Page 1 of A Legacy of the Light

Prologue

The Kingdom of Elfayne, one-hundred and fifty years ago

Màiri stared, unseeing, at her father’s body where it lay at the foot of the throne. The once proud and beloved king had fallen beside his queen, and their blood pooled together slowly across the gold-flecked marble floor.

As a warrior and a princess, Màiri had led her people through countless battles and won wars with the might of her power. She had befriended fear and walked beside death since she was old enough to wield magic and a blade. But she felt helpless as she watched her family, her friends, and her people die.

The Dorche had finally come.

Only a week ago, they had celebrated the king’s second century as ruler. He and Queen Iona had ruled peacefully and prosperously, and the Seelie kingdom had thrived under their reign. Now, Màiri stood on the dais looking at their lifeless faces.

Her mother had been the first of the royal family to fall. Iona looked to her king and her daughter as she took her final breath with love shining from her eyes, the soft smile held on her face even in death.

The king had died protecting Màiri, his only child, and now the Queen of Elfayne. His final act had been to push her behind the golden throne and place a gentle kiss on her forehead as he pressed his most treasured possession into her hand.

“Lead them well, my queen,” he murmured to her before he drew his sword and turned to face the enemy that had been terrorizing their kingdom.

Màiri had drawn her own blade to follow him into battle, and watched as he took out three of the rebels in one strike of his formidable power. She had watched when he roared as a crowd of them descended upon him, overpowering him with shadow and sword. And she had watched as he fell. His gaze locked with hers as the light left his eyes. She watched knowing there was nothing she could do.

“Màiri, quickly, this way! They’ll come for us if you don’t move! We need to run,” Freya whispers at her side, cradling her belly, swollen with the child due any day.

Fear turns to anger. Màiri doesn’t want to run. The call to fight pulses in her blood. The call to avenge her parent’s murder, to lead her people and protect the child growing inside her dearest friend.

Freya tugs on her arm again, snapping Màiri from her sightless stare at the bodies in front of her.

“Màiri, please, we need to get out of here!” Freya’s voice trembles, urging Màiri into action. Sheathing the sword in her hand, she swipes her father’s blade off the floor and runs towards the back of the throne room and lifts the banner that covers this wall. Revealing a passage that only those of her bloodline can gain access to.

Her father had shown her this when she was a child, an escape route if they ever need one. At the time, she scoffed and proudly told the king she would never run from a fight. He only smiled at her and ruffled her hair playfully.

The memory makes Màiri bite her tongue so hard to stop the tears from spilling, that the coppery tang of blood fills her mouth.

Shaking her head, Màiri clasps Freya’s hand and helps her into the narrow opening. Casting a final glance over her shoulder, she sees the throne room in chaos, as magic of mist and shadows dance with violence around the Seelie who wield them. The guards who have stood with her most of her life are falling under the powers and blades of the rebels invading her home. No amount of power can save them, not even hers.

In her final moments inside the throne room, she makes her father a vow: one of vengeance. She will find out who did this to her family, and she will see them suffer for it. No matter how long it takes, she will make sure her father’s legacy will sit on the throne of Elfayne once more. No price will be too high. She will give her life to see the end of the Dorche.

As Màiri hesitates to leave her home, a deep crack forms up the back of the throne, as if symbolizing the rupture of what had been hundreds of years of peace. And the fracture in Màiri’s heart.

“Màiri, for the love of the Dhia, will you hurry up! I do not want to die here today!” Freya urges from inside the passage. Màiri tightens her grip around the gift her father had bestowed to her before sliding it into her pocket.

“Freya, I’m coming. I need to make sure we aren’t being followed or seen if we want to make it out alive,” Màiri’s voice sounds hollow, even to her own ears.

“Where will we go?” Freya asks softly, holding onto the lit torch she had taken from the wall with a white-knuckled grip.

“The mortal realm. That is the only place we will be safe for now,” Màiri whispers, sealing the door with her magic behind them.

And so they run, to the barrier between worlds, and into the safety of the mortal lands beyond.

Chapter 1

New York, Present day

Grief is lonely. That’s the cruel lesson I’ve been taught by the last eighteen months. Despite trying to move on and live your life as though nothing has changed, when your loved ones aren’t here anymore, it leaves an ache in your chest that doesn’t ease no matter what you do. Some days the pain feels as though it’s only just happened; other days it feels like a lifetime ago. Losing Mom and Granny has been hard to deal with. One minute they were here and the next, they were gone.

A nondescript Thursday ended in the deaths of half of the most important people in my life. They had gone out to Central Park for the afternoon to “see some greenery for once,” Granny had said, and they planned to grab dinner in the city after. Granny was born and raised in Scotland, and she found the concrete jungle of Brooklyn stifling at times. Her need to be in nature had cost Granny her life, and that of her daughter, that day.

A freak accident.

That’s what the police told us when they showed up at our door that evening, and our world was shattered in the space of a few heartbeats.