Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
“I can’t sleep right now,” I protest quietly, trying to muffle a yawn.
“You can and you will so that you’ll be well-rested enough to see Lillian for breakfast tomorrow.”
Breakfast with Lillian? Gods, I can’t wait to see her.
She was the only person I trusted growing up in the Nether, and I’ve missed her ever since I left. I want to insist that we go now, but it’s been one long fucking day. I still haven’t had time to process everything properly, but exhaustion is weighing heavily on my eyelids.
“Maven,” Everett murmurs against the top of my head.
“Hmm?”
“I need you to do something for me.”
Those words send a pang of remembered pain through me.
“Anything,” I parrot through a yawn.
“Don’t ever fucking leave me again.”
I close my eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
CRYPT
It starts as it always does.
I walk unseen through a crowd of motley, nondescript auras. They’re bland compared to the aura surrounding the riveting girl on the stage, the one I’m drawn to. Her aura is the very same enticingly rich, shimmering dark mauve that brought me back to Everbound in the first place.
When I step into the mortal realm and see her face to face for the first time, I’m changed.
I’m hers.
She’s mine.
Those breathtakingly intelligent eyes carry haunting secrets that tantalize me from the start. Without a word spoken between us, I feel it—that there is something in the fabric of her being that is precisely what my own soul is comprised of.
That’s not all I feel. I’ve removed the walls I put up so long ago, and now every emotion I experience in her presence is fresh. Exhilarating. Even when she attempts to reject us, it’s thrillingly unexpected.
Observing her becomes an addiction. I watch her micro-expressions day by day, enjoying the smallest of insights into my dark darling’s beautiful mind. I become obsession personified, relishing every moment I have with my keeper before my curse catches up with me.
There’s no escape.
Discovering what happiness feels like is incomparable.
That’s how it always starts.
But then, the agony begins. Every night, I witness the nightmares that plague her as permanent psychological scars. The screaming. The experiments. The conditioning.
The time she trusted a boy who took what he wanted from her before trying to take her life.
I never tell her what I’ve seen of her past in the memories that torment her nights. How could I? My keeper survived things I wish I could make her forget. I’ll never remind her of them by breathing a word about it ever again.
There’s no escape.
In this purgatory, numbing myself is my only defense. Yet even that is becoming useless.
Our quintet grows closer. We learn about her blood oath and her purpose. She says she knows how to survive it all in the end.
It’s a lie. I know that just as she knows that my minutes are ticking away with my curse, bringing me closer to the Beyond.
But I don’t fear my curse, or death.
I fear being without her. I fear existing as that numb nothingness that I was before finding a soul as broken as mine. I fear losing what precious time I have left with her.
And that’s precisely what happens in this cycle I live on repeat.
Every breath between us in this endless cycle is something I would die to have back. Every smile and argument and whisper and kiss?—
Until the moment I see her lifeless on a barren battlefield. Gone.
I was going to ask her to be my muse.
Dulling every emotion isn’t working anymore, because even the numbness hurts. The cycle starts over as I’m forced to relive it all, along with my bitter past.
Again. And again. And again.
MAVEN
I can barely see through the excessive amount of winter gear Everett bundled me in as we leave his old professor’s apartment at dawn. Waking up was surprisingly difficult for me since I slept like the dead after resurrecting, but I get the sneaking feeling my nerve-wracked elemental didn’t sleep at all.
“We have to catch her early, before she goes to the makeshift temples in Halfton. She goes almost every day,” Everett explains, holding my hand through the fuzzy gloves I’m wearing.
Every time we approach another hallway, he pauses to peek around corners to ensure no Reformists under his command are hanging around these hallways. I only got the barest glimpse of Everbound in the darkness of the night, but in the cold morning light, I can really appreciate how much more desolate this gothic castle has become.
Everett’s uncontrolled power has transformed Everbound Castle. It was always a gothic behemoth, but now its windows are frosted over, hallways are glazed with shimmering displays of ice, and even the shadows of this eerie stone maze seem chilled.
As we descend a staircase and turn down another hall, I realize we’ll pass Everbound’s eastern library. An idea strikes me.
“Are there books on holy magic in Everbound’s library?” I ask, encouraged by the prospect of finally knowing how the hell to use my magic.
According to Galene, holy magic is fueled by worship. But reaping souls seems to help, too. Maybe there’s something I can study to learn about my annoyingly dormant new abilities.
Everett’s brow furrows. “I doubt it. Records like that would be kept in temples for anyone who can use holy magic. You know, saints and prophets and…” He trails off before understanding crosses his face. “Oh, shit. You can use holy magic, can’t you?”
“Barely,” I grumble, petulant.
I trained for years to use the destructive magic of revenants with ease. Being out of my depth with holy magic, to the point that I can’t even heal myself, let alone rebond with my matches, is really fucking annoying.
We turn another corner into what used to be the administration hallway, where Lillian has been staying. I’m dying to see her, but if there’s a chance that I could start learning how to use my magic…
When Everett pauses outside one of the doors, I tug on his hand. “We may need to steal records about holy magic from a temple.”
To my surprise, he agrees without a single protest. “While you talk with Lillian, I’ll send some Reformists to take anything and everything you need from the makeshift temples in Halfton. A lot of refugee priests and prophets salvaged any records they could when they went on the run from shadow fiends and Crypt destroying their temples.”
Crypt.
Every time I think of my missing Nightmare Prince, it hurts. I need to find a way to track him down or find out if he’s even still?—
No. He’s alive. He has to be.
I arch a brow, intrigued by my previously upright match’s apparent indifference. “You’re not afraid the gods will smite you?”
“As if they could come up with a worse punishment than the last six months. If they were going to smite me, they would have done it a hundred times over by now, those fucking—” He cuts off, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. “Damn it. I can’t badmouth them now.”
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.