Page 7 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

6

MAVEN

As soon as I hobble into the giant tent that belongs to Kenzie’s quintet, Luka looks up from studying a map on a desk. The vampire’s attention immediately skips to my shoulder, where my bloodied bandage is starting to seep through, before he squints to check my pupils.

His own eyes get comically wide. “You have got to be shitting me.”

“I shit you not,” I reply, examining this space as I distractedly rub the aching, overheated center of my chest.

It’s big enough to comfortably house a quintet-sized bed, the desk where Luka sits, a small cooking area, a wardrobe, and a few pieces of Kenzie’s erotic art. Mage lights keep it well-lit and cozy.

It’s also warm in here, thank the fucking universe.

After taking an unfrequented path out of the woods, we approached a massive nevermelt wall patrolled by Reformist guards, both legacy and human. Before I could be spotted, Felix used an admittedly impressive cloaking spell to get me into this tent city on the outskirts of Halfton unseen. Felix then went to check on what he called Everbound stronghold’s “shielding measures,” promising he’d rejoin us soon to cloak me and take me to the castle.

Kenzie steps into the tent beside me and gestures at everything with dramatic flair.

“Behold, mi casa! For now, anyway. Even with thousands of legacies and humans flocking to this area to build it up and make it a safe haven for months, it’s slow going. Resources are limited, winter is harsh, and casters are spread thin, so they can’t use their magic to whip up houses left and right. Anyway, Everett provided these tents for a lot of people, and they’re actually pretty damn nice in the meantime. Felix has been perfecting heating spells to keep everyone as warm as possible—not to mention sound-proofing charms, since hello , we get extra loud at night. And in the morning. And let’s be real, during the day, too.”

She’s still happily oversharing, and Luka is still staring at me like I’m a gruesome specter when Dirk pokes his head into the tent. He breaks into a huge smile when he sees Kenzie.

“Whoa, are you wearing nothing but a coat? Message received. Let me just slip in here and...” He spots me and startles so hard his voice goes up an octave. “Gah! Oh, my fucking gods, there’s a changeling in our?—”

Kenzie quickly covers his mouth, hissing, “Shh! Not so loud!”

She ushers him inside and zips the tent shut before turning to the vampire and shifter, who both also bear her mating mark on their necks.

“There. Now no one will hear us. Guys, this isn’t a changeling. Go ahead and welcome Maven back.”

They’re quiet for several long beats as I pretend my right leg isn’t throbbing like hell.

“Welcome back,” Luka finally echoes warily.

Dirk looks incredibly disturbed. “Yeah, hi. Um…so is she, like…Undead?”

Kenzie starts to say no and then pauses, glancing at me to make sure.

“At this point, who fucking knows?” I joke.

I nearly laugh at the strained sound Dirk makes before he hastily excuses himself from the tent. Kenzie sighs, turning to me.

“He had an ugly run-in with Undead a couple of months ago, and he’s kind of paranoid about them now. And we’re already all on edge since the world is kind of in tatters thanks to, you know…”

“Me,” I supply.

To my surprise, Luka snorts. “Like you can take all the credit. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Actually, it was.”

He stands from the desk, tossing down the pen he was holding. “Whatever else happened, you were just trying to free Felix and a ton of other people from that shithole. Give yourself a break, Muriel.”

Kenzie puts a hand on her hip. “Hey. Come on. You know her name is Maven.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He must think that messing up my name is an inside joke now, but I’m more focused on the fact that he’s attempting to be… nice to me. What the fuck?

He shuffles uncomfortably when I analyze him, trying to pick up on what I’m missing here.

“Uh, yeah. I don’t have a curse anymore. Mine made me a real dick—more than usual, anyway. Kind of a self-sabotaging, hereditary thing. My birth mom called it the Mean Streak Curse, and it was impossible not to say or do stupid things, and…anyway. Sorry for whatever shit I said back then.”

Huh. I’d never really stopped to wonder what Luka’s curse was.

But so long as we’re clearing the air…

“There’s something you should know before you help me anymore,” I confess.

This is about to get awkward, but I clear my throat and glance from Kenzie to him. I hope she forgives me for this.

“I killed your brother.”

Kenzie covers her mouth, eyes wide as she pieces that day together, but Luka just stares at me. I can’t tell if he’s angry, dubious, or disgusted until he finally speaks again.

“In self-defense. Right?”

“You knew?”

The vampire shakes his head, shoulders slumping as he looks away. “I didn’t know it was you . Levi and I survived a lot together, but as we got older, I heard rumors about some things he started doing. I could never condone the shit he chose to do—made me fucking sick. He was digging his own grave. You were just the one to finally push him into it.”

Well, then. This isn’t how I expected this to go, but I’m not complaining.

I worried Kenzie would be hurt and pissed that I harmed her match’s family, but when I look at her, she nods in melancholic understanding. It’s quiet momentarily until Luka’s attention moves back to my stained shoulder.

He wrinkles his nose. “Your blood smells weird. It’s not exactly human, not monster, not fiend or legacy or…okay, what the fuck is that scent? It’s way too strong. You should cover that before other vampires catch it.”

I sniff my bloody shoulder curiously, but I don’t smell anything out of place.

Safe to say a heightened sense of smell isn’t a demigoddess thing.

Kenzie reaches out to touch Luka’s jaw, smiling gently. “Could you go check on Vivienne for me? She’s still helping take food to some of the newest refugees. And remember, we’re not breathing a word about Maven to anyone outside our quintet.”

Luka nods, kisses his keeper’s forehead, and leaves. It’s odd to realize that Kenzie and her quintet don’t have the ability to telepathically communicate, like mine did. I know it isn’t common, and it most often happens with powerful legacies that have been bound for a while, but it still makes my chest ache.

I miss talking to them in my head. If our bond was still intact…

It will be. I’m going to get it back. Whatever it takes.

Kenzie fills up a cup of water in the small kitchen sink, grabs a wrapped package from a tote, and offers both to me.

“That’s a protein bar,” she clarifies when I squint at the packaged food. “No meat in it.”

I thank her, sipping the water and unwrapping the protein bar to take a bite. My fingers and toes slowly warm up as she changes into regular clothes and sets the coat I loaned her on the desk in front of me.

And then the lioness shifter stares at me expectantly.

“This is the part where you tell me what the hell happened, May.”

“I don’t?—”

She holds up a hand. “This has been really, really hard, and not just because of the Upheaval. When you died, I was a fucking wreck . I spent months mourning you.”

“Thanks, but I don’t?—”

“I know you hate talking about anything more than necessary, but I deserve answers—and you already know I’ll take your secrets to the grave. So, please, please, please just talk to me. Where did you go? How are you back? What the hell is going on?”

I wait a moment to make sure she’s done this time before trying again. “I don’t remember.”

“Oh. Shit.”

I glance down at the cup in my hands, recalling the liquid gold dripping from my fingertips in my flashback. Something niggles in the back of my mind, like a memory trying to rise from the depths of a tar pit. I know Kenzie is serious about taking my secrets to the grave, so I decide to tell her what little I do know.

“I woke up in Paradise.”

She blinks. “Paradise?”

I nod.

“Like…where the gods are? The plane of existence that mortals can’t see or go to that floats way up in the heavens filled with a bunch of divine beings like angels and nature spirits and gods? That Paradise?”

I nod again. “You can’t tell your quintet this next part.”

Kenzie pantomimes…I’m not sure. Putting on lipstick, maybe? When she sees my confusion, she repeats the gesture.

“Locking up my lips and tossing the key,” she explains, as patient as ever with the glaring gaps in my knowledge of the mortal world.

I take a deep breath to brace myself. “I learned that my father was a man named Pietro Amato.”

Her mouth drops open. “Whoa. Hang on, you’re the Pietro Amato’s daughter? My parents told me about him! They knew him way back in the day. So many Reformists still totally love that guy, and he’s only gotten more revered since the Reformist movement is so huge now, and—hang on, if he was your dad, who was your mom?”

“Syntyche.”

For a moment, I think I broke her. Then Kenzie coughs. “Come again?”

“Syntyche. You know, the goddess of reaping, memories, fear, dreams, death, darkness, souls...”

I could go on, since each of the six gods holds dominion over so many things, but Kenzie is extremely pale as she holds up a hand. She’s uncharacteristically silent for so long as she stares blankly at me that I get concerned.

“Kenzie?”

She breathes out finally. “Oh my holy fucking gods. Shit—sorry, I probably shouldn’t say stuff like that around you?—”

I snort. “Blaspheme all you want.”

“But aren’t you, like…one of them now?” Her voice is thin, and her wide blue eyes are almost frightened.

She’s nervous. Unsure of me, now that she knows the truth.

Damn it.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I insist vehemently. “Whatever I am, I’m still myself.”

I describe it all to her. How my purpose was unexpectedly fulfilled during the battle, how I found myself in Paradise, and then waking up in Syntyche’s desecrated temple with only blips of memories returning through the scythe I now wield.

“I did something to return to the mortal realm,” I finish. “I just don’t remember what I did, or why it took me six months to return. Having no memories is absolutely fucking infuriating.”

Kenzie looks down at her hands, picking at her chipped nail polish. “Yeah. It is.”

Right. That was insensitive of me—she would know better than anyone else.

I study her. “Have you been able to rediscover much about your past?”

She nods. “Turns out, I was a shady bitch back in the day. But even though I can piece things together and even though my quintet has been incredibly supportive as I rediscover myself, it still sucks that I’ll never get those memories back, you know? Gods, I wish I had a magic memory-returning scythe,” Kenzie sighs. Then she wrinkles her nose. “Or, not a scythe. Something I’d actually use, like a badass paintbrush or something.”

The lioness shifter stares at me again, like I’m something new she’s never seen before. At first, I worry she’s going to treat me differently now that she knows my pedigree, but then she grins.

“So…you look almost exactly like Syntyche, huh? No wonder I always thought you were so pretty—you literally look like a fucking goddess!”

“Thanks for the sentiment, but you’re the only person who thinks that.”

“Oh, girl, no—I promise all of your guys would agree with me, plus anyone else with the capacity to appreciate actual beauty.”

Her mention of my guys makes me notice the burning in my emblem-less chest again. Being back even this long without seeing them feels empty. If Felix doesn’t return soon, I’ll find a way to sneak myself into Everbound Castle.

Needing a topic change, I make a face. “Speaking of guys…Felix. That’s weird.”

Kenzie grins, back to normal, even though she keeps eyeing me more than necessary. I’m pretty sure she’s trying to picture me two feet taller and deathly pale with a cloak and scythe. But as long as she doesn’t treat me differently because of my mother, she can picture me naked for all I care.

“It’s not weird,” she disagrees. “Felix is so fucking perfect for me, just like the rest of my quintet. I mean, it might be a bit weird for you since Felix once told me he thought of you as a little sister, so it could seem like I’m banging your big brother?—”

“Ew. No. Like I said, he was just an accomplice.”

Kenzie snickers. “Well, your accomplice had never even kissed a girl before he met me, let alone seen one naked. Who knew it would be so hard to seduce someone who gets turned on so easily? Getting that gorgeous caster into bed for our first time was?—”

“Stop.”

“—like trying to crack a really shy, really tough nut, but once I finally got him to nut, that man got super kinky super fast. Seriously, the first time Felix whipped out magic in the bedroom, he?—”

Oh, my fucking gods.

“Shut up before I find a way to smite you,” I warn.

She bursts into laughter. I shake my head, stubbornly fighting a smile. Finally, she stops cackling and wraps me in a surprise hug, still careful not to touch any of my skin.

“Gods, I am so happy you’re back. You have no idea.”

I blow at one of her wild curls so it will stop tickling my cheek. “The gods themselves couldn’t keep me from coming back to watch the next season of your favorite sappy forbidden romance show with you.”

“Actually, that show is super canceled,” she sighs. “I think every single TV show is. Now it’s all just news and livestreams of the shit going on. A lot of places don’t get electricity or wifi anymore, anyway. What’s left of the internet is so terrified and dismal that all I do with my cell phone right now is take filthy pictures of my quintet. They’ve gotten the hang of posing naked so I’ll have all these hot pictures to use as inspiration for painting. Felix in particular?—”

“ Kenzie,” I warn.

She laughs and then gets solemn quickly. “Seriously, though, the world has been going through a lot.”

She recaps some things, like the fact that some of the Garnet Wizard’s former acolytes, a prophet, and Felix figured out how to harness the Immortal Quintet’s life forces using the etherium pieces I contained them in. They created three shielding spells that require regular magical upkeep, but otherwise function like an invisible dome that keeps most shadow fiends out. One is stationed here at the Everbound stronghold, one is used for a safe haven in Europe where children and older people were sent from all over to be safeguarded, and the third went missing months ago.

Humans and legacies are fighting at the front lines of the expanding Nether, trying to stave off the worst of Amadeus’s forces. They’re led mainly by the Reformists now, since the Legacy Council fled like cowards as soon as the Divide fell and the anti-legacy Remitters have all but fizzled out. Some wealthy humans and legacies have created their own safe places, hiring others to protect them from the fiends on the loose.

“Things aren’t great, but they would be less dire if it weren’t so damn cold all the time,” Kenzie adds, grimacing. “Even with magic, growing plants or sustaining animals for food is harder during a never-ending winter. I don’t think Everett is making people suffer on purpose, but then again…gods, May. With how much he’s changed, I’m not actually sure. He’s a Reformist commander now, but he’s fucking brutal.”

So far, she’s mentioned Everett, Baelfire, and Crypt. But…

“Where is Silas?” I manage to ask through the sudden panic trying to climb out of my stomach.

She grimaces like that’s exactly the question she didn’t want me to ask. “The last time I saw him was on that battlefield six months ago, when he went kind of…well, super crazy. Crazy enough to try raising a bunch of people from the dead. I saw Everett freeze him so he couldn’t do that, but I haven’t seen or heard anything about him since then. Sorry, May.”

He’s fine. He has to be fine.

When repeatedly reassuring myself doesn’t help, I reach up to run my fingers over Baelfire’s mating mark, shifting aside the scarf. Feeling his trace on me is a small form of comfort.

Kenzie notices. “Oh my gods, that poor dragon. That must have been recent when everything happened, right? No wonder he went feral.”

My throat constricts as I remember Baelfire’s bright smile and his intense pride in the mark I left on his neck. He was over the moon about being bound together, but we were still in the fresh, newlybound stage when the bond was ripped away.

If his curse returned with a vengeance, and his dragon took over…

Nausea churns in my gut as that strange burning returns to my chest.

I’m going after my feral dragon soon. I’m going after all of them with everything I’ve got. Cursed or not, they’re always going to be mine .

“You were right,” I murmur, looking at Kenzie. “I shouldn’t have held back telling my quintet how I felt about them. They deserved to hear at least that much from me before everything went wrong.”

Kenzie smiles softly. “Well…now you have a second chance.”

Someone unzips the tent. I tense, but it’s just Felix, who steps inside with a solemn expression.

“What’s wrong?” Kenzie asks, brow furrowed.

He peers at me. “You did want to see Everett Frost, right?”

I grab the coat Kenzie borrowed, slipping it back on to cover my stained sweater. “Sooner, not later.”

“Well, things just got a bit more complicated than strolling up to Everbound Castle.” He holds up his arm until the thick coat slides back to show off a scrying brand. “Because I just received word on Commander Frost’s whereabouts. He’s in the middle of a massacre on the front lines about seventy miles east. Intel marked him as still alive an hour ago, but that’s a rough area known to be plagued by wraiths. We’ll go once we track down blessed bone?—”

“No,” I cut him off, storming toward the door as dread and adrenaline make me push through the injuries still staining me. “We’ll go now.”

And when I get there, my beautiful elemental had better be unscathed.