Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
and a blood oath. Two separate things to worry about, both of which could take her from us forever.
Decimus growls, “Okay, then who did you make the blood oath with if it wasn’t that Undead king-of-the-assholes wannabe father of yours?”
Her lips twitch. “Very apt description.”
“This isn’t a joking matter, darling,” I warn.
Maven nods. “You’re right, it’s not. I’ll tell you the truth. There are humans in the Nether. And I don’t mean humans that were stolen away to be raised there like me and the twelve others,” she clarifies.
Crane frowns. “Other humans? How do they survive?”
“They don’t. They’re kept, just like cattle. Bred, fed, sacrificed, eaten. They’re even used for entertainment,” Maven adds bitterly, shaking her head as stark disgust eclipses her features. “You have no idea the hell they’re living, but I do. And I’m the only one who can help them.”
“How?” Frost demands. “I don’t get it. How did the humans get in the Nether in the first place?”
She glances at the hallway behind us. “We’ll miss lunch if I share everything.”
The rest of us make no move to stop her, not even the bottomless pit of a stomach that is Baelfire Decimus.
“All right.” Maven lifts her chin. “Then you should know something that the Immortal Quintet has carefully removed from history. They made everyone believe they saved the mortal realm hundreds of years ago by valiantly driving back Amadeus and his forces and creating the Divide.” She rolls her eyes. “The truth is, they took the coward’s way out. The fight against the forces of the Nether was killing off the Four Houses, so the Immortal Quintet tricked an army of human warriors, both male and female, into going into the Nether as a diversion. Then they begged the gods to create the Divide. The gods obliged and fortified it by tying it to the life forces of the Immortal Quintet.”
Crane considers all of that. “Then, if you kill the Immortal Quintet…”
“I’ll unleash the Nether on the mortal realm,” she says in the same tone one might say they’re thinking of planting a garden.
My brows go up.
“Fucking fuck,” Decimus grimaces.
Articulate to a point, that one.
“I’m not finished. The Immortal Quintet thought that the monsters and creatures of the Nether would devour those humans and then shrivel away without anything left living to feed on. They failed to take into account that the Entity has the powerful advantage of foresight. Amadeus captured that troop but allowed them to live. They were fed and contained, and they naturally started to multiply over time. Hundreds of years passed, and now the Nether is the way I know it: absolute hell, but with thousands of humans who are kept in compounds and treated exactly like animals. They’re seen as a resource—the life to feed the death that rules there.”
Maven looks out the nearest window, but her mind appears far away. “The first time I stumbled across one of the human compounds, I was on the run during a training exercise. Their condition was sickening. But even though they were worse off than me, the humans tried to help me. They were…kind. Horribly beaten and hopeless, but kind. Years later, when
Amadeus turned me into this and gave me my purpose, I realized that if I was fated to die anyway?—“
“Please don’t fucking say that,” Decimus grits, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Then I may as well take advantage of Amadeus’s scheme and use it to save them,” she finishes, looking at each of us. “I have a plan. I’m compelled to end the entire Immortal Quintet to unleash the Nether since Amadeus made that my purpose…but I’m going to leave one member of the Immortal Quintet alive. I’m going to weaken the Nether just enough for the humans to escape.”
I consider this and put the pieces together. “Your blood oath is with those humans. You promised to free them from the Nether, didn’t you?”
She nods, her jaw set in determination.
And just like that, my consuming obsession only doubles.
I knew Maven must have a strong reason, but knowing that my keeper has leveraged her terribly dealt hand in life in a gambit to save thousands from the king of the Undead…
I’m in awe of her.
And yet, at the same time, I can’t bear knowing this.
“I see what Pia meant by your nobility now,” Crane murmurs as if to himself, his expression softening. He leans against the wall, rubbing his temples. “But what happens once the humans escape, Maven?”
“If you’re worried about the Nether consuming the rest of the world, I have a plan for?—“
Silas huffs. “What I’m worried about is you.
If you don’t fulfill your purpose as a revenant, what will happen to you?”
Maven adjusts her gloves and smiles at us. “Nothing. I told you, I have a plan. I’ll be fine.”
Crane’s jaw clenches tightly before he looks away. “Professor Crowley explained your unique magic, but what about the necromancy? How can you use that and common magic? Necromancy doesn’t play nice with other magics. It shouldn’t be possible.”
“I agree. It shouldn’t, but there were unintended side effects to their methods of making me into this. And before you start spiraling,” our keeper goes on, raising a knowing eyebrow at Frost. “Nevermelt stabbed through a heart only works when there’s an actual heart to stab. You aren’t going to be the death of me.”
He flinches, looking positively miserable. “We don’t know that.”
Decimus starts to say something else, but I’m distracted when I feel a sharp, painful ripple in Limbo from somewhere nearby. Several markings on my hands and neck light up. The severity of the ripple tells me that it has something to do with wisps.
Maven sees the markings light up and catches my eye. “Go. We can talk more about this later.”
I don’t want to go.
As the steward of Limbo, I always knew my time with her would be limited, but knowing Maven is in such peril…now even the idea of being apart from her for a second pains me almost as much as my curse.
“Crypt. Go.” Her eyes are gentle.
I’m loathe to leave her, but with a sigh, I slip back into Limbo to handle it.
MAVEN
When Crypt disappears, I’m left with Baelfire dragging his hands through his hair anxiously, Everett, who has frost up to his elbows and refuses to look at me, and an inexplicably frustrated blood fae.
“There. Now you guys know everything,” I offer.
Silas gives me an acerbic look. “If you say so.”
Damn it. He somehow knows I lied there at the end.
But when he asked what will happen to me, I couldn’t find the words to explain that even if I succeed at killing most of the Immortal Quintet, saving Lillian and all the Nether-born humans, and find ways to break my matches’ curses…
There’s still no way this can end happily for me. I came to terms with that long ago.
It’s shitty, but there it is.
Before any of us can say anything else, footsteps sound nearby, and several seconds later, Professor Gibbons pokes his head into the alcove, blinking in surprise. I know he didn’t overhear us, thanks to the special acoustics of this alcove, but he still looks flustered.
“Oh, my,” he grimaces, looking between the four of us. “Miss Oakley, as the keeper of your quintet, you should ensure that you’re all abiding by the rules set forth by our leaders. That means eating lunch during the scheduled block, not canoodling in the hallways!”
Canoodling?
I make a face. “Don’t repeat that word around me.”
Baelfire folds his arms. “I wish we were canoodling. Would’ve been way more enjoyable than that emotional fucking roller coaster.”
Gibbons starts to fret. “Please, won’t you all come along to the dining hall? You’re breaking the rules, and the Immortal Quintet has been extremely intolerant of those who cross them lately. Speaking of which, all legacies and faculty are mandated to stay inside the dining hall during the next hour.”
“Why?” Everett asks.
“I…well, I don’t know,” the warlock grimaces, rubbing one bushy eyebrow. “Asking seemed unwise.”
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.