Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 8)

by Shannon Messenger

  The last word came with a rush of cold, like someone had poured a glass of ice water into her brain, and Sophie clamped her jaw shut to keep her teeth from chattering.

  The chills numbed her thoughts, leaving her head quieter than it had ever been before, and she soaked up the silence, loving every second—right up until the noise took over.

  It felt like someone clicked on a movie projector at full speed and full volume. And the images were too jumpy to make any sense.

  But each new breath brought more focus, until Sophie could recognize two little girls—one blond and one brunette—surrounded by murky green.

  They started out talking. But talking shifted to teasing. And teasing turned to taunting as the voices grew louder and louder.

  Angrier and angrier.

  Sophie couldn’t make out any of the individual words.

  But she could feel them cutting deeper and deeper.

  Sinking into sensitive places.

  Raw places.

  Dangerous places.

  Poking and prodding and pulsing.

  Exposing powerful new nerves that sent tingles rocketing through her.

  Her hands burned—fingertips humming with a strange, itchy energy.

  And her head…

  There was So. Much. Pressure.

  Too much.

  It boiled and bubbled inside her skull, growing darker and darker and darker—and Sophie gasped as her consciousness dropped fully into the moment, the sensations completely taking over.

  Her stomach twisted.

  Limbs thrashed.

  Brain churning churning churning with emotions so intense, it felt like they were tearing and scratching and shredding—and maybe they were, because something deep inside her mind seemed to unravel, leaving… an opening.

  A new pathway.

  And the darkness surged forward.

  Turning hotter.

  Wilder.

  She felt herself cry out at the same moment she did in the memory as her fury shifted from black to red and poured out of her mind.

  Aimed at a single target.

  Sophie, please—stop!

  Amy’s screams clawed through Sophie’s ears, and she couldn’t tell if they were from memory or reality. The lines between both had blurred, and she was caught up in the frenzy.

  Beyond her body.

  Beyond the world.

  Nothing but pure, unbridled force.

  Powerful.

  Unstoppable.

  “Sophie!”

  The new voice demanded attention—familiar in some ways, and unexpected in others. And with that thought, Sophie felt her mind divide.

  Part of her clung to the girl she is.

  The rest stayed trapped with the girl she used to be.

  And each “Sophie” was frightened and fearless and furious.

  But Present-Sophie felt clearer. She could recognize the desperation in Mr. Forkle’s voice as he called her name over and over and over, and she knew she needed to listen.

  Past-Sophie heard nothing but a ghost in the darkness.

  His pleas were lost.

  She was lost.

  Buried under her newfound power that was consuming everything it touched.

  She didn’t recognize the warm pressure in her palms for what it was.

  But Present-Sophie did, and she knew that Mr. Forkle was clinging to her. She heard him gasp as the tingly warmth bled between their skin, his grip tightening and his voice gaining a newfound strength.

  Sophie, STOP!

  His command was loud enough to reach even Past-Sophie—but she didn’t know how to obey.

  STOP! he repeated, filling her mind with happy thoughts.

  The red rage quickly burned those away.

  STOP!

  STOP!

  STOP!

  I can’t! she tried to tell him, but the words were there and gone much too fast.

  Heat tingled in her palms again, and the next time Mr. Forkle spoke, his voice was laced with joy.

  And hope.

  And happiness.

  And love.

  Each emotion flooded her mind with warmth and light, melting away the black and the red until there was nothing but soft golden shimmer, like a perfect sunrise.

  An awakening.

  Past-Sophie was too tired to face it—and didn’t resist the sticky sweetness that trickled across her tongue.

  Present-Sophie gagged from the memory of the cloying sedative that Mr. Forkle must have given her.

  And as Past-Sophie happily floated into the fuzziness, too weary to wonder what she’d done, Present-Sophie knew there would be consequences.

  Sophie clung to the word, and the thought triggered a surprising ripple of information as the two parts of herself tangled back into one and the memory tucked itself away—buried under all of that unexpected truth.

  Everything she’d seen and felt and learned was now solidly in her past.

  But new questions stretched into her future as Sophie’s mind translated the vague, blurry feelings and pieced together what had actually happened.

  She’d inflicted on her sister that day—lost control during a fight and unleashed a tempest of pain.

  But that wasn’t the discovery that left her shivering and shaking.

  No, she was trembling because Mr. Forkle hadn’t been able to call her out of the frenzy until he’d touched her hands.

  Then she’d enhanced him.

  And he’d inflicted on her.

  SEVENTEEN

  YOU.”

  It was the only word that Sophie could pull from the pounding chaos in her brain.

  A question.

  An accusation.

  A revelation.

  “Yes,” Mr. Forkle told her, his voice raspy, as if he’d been shouting in the present—not just in the past.

  There was another sound too, one that made Sophie want to slap herself when she recognized it, because where were her priorities?

  “Amy?” she asked, swaying from a head rush as she pulled herself upright.

  It took a few seconds for her eyes to focus—and then there was her sister, curled into a tight ball, rocking back and forth as whimpers rattled out of her.

  Her face was pinched.

  Forehead sweaty.

  Skin a troubling greenish-gray.

  “She’ll be fine in another minute or two,” Mr. Forkle promised, which sounded more impossible with each pained noise that Amy made. “Truly, Miss Foster. Her memory of what happened simply runs longer than yours, since I sedated you first that day, in order to ensure that you couldn’t lose control again. And your sister also regained consciousness very briefly after Livvy arrived to help, so she has those extra moments to relive as well. But her mind should settle right… about… now. See?”

  Amy’s body stilled and her moans fell silent—but she still looked far too ill for Sophie to be impressed.

  Sophie choked down the bile coating her throat, though the sourness remained when her sister didn’t move. “Is she unconscious?”

  “She’s somewhere between awake and asleep, finding her path back to reality.” Mr. Forkle pressed two fingers onto each of Amy’s temples and closed his eyes, nodding at whatever he saw inside her head. “These kinds of things take longer for humans to process. But don’t worry—she’s past the pain. Her mind’s simply struggling to understand that the sedative it thinks it’s feeling was actually in her system years ago and wasn’t something she took today—though I wonder if it’d be easier to give her some now and let her rest. She looks more exhausted than I’d hoped.”

  “That’s what happens when you help someone relive being tortured,” Sophie muttered. “But… I don’t think we should sedate her unless she asks us to. I’m sure my—her—parents will freak if she doesn’t wake up when they come home.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Mr. Forkle agreed, moving one of his hands to Amy’s wrist to feel her pulse. He counted under his breath and nodded. “Actually, her vitals are boun
cing back nicely. She should be lucid in the next few minutes. And there’s still no sign of her family returning?” he asked Sandor, who’d marched over to one of the windows to check through the curtains.

  “Flori has signaled that we’re clear—for the moment,” Sandor informed him, stomping back to his post in the doorway. “But the sooner we leave, the better.”

  “Agreed,” Mr. Forkle said.

  “We’re not going anywhere until Amy wakes up and we make sure she’s okay and answer her questions,” Sophie reminded them.

  “That’s the plan,” Mr. Forkle corrected, “but we’ll have to adjust if her parents return—which is why I tried to start this process as soon as we got here.”

  “Excuse me for trying to save my sister from this.” She pointed to Amy, whose eyes were squeezed so tight, they looked like angry lines.

  Sophie reached out, brushing back strands of Amy’s sweat-soaked hair off of her forehead and tucking them behind her ears—stalling as she worked up the courage to ask, “How badly did I hurt her that day? My memory… wasn’t exactly clear.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Mr. Forkle said quietly. “All the more reason you can’t blame yourself for what happened. You had no idea what was going on.”

  “I didn’t,” Sophie agreed, stopping herself from mentioning all the things she did know, now that she had the advantage of hindsight to translate what had happened between her and him.

  She had lots of questions.

  Maybe even a few accusations.

  But she wasn’t going to let him sidetrack her.

  “You didn’t answer my question. How badly did I hurt her that day?”

  Mr. Forkle checked Amy’s thoughts again before he answered. “Inflicting is all in the mind, so she suffered zero physical trauma. Why do you think I didn’t bother bringing Elwin or Livvy with us today?”

  Sophie had a feeling that Elwin and Livvy would strongly disagree with that decision—and Sophie wasn’t sold on it either, given the greenish pallor lingering on her sister’s skin.

  But once again, Mr. Forkle was changing the subject.

  “We both know the pain is just as real as an actual injury,” Sophie insisted. “Probably worse.”

  Mr. Forkle sighed. “It can be, yes. And I won’t lie, what your sister experienced that day—and again now, to a smaller extent—was… let’s just call it indescribable, and leave it at that, okay?”

  Sophie brushed back another strand of her sister’s sticky hair.

  Didn’t she owe it to her to learn every detail about what Amy had endured?

  “Sometimes knowledge is simply knowledge,” Mr. Forkle said, guessing what she’d been wondering. “My brother and I shared every single memory throughout our entire lives—except one. He held back the details of the pain he experienced from his final injury, and I’m sure he did that because he knew I would’ve relived it over and over, trying to make amends for the fact that I get to carry on and he doesn’t. So he eliminated that as a possibility for me. And from what I know of your sister, I’ve no doubt that she’d want the same for you—just as you would for her if the situation were reversed.”

  “Maybe,” Sophie admitted, blinking hard to keep any tears from forming. “It’s just… I can still hear her screams.”

  “And I’m sure you always will,” he said quietly. “But… I think we should also acknowledge the fact that you just mentioned them without needing Flori to sing your echoes to sleep. That’s a tremendous victory, Miss Foster. One that’s not worth jeopardizing—especially for knowledge that will do no actual good.”

  Sophie sighed. “I guess—unless Amy needs to talk about what happened. If she does, I’ll let her share every awful detail.”

  She didn’t care if it brought the shadow monster back in full force—she’d do whatever Amy needed to help her recover from this nightmare.

  “Fair enough,” Mr. Forkle told her. “Though, I think you’re also overlooking a very important aspect of what happened. Your sister’s screams came from more than just pain. She was also witnessing something her brain couldn’t begin to comprehend—and she was terrified that the red light was killing you.”

  Sophie frowned. “Red light?”

  He nodded. “Your inflicting operated very differently that day. It worked the way we designed it to—or mostly, anyway—and the emotions were channeled out of your mind in a single, targeted red beam that flashed and struck like a bolt of lightning.”

  Sophie tried to picture it, but the only thing she could come up with was some cross between an alien mind trick and an exorcism—and she really didn’t want to imagine herself that way.

  And once again, her head flooded with questions about what had actually happened between Mr. Forkle and her during those terrible moments.

  But she had to stay focused on the most important information.

  “That’s the big choice, isn’t it?” she asked. “You want to reset my brain so my inflicting will work differently.”

  “So it will work properly,” Mr. Forkle corrected, which wasn’t any less terrifying. “Your ability was designed to target whoever or whatever you were feeling threatened by, rather than taking out everyone in the vicinity the way you do now. That would make the power much more effective, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose,” Sophie said slowly. “But what happened to the whole ‘no one will be asking anyone to put their life in serious danger’ promise you made earlier?”

  “I was about to remind him of the same thing,” Sandor growled.

  “I said serious danger,” Mr. Forkle argued. “This time the procedure will be much more minor. We don’t have to reset Miss Foster’s entire brain, like Livvy did to her that day—or like I did the day I healed her abilities. We only need to reset her inflicting, which will require a significantly smaller dose of limbium.”

  “Okay, but… I’m still deathly allergic to it, even in a small dose,” Sophie pointed out, surprised she even had to say it. “The elixir Dex gave me only had a drop in it, and it still made Bullhorn lie down beside me, and Elwin was barely able to bring me back.”

  “I’m not saying there won’t be risks,” Mr. Forkle said carefully. “But the risks will still be less dangerous this time than your previous experiences, both because of the much more limited problem we’re addressing and because of our increased knowledge and practice. Livvy and I have been researching allergies for months, wanting to be prepared in case this day was ever upon us. And I feel very strongly that we’ve now perfected our remedy.”

  “Does that mean you won’t have to use any needles?” Sophie asked.

  “I wish.” He reached for her hand, peeling back the fabric of her glove until he’d exposed the star-shaped scar he’d accidentally given her when he’d healed her abilities. “This time I know to administer the injection into your leg, so I shouldn’t leave another mark like this. But… it still needs to be an injection. That’s the fastest delivery method, and with allergies, every second counts.”

  Sophie wished she could argue.

  But she’d felt how close it came the other times when they’d triggered her allergy.

  There was zero margin for error.

  “I’ll have Elwin and Livvy with me for any emergencies,” Mr. Forkle promised, pulling her glove back into place and releasing her hand. “And I think it might be wise to have Mr. Sencen and Mr. Vacker there as well, since they both have ways of keeping your mind and emotions steady and focused. And if there’s someone else you’d like to have there—like perhaps your parents?—that can be arranged. But know this: No matter what, I will keep you safe. That’s my job.”

  “No, that’s my job,” Sandor corrected. “And if you think I’m going to let you—”

  “It’s Miss Foster’s decision,” Mr. Forkle interrupted.

  Sophie snorted. “Right. Just like it was my decision the day you reset my abilities. I could either stay malfunctioning, or risk my life to fix everything—and bonus: It was the only way I’d be able
to heal Prentice and Alden. That’s not much of a choice, is it?”

  “It is,” Mr. Forkle insisted. “And this time it’s even more so. You’ve managed just fine with the way your inflicting currently operates.”

  “Have I?” Sophie asked, thinking of all the times her vision had cleared to reveal her friends writhing in pain or unconscious around her.

  The Neverseen had even started counting on it when they planned their ambushes, letting her take out her bodyguards for them—although that raised another question.

  “Is the ability even worth it?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper. “The Neverseen always wear those caps to block me.”

  “Actually, that would be one of the biggest advantages to resetting your ability,” Mr. Forkle corrected. “The red beam is designed to target the heart, not the head. The Neverseen would have no way to shield themselves from that kind of attack, and the blow would be infinitely stronger because the emotions are so much rawer and more vulnerable there.”

  Sophie sighed.

  That would be a significant improvement from what she could currently do.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Forkle said, clearing his throat. “I realize this is probably the last thing you feel like enduring. I haven’t forgotten how much you’ve already been through. It’s also my fault. What Livvy and I did to reset your brain clearly went awry.”

  “Clearly,” Sophie muttered, “considering I almost died.”

  “Yes, you did. I still have nightmares about it sometimes.” He stared at his hands, wringing his fingers back and forth. “It was me with you that day, in case you were wondering. Not my twin brother. It’s why I was chosen to be the one to reset your abilities the second time—everyone felt I had ‘experience’ with the situation—though truthfully, both times I’ve never felt so out of my depth or terrified in all of my life.” He cleared his throat again. “That first time, when I heard the screaming and saw what was happening, I hailed Livvy for help immediately. Then I carried you and your sister into my house, hoping no one else in the neighborhood had noticed anything. By the time Livvy got there, I’d already erased both of your memories—but of course, I had to erase another from your sister when her sedative wore off not long after Livvy’s arrival. I hadn’t wanted to overdo how much I gave her, considering she was so small and had just been through such an exhausting trauma. But I clearly underestimated—the first of many mistakes I made that day.”