Page 36 of A Promise so Bold and Broken

“Wh-why would he ever think that?” Lessia stuttered.

Raine tilted his head. “Do you know what his magic truly is?”

She shook her head.

“While a vile name, the Death Whisperer rings true. Those whispers you hear? It’s your mind opening up to the other side. It’s the souls of those who passed before you speaking while they prepare to bring you over—to claim you as one of their own.”

Lessia’s brows knitted. “B-but that’s not possible.”

“And why is that?”

“Because…”

It couldn’t be possible.

Could it?

“Because he is a mental Fae, is he not? I’ve never heard of such a power.”

A wry twist tugged at Raine’s lips. “Isn’t the world how we perceive it? Isn’t the world how we think and process and imagine? Isn’t it our mind that shapes us, directs us, guides us toward our fates? Why wouldn’t the afterlife be the same?”

Dread chilled her bones—like an icy wind sweeping through the room.

But not for fear of Merrick.

No.

For the fear of what he thought of himself.

She knew what it was like to hate her magic, believe she’d been gifted it because she was inherently evil.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t question mine for a long time. Truth be told, I still question it.

That’s what Merrick had said to her on the ship.

Raine stretched his hands over his head and sighed. “Well, this was a tad heavy for a late-night conversation. I shall try to get my hour of sleep. You should probably do so as well. I heard Merrick muttering something about training in the morning before he went upstairs.”

When Lessia nodded, Raine rose from the chair, and she followed him out of the room.

Venko and Ardow still snored on the couch, and with a final glance at them, she slipped into her brightly lit room.

Her brows snapped together when she glanced around, finding lanterns placed every few feet of the short walls, and two in the windowsill.

She strained her ears, but she couldn’t hear anything besides Raine’s thudding footsteps as he stomped around the room next to hers.

Releasing a deep breath, she slipped into the bed.

He might wield death magic, but Merrick was no Death Whisperer.

He wasn’t evil.

And if he wasn’t…

Perhaps neither was she.

ChapterNine

Lessia questioned her conviction that Merrick wasn’t evil when he stormed into her room at dawn, after she’d only gotten a few hours of sleep, and barked at her to “get out of the damned bed.”

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