Page 48 of A Bond so Fierce and Fragile
But just because she was broken… it didn’t mean she was useless.
She just wasn’t the same as she’d been growing up.
She was something new.
Something forged in pain.
Something born out of guilt.
Something bound by love.
Because every broken piece that remained now was just that…
Bound by love.
Unlike the king, what had kept her going all these years was love.
It was love that kept her together even when everything inside her seemed to shatter.
It was love that would make her do what she planned to do next.
It was also love—the love she held for her parents, the love she held for Frelina, the love she held for Amalise and Ardow, even the love she held now for Raine and Kerym, and it was especially the love she held for Merrick—that made her remain silent as she let the iron clamp fall onto her hand.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Until not just her broken heart’s thumping reverberated against the wooden walls but also the crushing of the bones in her hand.
The others cried now.
She could hear more sobs joining her sister’s—strangled, horrible sounds that shouldn’t come from warriors like the ones in this room.
Still, she didn’t look their way as she wrangled her broken hand out of the cuff.
Instead, she whispered, “I love you. I love you so much. Please, please don’t let him die too,” and with the bloodied hand—the hand that mirrored how she felt, battered but unbowed—she pressed open the creaking door and sneaked up the stairs, keeping her broken one tucked against her chest.
She could feel it now.
The tug of fate.
This…
Her end…
It had been inevitable.
Her father had bought her time, hiding her away.
Loche had bought her time, forgetting her.
Merrick had bought her time, training and protecting and loving her.
But now it was up to her.
