Soren's Legacy Read online
Soren’s Legacy
Copyright © 2022 by J. Houser.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, visit: JHouserWrites.com
Cover design by Jervy Bonifacio
ISBN:
978-1-957334-00-4 (ebook)
978-1-957334-03-5 (paperback)
978-1-957334-04-2 (hardback)
First Edition: September 2022
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Note from the Author
Map
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
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Note from the Author
Some of us don’t get happy endings, because life doesn’t always work that way. But ... when possible, I do like my characters to have a little more resolution than Leah got in her debut, The Heir of Exile.
Will she have a rough go of it? Would it be Leah if she didn’t?
This one’s for all of us who sometimes get in our own way, who fortune oft forgets to smile on, and for the people in our lives who keep loving us, who don’t give up on us.
~J. Houser
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Content Warning
Select topics in this novel may be more difficult for some readers. These topics include: grief/loss, violence/murder, suicide, ableism, racism, and sexual assault.
Other than grief/loss and mild ableism, the others are only discussed in passing; they are not portrayed on page.
Map
Map of the Green Lands
Prologue
LEAH STOOD OUTSIDE THE IVY PRISON, trying to keep herself together. It was supposed to have been a normal visit with her mom. A run-of-the-mill regular visit.
And now, she was sweating and trying to breathe as she pieced together what her mom had just said, what she’d let slip, and the implications it held for Leah.
Leah wasn’t going to cry. She didn’t like crying. She was simply overthinking things...
But even her mother had realized the truth had hurt her, and that was before Leah had really let it sink in, before she’d cut their visit short, before she’d left the building to stand here trying not to spiral.
She hugged herself, leaning against the stone building.
I’m fine. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal.
She could bury those feelings, that secret, bury them so hard she could pretend she’d never felt them, had never heard it.
How many other feelings had she buried in the past?
Her mother had asked her not to share it with anyone else, anyway.
Jamming her eyelids closed, Leah thought of other things. Marcus... Sunshine... Lightning bugs... She breathed slowly in and out. It wasn’t that big of a deal, really.
“Are you alright, miss?” her escort, Wren, asked from around the corner where she’d asked him to stay.
“I’m fine.”
Drawing a deep breath, she forced a smile on her face.
I’ll be fine. It meant nothing.
Secrets couldn’t hurt anyone if no one knew them.
Chapter 1
*Weeks Later*
LEAH HAD ROYALLY SCREWED THINGS UP. Two years ago, that is. But she’d come a long way since then. Lots of learning, and no new assassination attempts on the Ivy queen or anyone else.
She now wore more ‘appropriate’ clothing for someone of her station. And her station? The ward of Queen Catrina and King Stephan.
She’d learned how to don a polite smile through almost any situation (including the lesson she was currently zoning out in), how to pretend to be interested in politicians’ conversations, and how to give the rote responses people expected from her on any given occasion.
That was the thing—she’d screwed up by trying to kill Queen Kaylah, and despite her attempts to better herself, it seemed the realm would never let Leah forget that mistake. Or her parentage.
‘Soren’s heir,’ someone had snidely called her once. Her dad had been a prince. He would have become an earl, had he not been executed for stealing the throne and naming himself king. Had he not had his title stripped from him at the time of his execution. It had all happened while Leah’s mom had been pregnant with her. Many people assumed Leah had taken after her parents, and that her sad attempt at killing Kaylah had meant she’d been trying to take the throne.
“Miss Elonto?”
Leah looked up, her heart skipping a beat. She’d definitely zoned out again, but her gentle perma-smile was still there.
The instructor must have noticed she’d checked out. “What did you think of the performance, Miss Elonto?”
She cleared her throat, her palms sweaty. “It was beautiful.” It truly had been. Leah only attended the local academy part time, while the rest of her education was carried out by private tutors, usually at the palace. Today at the academy, a troupe of cultural dancers had come to perform. The performance, complete with Ivy vines and acrobatics, had been elegant, but nothing she hadn’t seen at the palace before.
“It was, wasn’t it?” Skye said, giving Leah a reassuring smile.
Skye was there to save Leah again. But a true friend? Probably not. Leah now had a few ‘friends’ here in the Ivy Kingdom, in the Green Lands realm. They were really more of acquaintances, and Leah was pretty sure they were there for her only as a personal favor to her instructors or the queen.
Obligatory pals were not the kind of friends anyone really wanted.
After a while longer discussing the performance, the topic returned to women’s studies in the Ivy Kingdom, and the state of current affairs. Women hadn’t necessarily been unequally subjugated before Queen Kaylah’s rule, but their powers had been suppressed, ignored, or undiscovered compared to what they now were.
Having grown up in hiding in the human world, Leah hadn’t learned much about who she was or what she was capable of until she met her boyfriend and other green folk like them. Part of why Leah hadn’t learned more about herself had been her mother’s fault, as the usurper’s wife
living in exile. Another part of it had been her mother’s lack of knowledge and expertise about female Ivy powers.
Leah found this topic particularly empowering. Ivy girls were now taught much more thoroughly than they used to be about all their powers. Rifting, coagulation, fertilizing, numbing—to name a few. And of course vine maneuvering.
Women’s education was a heated topic in some Ivy circles. As recently as two decades ago, the schoolboys had been required to take extra classes while the girls sat them out. Now it was the other way around. Since the Ivy Kingdom no longer trained young boys to be assassins in the human world, their course loads had been slimmed down. Respectively, the discovery of extra female Ivy powers by Queen Kaylah now meant the girls had more classes to take. Some saw it as a burden they shouldn’t have to deal with. Others felt it was their right to be taught in every aspect of their powers.
Leah was nineteen now, trying to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Advocating for girls being taught the full extent of their powers was something she could get behind.
Sure, she’d floundered when trying to fit in in the human world, and her grand introduction to her home realm had been far from ideal, but she wasn’t ungrateful for what she was now being offered.
Queen Catrina made sure Leah’s every need was seen to. She allowed her a certain level of autonomy, though not as much as Leah would like. As the queen and king’s ward, Leah was afforded the best education, the most elegant opportunities, and was reassured they would help her step out on her own someday.
Once class ended, Leah said her goodbyes to her instructor and her ‘friends.’ They had long since learned she wasn’t a hugger.
Leah’s personal escort—her security detail—stuck by her side once she exited the classroom. They walked silently down the second-floor hallways of the brick academy. Other students nodded at her and her escort as they passed, not all of them making eye contact.
She was mostly numb to that kind of thing now. She’d usually been the kind to pass under the radar in the human world, at least when she wasn’t getting in trouble. Now, she couldn’t hide, no matter how much she wanted to. The occasional scathing remark reached her ear, muttered purposefully loud enough to bother her. But the majority of criticism about Leah reached her by accident—the gossip of classmates from outside her toilet stall, or the comment of a dignitary around the corner in the palace.
Though, most signs of disapproval for Leah’s very existence were much more subtle than words. It was in the averted gaze in the hallway, the pointing and cowering child in the marketplace, the strangers who would cross the lane when they saw her and her escort coming, the Seeders that would look her dead in the eye and flash green eyes at her, or the poorly attended Boman events she’d dared to make an appearance at.
Her boyfriend’s mom, Rachel, had once called Leah’s dad a monster. He had been. Not in the comical ghoulish way, but a genuine piece of living garbage. And Leah’s mom, Beata, had turned a blind eye to the atrocities he’d committed, and had even helped him commit crimes. She was still in prison, serving her life sentence.
Sometimes Leah felt like she might as well wear a black sash, the words Monsters’ Daughter embroidered with bright red thread.
But everyone already knew who she was.
Leah politely waved at a few classmates as she and her escort left the building. Guys were civil, but none of them even tried to talk to her. It was also public knowledge that she and Marcus had been back together for some time.
Just the thought of him made her smile. As did the thought of him visiting her at the palace for the weekend. And the thought of the plans they’d hatched.
“Are you needing anything from the market or elsewhere before returning home, miss?” her escort asked.
“Yes. I did want to swing by the market.”
As they strolled down cobblestone streets, Leah ignored the people around her, the noise, the beautiful weather.
As much as she’d become a recluse and hated being around people because of the constant scrutiny, she enjoyed the freedom of being away from the palace. No officials or servants, or little princes or princesses underfoot. No one correcting her posture or language.
Once they arrived at the small nearby market, Leah quickly zeroed in on what she wanted. Marcus was in charge of bringing something for his visit that she couldn’t get away with buying, not with her constant escort. She was only responsible for pampering herself this time.
Needing to not be too obvious about her desired purchases, she took some time browsing under the awnings of each vendor. She sniffed a few perfumes, wanting something new for the special weekend. Today was almost exactly two years since Marcus had taken her back after the whole assassination fiasco. They were celebrating their anniversary.
Another shopper stepped close to Leah, reaching for a bottle of perfume. Leah’s escort cut her off.
“Please allow for some space, ma’am.”
The woman looked at Leah, then rolled her eyes. “Last I checked, this is a free kingdom, and she isn’t actually royalty.” She stalked away.
“Sorry,” Leah weakly called after her. She didn’t bother with more than that, since the woman continued to walk away.
Leah couldn’t win. There had never been a right answer for what should happen to her. She didn’t like that she still had an escort every time she left the palace, especially since many people felt she didn’t deserve the attention, or that the kingdom’s resources shouldn’t be used to pay for her security detail. But the fact of the matter was ... some people still wanted her dead. She’d come a long way in the last two years, but the bullseye on her back may never go away.
It had been a gutting day when she’d had that conversation with the queen and king. She’d felt confident in her ability to protect herself against an attack, but they’d confessed they’d received multiple death threats against Leah. Some people thought she ought to have been executed as an example for trying to kill Kaylah. Many thought she embodied and embraced the twisted beliefs and prejudices of her parents. Given that fact, Leah didn’t feel safe venturing out on her own.
She picked a rose-scented perfume and reached for the money in her silk satchel. After plucking out the coins needed, she hefted them in her hand, reluctant. None of this money was hers. She couldn’t exactly get a job at a burger joint to earn her keep right now.
Servants, guards, food, clothes—all paid for by the Crown.
Leah glanced at her escort. Even though they were probably necessary, they drew so much attention to her. And perhaps it was over the top.
You should put the perfume back. You don’t deserve it. You already have some at home.
And she really didn’t need to buy anything at the market herself. She could have had a servant add it to their shopping list. To avoid a much longer trip back to the palace, she ought to only purchase the bare minimum, due to rifting limitations.
Moments away from putting the money back in her satchel and returning the bottle, Leah decided against it. This was a special celebration. She wanted to pick the perfume out herself, and it wasn’t like it was that large.
She wouldn’t steal it, either. She hadn’t ever stolen anything in the Green Lands, not that the itch didn’t come now and then. It took a massive amount of resolve in times like this to not scratch that itch, but she was determined to make a new life for herself, and to not undo all the hard work she’d put into her image.
Handing over the coins, she thanked the seller, then slipped the bottle into her satchel.
A few minutes later, Leah scoured the shelves at a clothing vendor’s booth. Her escort gave her a little space as she surveyed the unmentionables. She quickly found something thin and cute, and paid for it, again tucking it into her satchel.
“Alright, I’m ready to go home.”
***
Leah walked through the cave rift—the one closest to the palace, right on the edge of the Mother Vine protective border.
>
She hadn’t returned to the human world in the last two years, though they now trusted she wouldn’t run away, and Catrina and Stephan had issued her a passport and fake human ID in case she did want to go at some point. She was an adult now. But she didn’t have anything to go back to in the human world.
Each footstep toward the palace was refreshing, exciting. She had a bounce in her step as she mused on the new purchases in her satchel, and her plans for that night.
As they neared the side entrance she usually used, a handsome figure leaned against the stone doorway. Brown curly locks framed a smiling face. His arms were crossed against his chest.
Leah ran to him, squealing.
“Hey, beautiful,” Marcus said, opening his arms.
She squeezed him tight, breathing in his cologne. Marcus was her home, her person. The day to her night. She never smiled as widely or as genuinely as she did when she was with him. And she almost always had to wait until the weekends to see him.
He released her and kissed her on the cheek. “Let’s head inside.”
They didn’t particularly care for the palace guards to watch their reunions, and her escort had already stepped inside. The moment Leah and Marcus entered the massive stone building and the door shut, he pulled her close, not allowing an inch between them, laying a kiss on her. She dug her hands into his hair, pressing against him.
Marcus was happiness. He was hope. He was everything to Leah.
He’d meant so much to her back in the human world, but he was so much more to her now. His kindness and forgiving nature were unparalleled.
After a minute, he leaned back, catching his breath and resting his hands on her hips. “That dress is stunning.”
She grinned. She’d specifically chosen this one to see him in. It was light and flowy, with a soft pink floral print. “You say that about all my dresses.”
He grinned in return. “Then it must be the girl in the dress who’s stunning.”
She gave him another smooch. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”