Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
We all launch forward, trying to stop him from pulling his new weakness back out. As if in slow motion, I see the moment Amadeus’s attention snaps to Everett, instead. His skeletal, powerful hand plunges forward, and?—
He rips Everett’s heart out.
The elemental collapses immediately, twitching.
“No!” I scream, both aloud and through the bond.
Vaguely, I hear Silas shouting a spell, but it doesn’t register as blind fury and unparalleled horror overwhelm me. Holy magic burns through me with this rush of rage, and suddenly I’m slamming into Amadeus, sweeping his legs out from under him with my scythe until we both crash to the ground. He’s summoning dark magic to his hands, about to do something terrible to me.
But I move faster.
Withdrawing Pierce, I jam it deeply into Amadeus’s now-occupied chest until my fingertips nearly sink into his crepe-paper-like, unnatural flesh.
The Entity’s hoarse scream cuts through the air like the most beautiful hymn I’ve ever heard.
I want more. I want him to suffer the way he made me suffer.
Cuttrina has already morphed back into knife form in my other hand, and I stab that into his chest, too. Over and over. I’m so overwhelmed by fury and rage that it takes me a moment to realize that Amadeus is…crying.
The gleam of moisture is difficult to make out in the dim flicker of green light around us, but it trickles over his colorless temples as he wheezes.
“D—daughter….daughter…”
“I am not your motherfucking daughter,” I snarl, my pulse pumping in my ears as my heart squeezes painfully.
Amadeus’s breathing shudders as his ink-line blood pools on the arena floor below us. Somewhere nearby, I hear a fiend shriek at the sight of the dead Entity. Others in this battle begin to notice and react to his demise, but I pay it no attention as Silas quickly takes Everett’s heart from Amadeus’s limp hand and rushes to Everett’s motionless side. My necromancer flips him over and begins chanting.
I can’t breathe. Whatever Silas is doing, it has to work.
It has to work.
Amadeus’s black eyes roll to look at me. “I…I feel. I feel,”
he gasps.
One of his skeletal hands grips my arm, and revulsion sweeps through me, but I’m arrested by something on his face.
It’s wonder. Horror. Fear.
A dozen other emotions mixed together.
Amadeus is feeling the weight of mortality again for the first time in thousands of years, but unlike me, he can’t stand it. All he can do is weep as he dies beside me.
“G—Galene chose this for me,” he rasps. “This end. If—if it is by my daughter’s hands that she wills me to go to the beyond…l—let it be mercifully. End me.
End me, daughter.”
I used to fear this weeping creature, but now?
He’s fucking pitiful. Just a withered, empty husk—a shadow of the prophet he once was.
Still…
With a small sigh, I remove one of my gloves and force one of my fingers to graze Amadeus’s hand, still bloodied from Everett’s heart. Whatever peace I instill in him, his eyes widen, and then they just stay open.
His chest stops rising and falling.
And a moment later, I sense it. New death, like a thick, heavy tide pulling away from this shore.
The moment Amadeus’s spirit separates from his body, the Nether ripples around us. The darkness lifts and clouds part. People are shouting and screaming all over the citadel, shadow fiends shrieking as they run from the new light invading this twilight realm.
But I ignore it all as I quickly move to Everett’s side, sitting beside Silas with my heart pounding in my throat. I haven’t felt the bond snap. That means something, right?
You did it,
Baelfire murmurs through the bond.
He’s right. I did it.
Not that it matters if I lose Everett. I did all of this for a future with my quintet. Without him…
Crypt wraps me in a hug from behind, kneeling behind me as we ignore the chaos. Fiends flee all around. Reformists are driving them deeper into the Nether, shouting out orders and checking their motionless comrades for pulses.
I watch as Silas finally places Everett’s heart back into the hole in his chest. Sweat beads on my necromancer’s brow as he whispers more necromantic chants. His nose starts to bleed, but he perseveres.
Everett is still lying too still.
A moment later, Baelfire joins us. He’s naked from shifting back and covered in soot, blood, and dirt, but his brow is furrowed as he, too, watches Silas work.
A sob tries to escape, but I shove it down. Crypt still notices and squeezes me tighter as the few markings remaining on him glow in rapid succession.
I need you to do something for me, I tell only Everett telepathically, clinging to the fact that the bond hasn’t broken for all I’m worth.
I need you to stay.
Silas stumbles in his chant, swaying slightly. Baelfire quickly steadies him.
“Si?”
“I can do this,” the fae grits, resuming his spell. “I cast a preservation spell on him the moment after Amadeus removed his heart. That means his life force is strong—I just need to make his heart realize that and beat again.”
I don’t even fucking know what spell he’s using. Healing? Necromancy? All the words blur together as my heart tries to knock free from my chest.
And then finally—
fucking finally—
Everett gasps, his eyes flying open.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I’m not sure if I’m talking to the universe, the gods, or my quintet as I fling myself onto my elemental, careful not to bump the place where Silas is still healing up his injury. One of Everett’s arms weakly wraps around me, but he’s still wheezing.
“Fuck, that hurt like hell,” he groans before glancing at the rest of my quintet and grimacing. “The lizard’s naked again. Why am I not surprised? Worst sight ever to wake up to.”
I’m so hysterical with everything that just happened that his barb at Baelfire actually earns a laugh from me.
Baelfire exhales in relief before smiling, gesturing at his naked self. “Sure, Professor Popsicle. We all know you only woke back up to get a good look at this.”
Everett gags and then hisses in pain just as Silas finishes sealing up his chest. The scar remains, which doesn’t surprise me—I’m sure my fae is barely hanging on, and scars can be healed later.
“What was that about not trying to be a hero?” Silas scoffs, but his voice is as relieved as I’m feeling.
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.