Page 12 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

11

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.”

“Why not?”

“Because even though it’s still insane to think about, some of them are your family, Snowdrop.”

Family? Yikes. I don’t remember if the last six months made me consider any of the gods as family , but I doubt it.

Deciding to shelf that unpleasant thought for later, I get back to the matter at hand. “I need records about how divine magic works. Casting, theories, spells, rituals. Anything like that.”

“Done,” Everett agrees before knocking on the door.

I swallow hard as we wait, feeling oddly…nervous.

If what I believe about Lillian’s past words is true, she might not be surprised to see me, but I still hope she’ll be glad. If she’s even missed me half as much as I’ve missed her?—

The door opens with a soft creak.

Emotions immediately crash over me when Lillian’s bright blue eyes widen. They’re quickly filled with that tender, maternal look I remember so well from when I was a kid.

“Maven,” she breathes, clutching her hands in front of her chest.

She doesn’t throw her arms around me. She doesn’t start bawling.

She knows me too well for any of that.

Gods, I’ve missed her so much that I’m the one who impulsively steps forward and wraps her in a quick hug. She startles, but I pull away just as quickly, pretending my tear ducts aren't traitors and there is absolutely no extra moisture in my eyes.

The smile that breaks over Lillian’s face is sunshine itself. I’ve never seen her in the mortal world, but her irises are bluer than I remember. Her wildly curly blonde-and-gray hair is currently in a braid over one shoulder. She’s dressed in several layers of colorful, warm winter clothes right down to fuzzy green and purple striped socks on her feet.

“I’ve missed you so much, little raven,” she finally says on an emotional laugh. “All my prayers have finally been answered. Here, both of you come inside. I have a fire going, and I can make some hot chocolate and oatmeal and?—”

“Make it all for Maven. I need to go give an order, but I’ll be right back,” Everett says, squeezing my hand one more time.

We both wait for him to leave, but then I realize his other hand has gone to fidget repeatedly with his coat buttons. His teeth are clenched as a muscle jumps in his jaw.

He's clearly freaking out internally.

A big part of me understands his anxiety about being parted, even for a second. The world has changed since my demise, and not knowing all the potential threats means anything could happen to my elemental, no matter how briefly he’s gone.

But Everett has clearly gotten far stronger and more brutal than I ever would’ve guessed. He can handle himself, and I need to talk to Lillian alone, so I lift onto my tiptoes to kiss his cool cheek.

“You’ll be back quickly.”

It’s more of a command than a reassurance. Once I’ve finally stepped through the threshold and I’m safely inside Lillian’s warm chambers, he lets out a slow breath before striding away like a man on a time-sensitive mission.

Lillian shuts the door and ushers me closer to the crackling fireplace. As I glance over this room, I begin stripping out of multiple outer coats and scarves.

Lillian has turned this from an administrator’s office into a cozy one-room living area. Happy, bright yellow drapes curtain the window that lets in fresh dawn light. Various herbs hang drying on one brightly painted wall. There’s also a wardrobe, a colorful bookshelf, a bed overflowing with pillows tucked in one corner, and books stacked ridiculously high on a light blue nightstand.

My eye catches on a frame beside the stack of books. It’s a grainy photograph of a little girl dressed in some kind of uniform, with a big cheese grin that shows off several missing teeth. Between her softly pointed ears, bright blue eyes, short curly hair, and button nose, I realize the girl is Lillian’s…daughter.

She never told me she had a daughter.

This revelation is stunning enough that my attention lingers on the picture even after I sit on a stool by the fireplace.

Lillian follows where I’m looking. A soft, far-off expression crosses her face. “Her name was Annabel. I was so relieved to find that picture in the rubble of my old apartment after returning to the mortal world.”

I look at her questioningly.

“It wasn’t that I wanted to keep secrets from you. It’s just that it’s so difficult to think about her, never mind talking about her,” Lillian explains.

Using a woven mitt, she grabs a pot boiling over the crackling fire before moving to a small table. She quickly dishes up oatmeal and pours hot chocolate for each of us. I accept a steaming mug and bowl from her as she sits on the other stool. We sit in comfortable yet teeming silence as we eat for a moment.

But it’s time to get everything out in the open. Setting the dishes down, I face my oldest friend and caretaker.

“You knew all along.”

Lillian sips her hot chocolate before meeting my gaze with a sigh. “Yes. I knew who you were even before I was sent to watch over you in the Nether.”

Sent?

I study her in the glow of the fire. “Syntyche sent you?”

“Galene did, actually.” Lillian takes a deep breath and sets her mug aside to give this conversation her full attention. “Do you remember what I told you about my life before the Nether?”

“You were married to a fae, but it didn’t work out.” That’s mostly all she ever said about it, but I look at the photograph on the bedside table again. “You had a daughter with him before you divorced.”

“It wasn’t his fault, or mine. See, Annabel was our entire world. It didn’t matter to us that many people, including our families, disapproved of a legacy and a human getting married. We were just a happy family until…” Lillian’s eyes water. She smooths her jacket, clearing her throat. “There was an accident. We were on the way home one night from Annabel’s first bridging ceremony. Edgar was driving carefully, but a semi-truck T-boned the back of our car at an intersection and?—”

Lillian cuts off and looks away, exhaling shakily and tucking a wild curl back into her braid. “She didn’t survive the impact, and neither did our marriage. I was just too lost and heartbroken to function after losing her. I can’t even describe how dark that time was for me. So, naturally, I wound up in the high temple of…”

“My mother,” I guess.

The goddess of darkness and mourning.

“Yes. I found peace there and decided to stay, working as an attendant to the priests and priestesses. That’s where I met your father.”

Wait. “You knew Pietro Amato?”

Lillian nods, wiping away a stray tear. “The other attendants didn’t know him by name, but they told me that on the same day each year for three years in a row, that man came to Syntyche's high temple to spend the entire day grieving. We were under strict rules to give mourners their space and never interrupt them, but…I saw myself in him. I recognized the kind of loss that can only come from losing a child, so I approached him.”

She shakes her head at the memory. “I wanted to comfort him, but your father comforted me instead. We talked about Annabel for a long time, and then we talked about you. Only after the other mourners had left and the temple workers were long gone did he confide in me who your mother was. He was clearly a man in pain, so I didn’t tell him how crazy I thought he was. But after he left the temple, Galene appeared to me.”

I narrow my eyes at the fire. “Let me guess. She was dressed head to toe in white, read your mind, and made a lot of obscure remarks to annoy the fuck out of you.”

Lillian laughs softly. “She was disguising her face, yes. But there was nothing obscure about her instructions when she told me it was time for me to go watch over you.”

I frown. “But if Syntyche is my mother and you worked at her temple, why was Galene the one who sent you to me?”

“I don’t know all her reasons,” she shrugs. “But she had me swear not to reveal your true nature to anyone, including you. She could see all the possible outcomes, including many futures where you figured out what you were too soon and died fighting Amadeus before you could fulfill…”

Lillian trails off, squirming uncomfortably.

And suddenly, I can’t help recalling Del Mar’s dying claim that my existence was orchestrated.

“Before I could fulfill the reason I was made,” I finish out loud.

It rings true in the quiet. I wasn’t just born—I was made with a purpose in mind.

As in…I was always going to be a means to an end. Before the Nether. Before Amadeus picked me to be his telum. Before I even existed.

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.