Page 4 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

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EVERETT

Walking through the white, mind-numbing nothingness of the blizzard is soothing. It almost makes it easier to stop thinking. To stop remembering .

Almost.

I love you .

The echo of the worst moment of my life haunts me even here, in the middle of bumfuck nowhere on a Tuesday in what is supposed to be summertime. Behind me, Asher Douglas nearly trips over something buried in the rising snow and cusses me out for the ninth time since we started this trek ten minutes ago.

“If you could stop with this never-ending winter, that'd be great,” he grits, catching up to me again.

The redheaded, burly ex-bounty hunter is taller than I am and bundled in so many winter coats that he would probably roll if I pushed him down the slight slope we're on.

I’m tempted. This mercenary is almost as much of a loudmouth as Baelfire was.

The passing thought of that dragon makes me wince before I turn to scan our surroundings. We’re on a large hill leading up to a copse of trees, which must be where we’re headed. Little black shapes are scattered in the tree branches, which is fucking irritating.

I already know what those are.

“Just transport us closer next time,” I mutter, annoyed when I hear a deep croak from up ahead.

Douglas adjusts his scarf to scratch at the bounty hunter tattoo on the column of his neck, shooting me a dirty look. “I’ve told you, transportation magic is an exact form of common magic. I’m only good with healing and wild magic spells. I’ve proven I’m shit at transporting, yet you have me transport you all the fucking time. It’s like asking a godsdamned toddler to paint you a portrait. Next time, hire a caster whose specialties match your needs.”

No point. This useful mercenary has earned my trust, which is rare nowadays.

Plus, she once took an inexplicable liking to him. That makes him a reminder worth keeping.

I ignore his continual griping and the exhaustion weighing on me as we approach the trees where there’s less snow. Sure enough, all the black blobs turn out to be ravens. There are half a dozen of them here, watching me.

They’re always watching.

I am so fucking sick of being stared at.

Douglas doesn’t notice my growing irritation or how it makes the wind howl with more snow. He gets his bearings and quickly leads me to a crumpled skeleton at the foot of the biggest tree.

Trying to ignore the damn birds, I squat and brush aside dead leaves and snow to examine the remains. Sure enough, dark runes emblazoned on what’s left of the bones tell me it belonged to a necromancer. This one has all the same markers as the others we’ve found.

According to the medical examiner who almost shit himself when I dragged him to a similar site months ago, all signs point to these necromancers’ cause of death being strangulation by their own intestines.

Which means Crypt was definitely here.

This is his preferred way of killing necromancers who venture outside of the Entity’s ever-expanding territory. In other words, anyone who may have contributed to magically experimenting on…on her when she was just a child.

My chest pangs. I rub the right side of my face and stand to yawn.

Another raven squawks.

Unfortunately, this thing has been decomposed for a while, even with the cold preserving it. Meaning, that damned incubus hasn’t been here anytime recently.

Where the hell is he? The last “mission” I sent him on was almost three months ago. That emotionless dick was pushing himself too fucking hard on purpose, trying to burn out. If Crypt’s curse finally got the best of him…

Damn it. Past me would never believe it if I told him we would miss those assholes.

The moment I lost her , I lost it all. Including them.

I failed her. Us. Myself.

I’m the only one left in this purgatory. All because my greatest fear came true, and I was unlucky enough to survive it. Turns out, being the last man left standing is a far different, far worse brand of loneliness than the kind my prophecy hinted at.

Squawk. Squawk .

The ravens are still staring.

I hate them. Those beady eyes just never leave me.

“Hey, Frost. Frost . You good?”

Realizing Douglas has repeated my name several times, I let him have my cold, vacant stare. It’s become my default expression nowadays to disguise everything I can’t stop feeling. Luckily, this mercenary has gotten used to me spacing out.

“I’m fine,” I say flatly.

“Uh-huh. Sure.” He kicks aside one of the necromancer’s bones, steals a look at all the birds watching us, and grumbles something about demon chickens before changing the topic. “Three of my men came back from Pennsylvania this morning. It’s completely colorless over there now. Thought you should know.”

As the Nether has crept further into the mortal realm, unleashing all its horrors, the places falling under the power of the Entity have had their color slowly sapped away. And it’s not just along the eastern borders where the Divide once stood. Now, anywhere inhabited by his escaped forces becomes a shadowy, twilight land.

Nether monsters, fiends, liches, necromancers, Undead, and countless creatures—including ones I’ve never heard of—have oozed into the world like ink dripped in water. A lot of places aren’t safe for humans to live anymore. Wraiths run free along with demons, wendigos, banshees, and more.

Then there are the Limbo Zones. Inconstant, distorted areas without gravitational pull that are plagued by wisps, shades, and insanity-inducing mists. They exist thanks to the Nightmare Prince letting that plane of existence collide with this one six months ago, when we lost everything.

“Update the other Reformists,” I rasp through the ache in my throat.

He grunts in agreement, squinting at the creepy birds again.

One of the ravens flutters closer. I try not to visibly flinch as frost climbs up my arms to my shoulders. When another one moves closer on a tree branch to get a better look at me, ice locks inside my chest.

My parents once told me that ravens are messengers sent by the gods. They’re bad luck—symbols of dark transformation and wretched prophecy. The gods have been sending them to torment me for the last six months as some kind of sick joke.

When another raven squawks at me, I can’t fucking take it anymore. Throwing my arm wide, I freeze all the stupid birds and watch in satisfaction as they thump to the ground, a couple of them shattering immediately and scrambling to fly away. I don’t let them. I skewer them on ice spikes that jut violently up from the ground, and then finally, I don’t feel any of their beady little eyes on me.

It won’t last long. Never does. Somehow, more of the fucking birds always find me.

Still, it’s cathartic while it lasts.

Douglas isn’t surprised because he’s seen this happen a few times. He just kicks one of the frozen ravens aside and grunts, “I’m ready to get back. Dev is going to be a whiney fucker about not seeing me all day.”

Dev, as in Devil. That’s what Douglas calls his freakishly loyal, oversized pet hellhound. This mercenary is about as creative as Baelfire when it comes to names.

Again, the thought of the once-smiley, oversized lug makes me rub my temple, trying to soothe the headache building there.

“Fine. Send us back.”

The caster pops his neck and begins laying the transportation spell. One bright green flash of light later, I brush the snow off the shoulders of my trench coat and walk through more snow toward Everbound University.

I took over the massive gothic building immediately following the battle where we lost it all, during the beginning of the period of time everyone now calls the Upheaval. As the world started going to shit, I fortified this entire castle, much of the surrounding area, and even Halfton with massive walls of nevermelt.

A lot of Reformists praise me for it. They say I was brilliant to keep the depth of my elemental powers a secret. They think I was insightful and prepared this place to become one of the main strongholds holding back the Entity’s forces.

The truth is? I’m just a glutton for pain.

This is where I met her. Where we trained together. Where I stole as many lingering glances as I could justify when I thought she wasn’t looking, hating myself for putting my keeper in danger—or so I’d thought. Each of those fleeting memories clings to every corner of this barren, damned fortress just like the frost and shadows and emptiness.

The reminders of her are agonizing.

But I need that. It’s all I’ve been left with.

I can’t handle losing anything else, so I preserved any trace of what I lost.