Legacy: Faction 11: The Isa Fae Collection
Page 17
“Hadley?”
I held to his sides while awe cemented my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The tracker vial of poke root that was lodged inside Kason’s back wasn’t there anymore. No vial. No Corvus. But these other constellations…
He glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes widened at what he must’ve seen written on my face. “Tell me.”
“It’s a star map of humans,” I choked out. “Humans with a tracker vial of poke root inside them.”
A slow smile lit his eyes. “One of them could be the Legacy.”
I nodded with what was probably a psycho grin stretching my face. All of these humans were likely scattered across the world for protection. Were all of them locked inside a house with a knot tattooed on their backs just waiting for a tantalizing witch to come along to see if they were the Legacy? Or did every human have a different tattoo?
Other than Ty’s dad, who else knew that a Legacy human existed? Dad had known, of course, and he’d mapped out the stars for me while giving me my own in the form of Kason. I would follow the map on his back until the day I died.
I hated to think that the Legacy human, whoever he or she was, might not want to save the witches from the fae, might not be willing to die for a cause he or she didn’t believe in. But we would somehow cross that bridge when we found them.
One seed and then the next, as Mom always used to say.
“This map is our future.” I dropped a kiss to the empty continent of Iceland where Kason’s constellation should be, which happened to be on the bottom of his shoulder blade. “We’ll find the Legacy.”
He leaned over his shoulder to kiss me. “I can live with that.”
I grazed my lips down his jaw and smiled into the crook of his neck. As if to be sure, or as if I were answering the call of a beacon, I slid my hands up to his chest, my forever home. “Good.”
Epilogue
Wind battered the hems and collars of our coats into our legs and stinging cheeks as we wound our way through the headstones. It had been two years since I’d been to the cemetery on the very edge of Faction 11 near the docked boats, one of which would soon carry us away from here. Both our tickets to Faction 2 were stowed in my coat pocket, and I bumped it with my wrist every other step to be sure they hadn’t blown out.
I wasn’t so sure I would be able to make out my family’s graves in the driving snow or even remember exactly where they’d been buried, but I put one foot in front of the other anyway. We had time to wander before our ship left, sort of like a bit of practice before we wandered the rest of the world.
Four red roses and a monster eyeball straw were gripped tightly in my wool gloves. I had no idea when or if I was coming back. Even though the flowers would likely blow away as soon as the stems left my fingertips, I wanted my family to know how sorry I was that I couldn’t save them that horrible night, how much I loved them, and how leaving them behind in Faction 11 wasn’t something I looked forward to. But it needed to be done, and they would understand.
Kason slowed his steps, part of his fake, silver atern—minus the poison spikes, of course—visible underneath his thick glove. Maybe someday we’d get him a real atern so he could learn to use magic. Since he hadn’t died from the poke root, he was a witch like me. The portal connecting this world to the destroyed one had probably changed his entire family from human to witch, like it had most of us, but his family might still be tracked with a poke root vial since his family’s house was the first of the three houses he’d been trapped inside. We would find them, or at least try to, while we searched for the Legacy.
His gaze slanted past me before it flitted up to meet mine, a frown marked between his eyebrows. He said something, but the wind whipped it away. I stopped and turned to the headstone on my left, and the faded words inscribed there jabbed a series of sharp stings up through my rib cage.
Jonah Hawthorn – Devoted Husband, Father, Stargazer
I heaved out a choked laugh. That summed him up perfectly. Next to him lay Mom, Talamond, and Jake, but snow had drifted up the stones too far to read anything but their names. All of their gravestones leaned with the wind, and I imagined that if I touched them, my fingers would freeze. They deserved sunshine and a warm breeze, chirping birds and leaves rattling happily in the trees.
“I’ll fix this for you,” I promised them. “I’ll make you proud.”
With the cold air shoving against my back, I shielded each of my lost family members, if only for a moment, while I rested a rose at the base of their headstones. Kason came along behind me and scraped the ice and snow from the stones with his gloved hands, but they’d become too weathered to read the inscriptions. No way would I allow their memories to be erased like that. I vowed to fix this, too.
Tears burned down my icy cheeks as I pushed to my feet. I held out a hand toward Kason, and a kind smile tilted his mouth when he took it.
“What about that?” he asked, nodding down to the monster eyeball straw in my hand.
“Jake would want me to keep it safe for him.” I glanced back at my family’s resting place, letting my heart swell with warm memories I would take with me everywhere.
With that, we left them, hand in hand while we walked through what I hoped were the last dregs of eternal winter. We had only each other, a monster eyeball straw, and a map of all the humans in each of the factions, one of whom had to be the Legacy.
That was far more than I’d had in a long time.
The End
Be sure to check out the rest of the books in the Isa Fae Collection!
http://fallensorcery.com/the-isa-fae-collection/
About the Author
Lindsey R. Loucks works as a school librarian in rural Kansas. When she’s not discussing books with anyone who will listen, she’s dreaming up her own stories. Eventually her brain gives out, and she’ll play hide and seek with her cat, put herself in a chocolate-induced coma, or watch scary movies alone in the dark to re-energize.
Website: www.lindseyrloucks.com
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