Twisted Soul (Cursed Legacies #3)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

MAVEN

Three Years Ago

I sheath Pierce into my thigh strap as Lillian wraps another loaf of oat bread. As usual, I'm not in a chatty mood, but I can tell she's nervous because she can't stop talking.

"...which, of course, is just how the fae do things," she goes on, placing the loaf inside a bag she made from the scraps of old clothes.

A transparent, humanoid blur drifts in front of me, waving a wispy arm to get my attention. I know exactly who this one is. She's been following me for seven years, ever since the incident.

I make no reaction since my caretaker gets concerned whenever I interact with the ghosts.

Lillian starts working on the final loaf, blowing a strand of pale, curly hair out of her face. "And you know how I've told you about romcom movies? Those were my favorites , but Edgar wasn't a fan of them. I think it’s because of the way he was raised since most fae families are so pragmatic. They work very hard to maintain their own culture. Edgar loved to say his family was the only one that remembered the correct way to make real fae mead…"

Uh oh. If she's blabbing about her ex-husband from her long-ago life in the human realm, she's more anxious than I realized.

She slips a wrinkled piece of parchment covered in fae runes and English translations into the bag and ties it shut. I step through the ghost to accept it from her, slinging the bag over my shoulder.

"Stop worrying. I'll be fine."

My caretaker turns gentle, concerned blue eyes on me and sighs. "I know saying this will make you uncomfortable, but this is a truly sweet and kind thing you're doing. It shows you care far more than you would ever willingly admit."

Me, sweet and kind? "Hardly."

"Oh, really? Then why are you risking your life for them again?"

"Can't risk something I don't have," I point out.

Lillian protests that she doesn't like when I talk that way before shaking her head. "I just don't think tonight is the best night to make another trip. You had a long, horrible day, little raven. I was forced to witness most of it, so don't even try to pretend otherwise."

My day was just like every other day has been ever since Amadeus ripped my heart out two and a half years ago: training until I literally dropped dead.

However, Lillian is right that today varied slightly since the necromancers strapped me down in their laboratory for more "reinforcement training." Dagon, the chief necromancer, carved my skin to test dripping acid on exposed veins—one drop for every brush of his skin against mine.

Even I must begrudgingly admit that method of torture was grotesquely artistic. I haven't screamed that much in a long time.

It was almost nostalgic.

But the necromancers healed me afterward, as they always do, without even a hint of scarring. So I'm fine—no need to waste time letting Lillian coddle me. Besides, I want this information sooner than later. Amadeus has been meditating on his revenge more than usual, and at the moment, he's extra pissed.

It's only a matter of time before I'm finally sent to the mortal world.

I glance out the glassless, shuttered window of the isolated hovel that has always been mine, located on the outskirts of Amadeus's kingdom near the twisted woods. Lighting is always weak in the Nether, but it's pitch black to mortal eyes at night. If I wait longer, I won't be able to find the entrance to the system of caves I've been secretly using to get to the nearest human compound for over a year—ever since I made a blood oath that I would get them out of the Nether.

"I'm going tonight. The food can't wait," I remind Lillian quietly.

The Nether is far from flourishing. Amadeus and his court, the monsters, the Undead, and anything else that haunts this hellish plane of existence are primarily carnivorous. Lillian has worked hard to cultivate wild oats and mushrooms, and Amadeus has captive humans tend to small farms around his kingdom to feed the captives, but food has always been a scarce resource here.

A few months ago, two of those farms burned down. Now, the only humans getting enough to eat are the servants within the citadel and those forced to fight to the death in the arena for entertainment.

The nearby compound is starving.

Lillian considers the situation and finally sighs long and slow.

"All right. I'll pray to all the gods that you make it there and back safe and sound." She sees the face I pull and raises a brow. "You might think praying is useless, but I promise it's not. The gods?—"

"Forsook everyone in this shithole a long time ago," I finish for her, double-checking everything on my person one final time.

Weapons, check.

Bag of homemade and stolen food that we'll be punished severely for if it's found out, check.

Fae runes, check.

Needy ghost who is now trying to tap on my shoulder, check.

And finally, one mysterious, clear shard.

Check.

"Maven." Lillian's voice stops me as I walk toward the door.

When I glance at her, she looks more ardent than I've ever seen, as if she's trying to communicate something important but doesn't know how.

"The gods haven't forsaken us. That's why you are here. You are a long-awaited blessing—I wish I could tell you just how important you are, little raven."

Right. Because the freedom and lives of thousands rests on my doomed shoulders.

No fucking pressure.

I leave without another word. Two hours and several close calls later, I make sure the coast is clear before limping out of a cave mouth toward the misshapen, ancient stone buildings. By this point, I'm trailed by a handful of murmuring specters who gravitated toward me when I passed them in the twisted woods on the way to this compound.

No fires are lit here. The place appears silent and empty.

Amadeus doesn't bother posting guards at any of the human compounds because everyone knows that if they try to leave, there is nowhere safe to go. The fiends that run amuck in this realm will devour them long before they can make it to the Divide.

Even if they did make it that far, humans aren't strong enough to survive passing through that thick barrier of magic into the mortal realm—not without extreme magical interference from something like a lich. It will have to be thinned and weakened significantly for the mortals to get through when the time comes for my gambit.

In the meantime, they feel safest in their compounds, where the permanent magic wards keep out the wild dangers.

Not that "safe" actually fucking exists, but everyone takes what they can get here.

As I near a crumbling wall of stones, a shadow moves nearby. I whip out a dagger, expecting to behead a vampire or dismember another Undead, but the thin, one-armed figure steps forward so I can see it better.

Felix looks more gaunt than ever, which is saying something. I assume he's giving his scant portions of food to his sick mother. His father was devoured by the Undead six months ago after breaking his leg doing manual labor in the citadel, so now Felix is the unofficial leader of the humans here.

"If it isn't the telum herself," he greets. "Hi, there."

I bend to yank a severed claw from the back of my thigh, trying not to visibly grimace at the pain. Gods, that hurts. It's going to slow me down on the way back. I also have several gouges from harpy talons on my left arm, which haven't stopped bleeding.

The fun just never ends here.

"I know you avoid talking like the Undead avoid direct sunlight, but how about a simple hello? It's called small talk—and you'll have to use it to blend in after you're sent to the mortal realm,” he points out. "Which means speaking to people, oh horror of horrors."

I drop the bag of supplies at his feet without a word. Felix picks it up, and the way his face brightens at once makes me wish Lillian could've been the one to deliver it. She's the one who secretly bakes things for the humans, and I'm sure she would appreciate Felix's look of pure gratitude far more than I do.

Shows of emotion aggravate the Undead and many types of shadow fiends—hence why, much like myself, Felix grew up suppressing his expressions. But right now, he's plain emotional as he hugs the bag of stolen food to himself with his one remaining arm.

"Thanks. Seriously, you have no idea what this means to us. To me."

Felix getting sappy is fucking weird. Things must be worse off for the humans here than I realized. I look away, waiting for him to compose himself so we can get down to business.

A couple of the ghosts whisper unhappily, trying to pass through me like I'm the solution to their restless fate. All I feel is the slightest chill. Felix doesn't see them, of course. He clears his throat and glances at my bleeding arm as he sets the bag down again, opening the top.

"I'm glad you came, but cover that up before the scent of blood lures vampires. You'll get the people I care about hurt if you're not more careful."

There we go. That’s the Felix I know.

I rip a section off the bottom of my shirt to wrap the wounds on my arm. "Too bad you're not a necromancer, or you could heal me and be done with it."

He scowls, scanning the area as if the dead trees or bones littered outside the compound will overhear his secret—that magic manifested in his blood when he was six years old. Surprisingly strong magic, at that. If Amadeus finds out, Felix will be treated like all other manifested casters in the Nether: killed in a dramatic ritual and brought back to serve as a lich. Those fiends are a personal favorite of Amadeus's.

Felix has been carefully keeping his magic hidden for seventeen years.

"Thank the gods I'm not a necromancer," he mutters. "Nasty things. That type of magic is not for me or for anyone who happens to have these pesky things called morals ."

Thank fuck I don't have those weighing me down anymore.

Felix pulls out the fae translations on parchment, and his face lights up again. "Send Lillian my thanks again for helping me learn fae. It's been unbelievably useful for figuring out complex healing magic for my mother."

"How is she?"

He blinks up at me, startled. "Uh…do you actually care? Not trying to be rude, I just didn't think that was even possible, considering your lack of heart."

Word spread quickly throughout the Nether about the way Amadeus decided to officially turn me into his telum . The monsters who come to take innocents away from the compound must have been gossiping because these humans know I'm no longer one of them.

Although they're still kind whenever I show up, they fear me much more now.

They're smart like that.

"It's called small talk," I parrot before moving on. Pulling the shard from my pocket, I hold it up.

He makes a face. "You brought a piece of glass?"

"It's not glass."

"Yeah? Looks exactly like it. How do you know for sure that it's not?" he challenges with a smirk.

"Because I pried it out of Amadeus's crown."

Felix's smirk dies immediately, and he swallows hard. "Are you serious? You must be insane."

"Yes to both."

He rubs his face. "Oh, gods. I'm not sure that was the wisest course of action. Isn't he going to look for it eventually?"

Amadeus is already looking for the culprit. If he finds out it was me, I'm sure my fate will be eternally worse than death. I almost admire how creative my self-appointed "father" is with punishments.

He keeps his intricate adamantine crown locked up in his extensive quarters behind several extremely heavy protective spells, which I tampered with so I would leave no trace when I left. Within the crown, three pieces of this substance were embedded.

When I saw it for the first time, I knew they couldn't be glass. Something about the transparent, flawless element drew me in, so here we are.

I toss the shard to Felix, who barely manages to catch it. "Tell me what it is."

He grumbles as he tries to study it in the dark lighting. "Not sure. Maybe if I could see it in the morning with a bit more light, I could figure it out. I mean, it wouldn't make sense for him to have clear quartz or something cheap stuck in his crown. It would have to be something incredibly precious, like?—"

He cuts off suddenly, gawking at me. "Hold on. Hold on , what if…shit. That must be it. Oh, my gods , I can't believe it."

"I'm not the kind of monster who can read minds," I pointedly inform him.

Felix has forgotten about controlling himself again and is now animated with excitement. "Okay, I'll back up. Did you know this compound is made out of the ruins of a fae castle from thousands of years ago—from before the Entity came along and turned the Nether into a realm of death?"

"Did you know I didn't come here for a history lesson?"

"It's relevant, I promise. Over the years, I've dug up countless old, broken slabs of stone engraved with ancient fae writings and illustrations. I think they had an impressive library here long ago. That's what I've been studying to learn magic. There's so much to learn from the fae about agriculture, arts, diplomacy, folklore, and especially their unique ways of crafting minerals and?—"

Gods. Who knew this guy had such a hard-on for knowledge?

My hard stare makes him trail off. "Right. Relevance. Gods forbid I say anything that isn't conducive to what you have your mind set on. You have an astronomical case of tunnel vision, you know that?"

"I'm blushing," I say flatly. "Cut to the chase."

"Okay, here it is. Fae craftsmen tried to incorporate this —" He lifts the shard. "Into their designs, but could find no way of working with the substance. It's called etherium and comes from Paradise. Supposedly, it can be endowed with extremely high levels of magic and enchanted to work in all manner of ways. The fae were fascinated by it but never used it much because only holy magic works on etherium. Oh—holy magic comes from the gods…so only their chosen saints, prophets, priests, and so on can use it," he tacks on.

In other words, this is utterly fucking useless.

Fantastic.

Felix tips his head thoughtfully. "But you know what? I doubt they ever tested your type of magic on it. Fae records said etherium was extremely rare. I wonder why it was in his crown. Then again, I guess no one really knows much about his background, huh?"

It's true. How Amadeus came to rule the Nether has long been forgotten—hence why I was poking around in his chambers, searching for answers.

I nod at the shard in his hand. "Keep that hidden. Maybe we can experiment with it to see if it could still be useful."

He nods but examines me. "You mean, if it could be useful to help you get us humans out of the Nether."

"Obviously."

"You're really going to try freeing us, aren't you?" he murmurs, his expression changing to something… affectionate . It's a touchy-feely, older-brotherly look, complete with a soft smile and proud, gleaming hazel eyes.

Gross. Any form of camaraderie aside from Lillian's has returned to haunt me, so I lift my chin.

"I won't try . I will. But if you ever look at me like that again, I'll gut you like a fucking fish and leave your rotting innards behind for the Undead to feast on."

Anyone else in the Nether would balk at my tone, but Felix sighs heavily.

"Seriously? Would it kill you to at least pretend to still have a heart? Your entire personality is like a damned thistle. May the gods have mercy on anyone who ever tries to get close to you."

Joke's on him. Only an idiot would ever try to get close to me, as he puts it.

He's correct. I'm heartless—and I intend to stay this way. The less I let myself feel, the less it will hurt when I complete my mission and finally join the other restless dead.