Filed To Story: Cursed Legacies Series Free PDF by Morgan B Lee
She skips to the window on my side of the room and tries to throw open the black curtains. When she remembers that I spelled them permanently shut, she gives up and sits next to me, tapping her long, newly manicured nails against the wooden floor.
“Are you nervous? Gods, I am so nervous. I wonder if I’m going to be a keeper. What if I wind up in a quintet with ugly people? Or—” She gasps and gives me the most horrified look. “Shit, what if I have no matches?”
From everything I’ve learned since arriving, that does happen.
The gods may decide that a quintet still has missing pieces, such as legacies not yet at the university. Those quintets graduate without being bound to each other, meaning their curses go unbroken. Most incomplete quintets return yearly for the Seeking, living on a prayer and a hope.
In other words, quintets with age gaps get the shaft.
“I don’t want to wait,” Kenzie growls, clearly thinking about the same thing I am. She rolls onto her back, stretching like a cat and sighing at my ceiling. “I just want all my people at once. Is that too much to ask? I want two or three gorgeous guys and at least one sexy girl, and then we can all break our curse together and skip to the good part, where we get on with life, have lots of kinky, mind-blowing sex, and live happily ever after. Doesn’t that sound perfect?”
I won’t tell Kenzie this, but I don’t believe in happily ever after. Not for me, anyway.
Am I a pessimist?
Yes. I find it keeps me from being disappointed.
Then Kenzie frowns and props herself up to look at my side of the room. Her side of the dorm is pretty much empty now, all her bright decorations, erotic paintings, and other belongings packed neatly into boxes stacked by her stripped four-poster bed.
My half of the room is almost as bare as the day I arrived. I did buy things like black sheets and blankets and gray pots for my plants, but I don’t see the point of decorating when I plan to leave soon. The only evidence of my space being inhabited are the potted plants on my desk that get their light from a gentle sunlight spell and the white pillow on the dark bed.
“Hang on. Why haven’t you packed your stuff up yet, May? You know we’ll move in with our quintet members immediately after the Seeking, right?”
“If I get matched to a quintet, I’ll move my stuff later.”
It’s a lie. I’m not budging.
“Suit yourself.” She gets to her feet. “Now come on! Get ready so we can get to the Seeking early.”
“I’m ready.”
Her eyes drop to my baggy, shape-concealing clothes that are so dark green they’re nearly black. “Uh…not to be a bitch, but do you remember how I bought you a pretty, lacy, emerald-green dress when we went shopping two weeks ago?”
“Yes. I love it.” I’ll never wear it here, where I’m carefully crafting my reputation for being a frumpy, forgettable nobody, but I do love it.
“But…you’re not wearing it.”
“Very astute observation.”
Kenzie rolls her eyes at me and then grins. “Well, all right. You know I think you’re pretty in anything—but promise that even after we’re super busy with our new quintets, you’ll make the time to have a girl’s night with me, and we’ll both get dressed up for a night on the town.”
“I promise.” It’s an easy compromise because I won’t have a quintet.
I plan to reject any matches I get.
Me tying my soul with four other people? Not going to happen. It wouldn’t end well for any of us. It’s more than likely that I’ll be the one to get no matches today. Fingers crossed.
“Great! Then come on, let’s go.”
I grab my favorite pair of black leather gloves from the top drawer of my dresser and slip them on as I follow Kenzie out of my room. I always wear gloves. But right now, they’re especially useful because my fingertips are still charred, and I won’t have the time to make up a healing balm until later.
The moment we step into the large courtyard, we’re thronged by the crowd gathered around an elevated circular stage. The few hundred legacies gathered here today are separated into four sections, all wearing their House colors.
Blood red, for the House of Craving. It’s the house of siphons—legacies like vampires, sirens, succubi and incubi, and a few others. They feed on blood, dreams, emotions, and so forth in exchange for their intimidating powers, including immortality.
Golden yellow, for the House of Shifters. There were once animal shifters of all kinds, but now only the apex predators remain. Wolves, bears, lions, tigers, sea serpents, griffins… Theirs is the House of primal instinct and territorial savagery.
Silvery blue, for the House of Elementals. The gods bless the descendants of this House with the ability to wield the four elements: fire, air, water, or earth. This House is far more devout in worshipping the gods, who handpick the elementals’ abilities for them at birth.
And finally, emerald green for the House of Arcana. Full of magic-users—aka casters—of all origins. Fae, sorcerers, witches and wizards, mages…it’s a mixed bag of various talents, but everyone here has magic in their very blood, which they can wield. It’s the House I was sorted into.
I realize Kenzie has been trying to tell me something over the loud chatter of the audience when she finally taps my shoulder to get my attention. I take an instinctive step away even as I glance up at her. Like most shifters, she’s on the tall side, but the heels just add to it.
“I’ll see you up there later!” she says, face glowing with excitement as she points at the stage. “Good luck!”
She turns to disappear into the yellow group. Other shifters recognize her, and she’s quickly swept up into the nervous excitement practically palpable in the air.
I slip into the House of Arcana section, surrounded by other casters who barely spare me a glance since I’ve made sure I’m easy to forget.
The crowd’s chatter finally cuts off when the interim headmaster, Professor Gibbons, ascends the stairs to the stage, turning in a circle to greet everyone with a brilliant smile. The warlock’s snow-white hair gleams in the morning sunlight as he casts a charm to carry his voice over the rapt onlookers.
“Welcome all to the Seeking! Whether you are here for the first time or part of an incomplete quintet hoping your missing matches will be revealed, I know everyone present has been eager for this day for a long time.”
A resounding cheer goes up all around me.
“I’m sure we are all aware of why quintets are necessary. Still, it bears repeating. Two thousand years ago, our monstrous ancestors emerged from the hellish Nether realm and nearly ripped the world apart through war between the Houses. During that time, humans became little more than fodder for our feuding. They were treated like animals, fed upon, used, and slaughtered at the whim and desire of our kind.”
That hits too close to home for me. I try and fail to unclench my grinding jaw.
“Finally, the gods could watch their beloved humans suffer no more,” Professor Gibbons goes on. “In answer to humanity’s prayers, the gods created the Legacy Curse. We were made to be incomplete without one another so that we would have no choice but to put aside our many differences and work as one. The leaders of the Four Houses were bound together as the Immortal Quintet and created the Divide to keep the Nether—and the dreadful Entity who rules it—from ever returning to this world. We are all safe because of the Immortal Quintet,” he adds proudly.
The audience claps while I roll my eyes.
Safe. Such a subjective term.
“Unfortunately, the horrors of the Nether still seep into this world. The gods knew that dimension of darkness would forever seek to find a foothold in the land of the living, and so we descendants of monsters were appointed to hunt down and kill off these endless threats. Now we share a symbiotic purpose—and quintets bound together from the Four Houses are the foundation. Today, you will discover whether other members of your fated quintet are here.”
Excited whispers fill the air as a woman dressed head to toe in white, including a shimmering veil obscuring her face, ascends the stairs. I swear she’s glowing slightly, and it’s not just from the blinding winter morning sunlight. Her movements are graceful and paced.
Professor Gibbons gestures to her since, apparently, she doesn’t plan on speaking. “This is the high prophetess Pia of the Temple of Galene, goddess of light. She is here to divine the will of the gods for each of you, but first, she will seek out the keepers chosen by the gods to lead their quintets. If you are identified as a keeper, please come forward and wait for your individual divination of matches.”
The prophetess makes an odd symbol with her hands, and it sounds like she’s muttering something under her breath. Maybe it’s a prayer, but I wouldn’t know since I gave up praying to the gods long ago. Everyone around me is holding their breath, straining to see the stage.
Then gasps ring out as legacies dispersed throughout the audience begin to glow. It’s not a faint glow, either—they light up like fucking lightbulbs. One of the fae casters beside me is so bright I flinch away, only to bump into a witch accidentally. I vaguely recognize her from my Intro to Runes course last year. I think her name is Sheila.
“Watch it,” she grumbles, squinting hard at me. “And you might want to get a move on before you’re the last one in line.”
Her meaning doesn’t sink in until I glance down at my arms and realize I’m glowing, too.
Shit. That’s not good.
How the fuck am I a keeper?
Maybe the gods just did this to mess with me. I don’t know if they’re omniscient, but if they are, they should know precisely why I refuse to be in a quintet—let alone lead one.
My moment of shock ends when Sheila nudges me forward. “You’re seriously the last keeper in our House still standing around. Come on, get up there and represent.”
I don’t like all the eyes on me as I weave through the crowd, clenching and unclenching my gloved hands. But I’d stand out much more if I tried to resist this, and attention is the last thing I want. At this point, it’s best just to see if some of my matches are here. If they are, I’m sure they’ll take one look at me and be more than okay with me rejecting the quintet. They can appeal to the gods for a new keeper, and I’ll be on my merry way.
The glow on my skin begins to fade as I approach the line of legacies waiting to go on stage one by one. Professor Gibbons is saying something but I’ve tuned it out, too busy stewing over this new inconvenience.
I’m so distracted with trying to keep my head down that I actually make a little, embarrassing yelp when a manicured hand shoots out and pulls me to the very back of the line.
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