.

She didn’t need to ask why. Like before, she could somehowfeelwhat Ydren was thinking. The wyverns didn’t believe thatLessia was worthy. They thought the stone must have made a mistake.

One word echoed within her mind.

A warning.

Rantzier.

Rantzier.

Rantzier.

Closing her eyes, she drew a deep breath.

It would be all right. They’d survived Rioner today, after all.