Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
It’s a tough pill to swallow, realizing Syntyche must have had me with Amato out of necessity, thanks to Galene’s visions. I’m just a result of the machinations of the gods.
A fucking cosmic Band-Aid.
“Maven,” Lillian says softly, drawing my attention back to her earnest expression. She clearly guesses where my head went. “Remember. You’re a person, not a thing.”
It sounds like an obvious statement, but it’s the same thing she used to tell me after a hard day of conditioning in the Nether—whenever I’d spent hours in the necromancy lab, or dripping with sweat and blood in the arena, or even after I’d lost control, berserked, and woke up feeling like a stranger in this body.
I felt like an instrument of death. I felt like Dagon’s masterpiece and Amadeus’s scourge, just an object with one single purpose.
I feel that way again now, but I push that unhelpful emotion deep down to ask, “What was in it for you?”
Lillian pauses. “What?”
“Galene asked you to voluntarily go into the Nether, where you could have been killed while watching over me. Surely she offered you something in return if you agreed.”
Her attention flits to the photograph on the small table, and she finally nods. “She told me I needed to redeem myself if I wanted to see Annabel again, in the Beyond.”
“Redeem yourself? You’re one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.”
Sometimes to an obnoxious degree, but I won’t hold her better qualities against her.
“The truth is, I made a lot of extremely poor decisions before I met Edgar. I was every kind of sinner you can think of, through and through. Lying, cheating, stealing, always putting myself first, running from the law, blaspheming against the gods?—“
“
You have a checkered past? I’m impressed. And honestly, a little proud.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “I was a mess and didn’t care to get better. I knew I would be in trouble once I got to the Beyond, and years later, after losing my innocent little Annabel, that thought haunted me constantly. So yes. Galene did promise me that in exchange for watching over you, my past would be dismissed, and I would immediately find peace in the Beyond with Annabel again.”
Lillian looks at me very seriously, tearing up.
“But even if I didn’t atone for my past, and even if I never get to see my daughter again…I regret nothing, Maven. I would have gone through every single day in the Nether with you all over again, because you became another daughter to me. The truth is, I needed you more than you needed me.”
Damn it. Now
I’m tearing up.
To stop the emotions threatening to get out of control, I quickly down the rest of my hot chocolate before grumbling, “Everyone keeps eulogizing me in the past tense. It’s weird.”
“We thought you were dead,” she shrugs sadly, staring at the fire. “I knew you might have ascended to Paradise, but I couldn’t give false hope to your quintet—and thanks to my agreement with Galene, I couldn’t tell them the truth about you. I considered going to other strongholds to help other Nether humans adjust, but…I just couldn’t leave your quintet. Dear gods on high, Maven, these poor boys have been breaking my heart.”
I look at the door, hoping Everett returns quickly. Once again, I feel the bizarre heat in my chest where a heart should be.
“Do you have any idea where Crypt could be?” I ask quietly.
Lillian’s face falls. “I’m sorry to say I don’t. But…I also can’t say I really met Crypt in any way that counts. He was completely checked out and rarely came out of Limbo in front of anyone except Everett. I also never met Baelfire. I’ve tried talking to Silas in fae sometimes, but he’s not usually himself, and it’s not always safe to visit.”
Silas.
I need to see him. I want to see those ruby irises and that beautiful intensity that’s all him—and I need to see for myself just how mad my blood fae necromancer has become. But I don’t doubt that Everett will vehemently refuse to let me see my fae if he poses even the slightest risk. My elemental is exhausted enough as it is, so…
Tonight, I decide. I’ll find a way to help Everett sleep tonight and track down Silas’s prison.
Other gears begin to spin in my mind as Lillian and I sit quietly in front of the crackling fire, until finally I ask, “Do you have a paper and pencil I can borrow?”
Lillian smiles and gets up to rummage through one of her wardrobe drawers before bringing me a box of crayons and a writing pad.
When I make a face at the crayons, she laughs. “I missed the colors here almost as much as I missed you making your lists. You started making them when you were seven years old, you know. I’ve never met another seven-year-old who was so serious about setting priorities.”
That’s thanks to Amadeus’s obsession with making sure his telum was educated enough for his liking. I made lists to keep track of the aggressive learning marks I was held to. I doubt most other seven-year-olds spent all their time focused on acing examinations with the threat of being fed to the Undead if they didn’t pass.
Moving to the floor, I pull out the red crayon so that it will at least resemble blood as I write my list.
1. Tame my dragon.
2. Hunt down Crypt.
3. Get a heart. (Create my own shadow heart again?)
4. Learn holy magic even though it’s probably useless, like everything else pertaining to the gods.
5. Find out what became of Bertram. If he’s alive, change that slowly and painfully.
6. Rebond to my matches and break their stupid fucking curses once and for all so we can live happily ever?—
I pause, my hand going to the spot where the haggard scar mars the center of my chest under my thick black sweater. What I want more than anything is a future with my quintet, but if Amadeus finds out I’m back—and I don’t doubt that he will—there’s no way we’ll be left in peace.
But I fell from Paradise for a second chance with my men. No matter what I was initially created for, they’re mine now, and I refuse to have anything less than a fulfilling, normal lifetime spent with them.
With that in mind, I add a final step to the bones of my master plan.
7. Kill Amadeus and anyone else who tries to harm us so we can finally rest in peace.
MAVEN
Two things are clear after scouring all but one of the handful of texts and scrolls that Everett’s men brought from the makeshift temple.
The first thing is that I can apparently read the holy tongue of Paradise now. It’s annoyingly rhymed, like the poem I’m currently trying to make sense of.
Wild spirits compiled in thee,
Nature’s warrior mighty,
Sealed in slumber yet to bide,
‘Til this putrid blight’s defied.
Gibberish.
It goes on like that for nearly a thousand ancient pages.
The second thing that’s become clear is that there is nothing remotely useful about learning holy magic in these books.
I shut this tome, glowering at the small pile on the bed beside me as the fading light of the setting sun finishes sinking outside the frosted-over floor-to-ceiling windows.
Everett chooses that moment to walk back into the bedroom from his office. His attention remains briefly on a Reformist war map before he glances up. His pale blue gaze immediately softens, as it keeps doing whenever he focuses on me.
Which is sweet and everything, but this is the first time I’ve officially seen him wearing his reading glasses and holy fuck, that’s so cute. He pulls off the adorably studious look just as well as the savage battle commander look.
At this point, I’m pretty damn sure Everett can pull off any look. It’s not fair.
“Another miss?” he asks.
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