Broken Legacy Book Bundle

Prologue

“Stop! Thief!”

I leaped over the stand, startling the owner into dropping a crate of apples. A string of foul curses followed me. I ran faster—darting around a mother carrying a wailing child, breaking through a troupe of giggling women covered in gaudy jewels.

“How dare you!”

“Filthy peasant!”

My feet struck the uneven, sun-scorched ground, feeling every rock and discarded trinket like lances through my bare feet. Still, I ran.

I held my prize closer, the coins digging painfully into my chest. I would not give them up.

I could still see him sauntering through the square, tossing a weighty purse of coins in the air, and scoffing as he told his friends they would have to pay for drinks and cards because his worthless father was restricting his spending.

My fist clenched as it did when I heard him, complaining while he carried enough coin to feed every child in the orphanage for a month.

I had my chance when he and his cohort stopped outside of the brothel, leering at the half-dressed women dancing on the balcony. He shoved the purse in his back pocket, I came in close, slipped it out—

—then I went flying, thrown into him by a brutish oaf on horseback, kicking the dirty peasant out of his way.

I twisted around, searching for them in the trail of destruction and angry merchants in my wake.

Ever since the brothel moved closer to the market, my hunting ground was overrun with wealthier, younger, and stupider targets. Still, I’d never gotten more than a couple silvers here and there. An entire purse of gold coins was a prize I couldn’t let get away.

“Whoa!”

A cart backed in front of me. I veered right, slipping between two stalls and disappearing into the trees.

The orphanage was on the other side of the forest. My life began within these trees, for beneath a towering oak was where Sister Aven found an abandoned babe, squalling in her soiled wrappings.

I knew every inch of this forest. I bathed with the fish in the stream. I climbed the tallest trees, and fell out of more than my fair share. My first lover fumbled and stuttered his way through taking my maidenhood, under a shelter in the clearing that I made of fronds and branches. The spoiled noble would have more to complain to his father about when he returned to Golden City to be waited on by servants, and have his day scrubbed away in a lavender-scented bath. He would tell him that for all his teachings that nobles were worth ten times as much as a peasant, they forgot to mention they were also ten times as slow.

I ran until the sounds of laughter, haggling, and overworked horses fell away, leaving me in the serene quiet of my forest. Tripping to a stop, I leaned against an oak, catching my breath.

I took no pleasure in stealing, but I took even less in listening to the children cry on the floor under threadbare blankets for more food. When Velez was around, the cut of his wages that he sent back home was enough to fill our bellies and buy the occasional treat. But the money stopped coming, and he stopped visiting. To this day, we don’t know what happened to him.

After Velez disappeared, I was the only one of age who could find work and help Sister Aven care for the children.

And I tried.

I responded to every stained sign seeking new barmaids. I offered my calloused and scarred hands to every builder and merchant. They all had one question for me. After the thirtieth rejection, I learned to throw myself out before they got the chance.

“This was necessary,” I whispered, thinking of the day Gannon passed out in the fields—weak from hunger. “I’ve never stolen for myself. Only for the children.”

Straightening, I began thinking of the explanation I’d give to Sister Aven for where I’d gotten so much money. I wonder if she’d believe the “a merchant paid me to man her stall for the day” excuse twice in a row?

I set off, and found I couldn’t move.

“What—?”

Roots sprouted from the ground, wrapping, twisting, snaking around my legs.

“Look, guys.” A man stepped out from behind the bush. His smirk was twice as triumphant as when he smacked the ass of one of the women entering the brothel. “I caught a rat.”

“Let go of me.” I thrashed in the grip of the climbing roots. “Let go!”

“Shut your filthy mouth.” His friends followed, falling in around me. All three of them bore a blue tear-shaped mark on their foreheads. “No one gave you permission to speak.”

“I told you we should’ve gone to the whorehouse in Parlan,” said the tall, red-haired one. “Ossian is overrun with thieving trash like this thing.”

“I told you, I’ve been banned from Parlan,” snapped my captor. “Those whores dared to complain to the owner, claiming they refuse to serve me. At least the Ossian whores know their place. They’re not in a position to turn down coin.”

He carried on a conversation while wielding magic without a trickle of sweat on his brow. The strongest magic-user I knew could summon a candle’s flame after minutes of intense concentration. And that assumed he was sober and well-rested.

This power—lashing my limbs, tying me to the tree, rendering me completely immobile—was something the likes of me had never seen.

“Get your coin and let’s be done with this trash, Tavis,” said the blond one with a thin slash of a mouth. “We must be through the gates before nightfall.”

“I’ll take this.” Tavis snatched the purse from my grip. I broke two fingers trying to hold on. “As much pleasure as I’d take from watching the magistrate cut off your thieving fingers, he’s a busy man whose time shouldn’t be wasted on scuttling gutter trash like you.”

He tangled in my hair and yanked my head up. Pain exploded in my scalp.

“I’ll do him, and the rest of the civilized world, a favor by— Wait a moment. Verlin, Fionn, take a look at this.”

I stiffened as they verged on me. Shrinking, I drew back as far as the tree would let me.

“Under that grime, you’re quite pretty for gutter trash.” The one called Verlin stroked my cheek. “Why are you stealing? Surely you’d make all the money you want in the whorehouse. I know I’d have paid to have those pretty pink lips wrapped around my—”

I snapped, sinking my teeth in his finger.

“Argh!” He snatched away, and slapped me across the face. “Rabid bitch!”

My head lolled, ears ringing. He did not hold back with that hit.

“Just for that, leave her, Tavis. Maybe after a few days screaming, crying, and shitting herself tied to this tree, she’ll learn to respect her betters.”

“Surely you’re not speaking of yourselves,” I said. “I see no one better before me. Only three, silly little boys so afraid of one small woman, they must gang up on her three on one.”

Verlin slapped me again.

The hit made me bite my lip. Blood welled in my mouth.

“I take it back,” I rasped. “Even little boys can hit harder than that.”

Growling, Verlin advanced on me—fist raised.

“Stop.” Tavis swung out his arm, holding him back. “Don’t mess up her face. We came all this way to this garbage heap to share a whore… so that’s what we’re going to do.”

“What? No! Don’t you dare—”

“Fionn, clean her up.”

The blond one raised his hand, and a blast of water struck my face. I gasped—choking and drowning in the onslaught. They were so strong. Magic like this was beyond my comprehension.

“St-stop.”

The roots crawled under my shirt, and ripped it off. I screamed as the roots retreated from my torso, and only my torso—baring my body and the raggedy breastband struggling to cover me.

“Stop this!” Fear blew through my bravado. “Don’t touch me! If you do, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Tavis crooked a finger. My pants were the next to go. “Go ahead, use your magic. Break free and tell anyone who’ll listen that three nobles put you in your place. You’ll be flogged for slander before you get a word out.”

“Well?” Verlin taunted. “Fight back, peasant. Surely you can take us. We’re just a bunch of silly little boys after all.”

I gritted my teeth, fists clenching. I said nothing.

“Wait. Can it be?” Fionn’s hacking laugh grated on my ears. “Don’t tell me you don’t have any magic.”

The look on my face told all. The three of them burst into raucous laughter.

“Release me at once!”

“Why should we?” Tavis yanked my head back again. The roots began moving and bending, dragging me down to my knees. “You’ve just told us that we can do what we want to you over, and over, and over again… and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

“Get away from me,” I screamed, fighting and flinging to free myself of the roots.

Their pants hit the dirt.

“Help! Someone, help me, please!”

“Oh, do keep screaming.” The roots crawled under my breastband and slipped the lining of my undertunic. “That’s my favorite part.”

“Don’t do this! Help!”

Help!

Pain shot through my skull. I screamed, agony shredding my throat and ratcheting my cries to heights I didn’t know I could reach.

“Fuck’s sake, we haven’t even touched you yet.”

My mind was on fire. Lit aflame and reduced to ash within my skull. No one had known pain like this. If the world knew suffering like this existed, babes would not leave the safety of their mother’s womb.

I flung my head back—screeching, shaking, sobbing my lungs to shreds. What is this magic! What have they done to me?

Heat blasted my face, carrying the echo of my screams.

No… not mine. Theirs.

The pain went on for an eternity, blinding me to their next strike.

Suddenly, the roots fell away—dropping me face-first into the dirt.

“Uhhh…” I groaned, straining to peel an eye open. “Ahh!”

I scrambled back and rammed into the tree. Lying before me were Tavis, Verlin, and Fionn, but their mothers wouldn’t know it to look at them. I gaped at the burning corpses, my vision doubling—tripling them through my head-splitting haze.

“How— Ah!”

I doubled over, clutching my head. It felt as though someone drilled a hole in my skull and poured scalding water through it.

A boom shook the earth, toppling me over. A shadow blotted out the sun, its presence towering over me.

I forced myself to my feet and met her eyes. The dragon forced herself where she did not fit, flattening the bush and crushing mighty trees that lived long before her under her girth. Sunlight caught her gleaming red scales and melted within them, trickling down her body as brilliant red faded to molten orange on her legs and feet. Her long, narrow head was the length of my body and topped with a row of ivory horns from the tip of her nose to her crown.

She was beautiful. So wonderfully magnificent, I wept to look at her. I wasn’t meant to be in the midst of such radiance, but for some reason, she came to me.

I glanced at the men that were. She saved me.

I couldn’t say how I knew she was a she. I sensed it in the rightness in which her name came to me.

“Reyna.”

Stepping forward, fear like I’d never known shook me to my core. I brushed a finger on my forehead, feeling the tear-shaped mark beginning to form.

“Oh my gods,” I breathed, crying for an entirely different reason. “You’ve killed me.”

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