Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
At first glance, it looks like an expensive diamond-encrusted bracelet. But then I sense that one of the decorative beads is made of the glass-like substance I’m looking for.
I was right, then. They all have an etherium anchor.
For a long moment, I stare at the bracelet as I consider everything. Finally, I hand it back to Engela, meeting her dark gaze.
“Tell me where the other two are, and I won’t need this.”
She’s surprised, as is the Garnet Wizard. But when I don’t take it back, Engela pockets the etherium bracelet and thinks.
“As I said, my mind has been meddled with for quite a long time. My quintet has many safehouses and may have found new hiding places. I will make you a list of their likeliest whereabouts, as well as their etherium life links, but I warn you that they will be trying to have you killed long before you can find them.”
More fun for me. Let them try.
Engela turns to return to her lover but pauses, looking over her shoulder at me with an almost sad expression. “Your incubus. Somnus’s son.”
“His name is
Crypt,” I say pointedly, guarded.
My Nightmare Prince says little about his past, but I’ve deduced that the Immortal Quintet was brutal to him growing up. Still, Engela did deliver those messages from him to us. Maybe that counts for something.
“I ask that you offer Crypt my apologies for any part I may have played in his past,” she says quietly. “I gave up fighting them long before he came to be, or else he would have had someone watching over him. Instead, I’m afraid he abandoned all feeling and became quite twisted just to survive.”
She returns to her lover in the garden, and for a moment, I stare at the koi in the pond.
I became twisted to survive, too. So did the others.
Now, I just need to make sure they keep surviving once this is all over.
I turn back to the Garnet Wizard. “Etherium for knowledge. I accept your deal with one other condition.”
“Which is?”
“Engela Zuma must be safe here. She needs to remain this well-protected until I can re-stabilize the Divide.”
His brows go up. “Re-stabilizing the Divide is a part of your plan?”
“Agree to the condition and find out.”
The Garnet Wizard smiles. “It’s a deal, telum.”
SILAS
She isn’t letting me in.
I pace impatiently outside the guest cottage, examining the layout of the other buildings. The Sanctuary hasn’t changed since I left months ago.
I can’t fathom my mentor being dangerous to Maven, not with all the questions he will have about her—but the other acolytes could pose a threat. They know that if they can best someone here and get away with it, they will not be punished, even if it is a guest of the wizard.
The Garnet Wizard was an excellent mentor but also taught me how brutal the world is for legacies. There was no safety here outside of what I afforded myself.
I hardly think of this place as home. Apart from anywhere Maven is, I have no home.
“Hey, Crane,” a hostile voice calls.
I sigh when I see the trio of acolytes approaching quickly in the dimness. Speak of the devils. I expected something like this to happen upon my return, but it is still irritating when I’d rather keep my attention on whether Maven is all right.
“Turn around now, gentlemen,” I drawl.
One of the acolytes lifts his hands, calling forth a glowing amber spell that highlights the disgust on his face.
“So it’s true? You’re a fucking necromancer now?”
“You shouldn’t have turned to death magic, and our mentor should never have let your putrescence in here,” another adds, preparing his own spell.
They never learn, do they?
As if my paranoia hadn’t been severe enough, over the years growing up here, I learned that the only way to survive was to show no mercy. Many acolytes, even those I once thought were friends, made it clear that they wanted to be the top student and would happily kill me to have that honor. Sparing them for sentiment led to worse attempts on my life, so I chose to be ruthless instead.
These casters would happily kill me to rid the world of the necromancer I have become. Unfortunately for them, they have failed to strike first. As our mentor would say, all bark and no bite makes for a fresh grave.
I need to feed from Maven again before I can use more blood magic.
Necromancy it is, then.
Calling the chilling, unnatural power to my fingertips, I level two of the acolytes with necromantic bone rot spells that quickly bring them to the ground, twitching and screaming as their insides fall apart. The first acolyte who spoke finally hurls his magic at me, but I deflect it with a flick of my wrist.
For a moment, we’re locked into a hair-raising magic duel, his amber flashes of light eclipsed by the darkness I now wield.
Finally, one of my attacks cuts through his center. He drops, choking and gasping until he goes still just before the murky, semi-translucent, humanoid shape of a ghost rises from his fallen corpse.
The evening returns to silence as I look down and rub my fingers together, studying the blackened skin. It’s as if there was frostbite or a severe burn, though my ability to feel is only slightly numbed. I feel relatively normal.
Until once again, my head begins to spin, my heart racing unnaturally as blood drips from my nose. I sigh and wipe it away. I suppose it would have been too much to hope I could wield both types of magic without some toll being demanded.
Thanks to becoming a necromancer, I can sense the three spirits hovering nearby. The rich, tantalizing feeling of death hangs in the air, but although the ghosts fascinate me, I keep my eyes averted when I sense her arrive.
Syntyche. The reaper goddess.
My hair stands on end, and I can’t breathe because of this proximity to the goddess of death herself. A hollow, chilling whistle cuts through the air—once, twice, three times. I’ve learned that sound accompanies each swing of her scythe as she reaps souls.
Hardly a blink later, I can sense she’s gone. I finally inhale, clearing my throat as I try to stop my hands from shaking.
There is a very short list of things that frighten me in this world. Though I’ve yet to see her face, the goddess of death is quickly becoming the top item on that list.
Crypt emerges from Limbo, leaning against the outside of the cottage as he cracks his neck. His markings lit up nearly an hour ago, and he promptly vanished, yet they still glow faintly as he watches me start to pace. It makes me wonder if he went to tend to Limbo or if he was, in truth, waiting outside whatever dreamcatcher-protected room our keeper is in.
“Update,” he demands, ignoring the fresh corpses nearby.
I rub my face. “Maven stopped giving me any. It’s beyond aggravating.”
He smirks. “Dislike not having access to her pretty mind? Welcome to the club, Crane.”
“Shut up and make yourself useful.” I motion at the bodies. “They’ll be devoured in Limbo, won’t they? Maven shouldn’t have to see them when she returns.”
“We both know she would enjoy such a welcoming party,” Crypt muses, but he grabs hold of two of the corpses and vanishes with them. A moment later, the third disappears, and then the Nightmare Prince returns to stretch languidly and lean back against the cottage.
Baelfire wanders outside. He clearly just showered. “Thought I heard a fight out here.”
“It wasn’t much of a fight, I assure you,” I mutter.
The dragon shifter grunts and squints into the distance. “Which one is the Great Hall? I’m fucking starving. Do they do an actual Starfall dinner here, or is it all like…weird shit?”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.