Fearless (The Powerless Trilogy, #3)

by Lauren Roberts

To my dislike for mashed potatoes. May it be our biggest problem.” This earns me a slight smile. He clinks his fork against mine and echoes, “May it be our biggest problem.”

To feel her endearment so physically is a privilege I don’t deserve.

Loyalty and love are damning enough when apart from each other. Now, they are dangerously tangled together.

wasn’t a goodbye, simply a good way to say bye until I saw her again.”

this is simply a good way to say bye until… whatever the hell.”

“I should be worried. It will likely find its way to my neck again.”

There she is, the Silver Savior, standing before me—dagger in hand and a smile spreading across her face.

“Just try your best not to slice me open, yes?” “You first, Prince.”

Her palm finds my face in a gentle caress. “You’re not him.” Those three words threaten to shatter me to pieces.

“Every person who has ever said that to me is gone. And I… I need you more than I need those words.”

I realize how happily I’d live the rest of my life at the end of a blade. So long as she is the one holding it.

It’s not the Trials themselves I fear—it’s what they will take from me.

I’m running out of loved ones to watch die in my arms, so perhaps it will be me this time around. And maybe it’s better that way—to die before this life steals the warmth Adena sewed into my soul.

And maybe that is all you need to earn the title of “father.”

drop to my knees beside the scattered silver strands, eyes wide as I take in the pieces of a girl I left behind.

Tears prick my eyes for the version of me that still lingers in this cave where Kai held the broken shards of me together.

The one person meant to be my undoing saved me from it.

I gently lay the long pieces of my past self back onto the stone floor, leaving them to rest.

As much as I want her to be mine, I want her to be Death’s far less.

calm my mind. Shut out my soft heart. And stain my soul once again.

This is precisely what I feared—myself. Adena’s light within me sputters out.

Adena’s warmth returns shyly, as though her very memory does not recognize the creature I’ve become. I’m shaking, every part of me trembling in fear of what I’ve done. In fear of myself.

Let her morph back into the queen she will become.

I feel willingly weak with him to hold me, as if strength is a facade only needed when he is not near.

“I’ve… I’ve stained my soul again.”

He grabs my wrists, pressing those bloody palms against his black tunic. “There. Now it’s my soul that is stained.”

I will happily be your distraction from pain. For as long as you need.”

The bad that supposedly justifies the hope of something good?”

“I need you to find something else worth losing yourself to. I won’t let my impending death be yours as well.” I press my forehead to his, voice breaking as I say, “Promise me that. Please.”

“I would lose my life for you before finding something else worth living for.” His fingers weave into my hair, slide along the back of my neck. “You are my inevitable. In life and in death.”

In every pounding beat of the heart that belongs to him. I love you.

This child shares her mother’s piercing gaze, or rather, stole it. Those eyes belong to Iris, not the infant who killed her.

She looks like the sharpness that piercing grief hones one into. Like fearlessness carved out of necessity, not courage.

This is the Kitt I know and love. This is the friend I’ll spend the rest of my life with. This is the man who is marrying the woman I love.

Not rooted in pity, no, but in caring. Kai for me, and Kitt for Kai.

The room spins around me, but it’s him I focus on. Him I cling to. Long after our dance and long into the next life.

He says he loves me. Again and again.

“Well, soon you won’t be Ordinary.” The king sounds ruffled. “You’ll be royalty.”

Something broken staggered out of the Bowl Arena that day. And I have only been stronger for it.

Death fears me, remember?”

“Then I’ll swim for the both of us.”

Every moment with her is spent mourning the next, awaiting the day we speak for the last time.

“I would never pass up the chance to stomp on your toes, Malakai.”

I offer an arm to Paedyn. “Should I hold your shoes now, or wait for you to lose them?” “Maybe I’ll just throw them at you.” She smiles sweetly. “So you can find them easier.” My gaze lazily explores her face. “Vicious little thing.”

before I’m dragged into a dance, I memorize the faces of those glaring men.

elbows with. The fiddle’s quick melodies have us stomping long into the night, clapping when our feet

I do this for her. Every dance. Every smile. She seems so much more alive away from Ilya, away from the reminder of everything she is not. But out here, even surrounded by Elites,

She was a rarity, one that Edric had not known before her—a Soul. This ability allowed her to sense and manipulate another’s emotions. More than once, Iris had used it on the king to turn the pressures of ruling into a spark of happiness that he only ever felt when she was around.

We eat this sticky bun on the floor of my cabin, in the middle of a raging sea, and somehow find tranquility in the violence.

up to be so formidable if the women in these stories helped raise her. They are fearless, their stories thrilling.