Rain of Shadows and Endings (Legacy, #1)

by Melissa K. Roehrich

“I am Theon St. Orcas, Heir to the Arius Kingdom. You are Tessalyn Ausra. I have Selected you to be my Source. You obey me above all others. My desires are your desires. You are mine.”

Be what they want you to be now, so you can be who you were meant to be later.

Theon tsked. “I owe you nothing.” Tessa started, the words like a slap across her face. She wasn’t even sure why his statement surprised her. She shouldn’t be. He was a Legacy after all. Fae existed solely to serve his kind. Of course he would believe he owed her nothing for giving up her entire life for him. For giving up her entire self for him. She didn’t have much, but what she did have she didn’t want to give to a godsdamn Legacy.

Wow! 😮 and he wonders why she is unhappy m

“No, beautiful,” he said, shaking his head. “You look like salvation and temptation all rolled into one.”

No one ever knew what to do with her except shove her aside. Lock her away. Too wild to be something, so forced to be nothing.

Broken and fractured and everything she’d tried to put back together over the years shattered once more. She couldn’t do this.

She refused to be like those flames in that fireplace. She refused to be collared

and leashed and trapped. No. She was getting out whether this bond liked it or not. She’d go into hiding.

She wouldn’t survive this. It would break her. And she didn’t burn when she broke. She shattered, and the world shattered with her.

He’d become the nightmare she already thought he was.

Hmmmm….i wonder how that will turn out for him. Someone that broken, that shattered - that has pieced themselves back together doesn’t give their power away easily

She would be his, but he would never be hers.

“I told you on the drive here that this would break her.”

Wow 😮 Theon….hmmmm….a little empathy might change everything.

“She is not going to break,”

And each day she wondered if she was losing more and more of her mind. Of herself. Each day she wondered if this would be the day she finally gave up.

Ughhh this is agony. My heart breaks for her

“The quiet is too loud sometimes, and I feel trapped in it,” she

“Sometimes we need to become a monster to kill one,

“Know that sometimes we must break to be forged into who we were meant to be,” she said, streaks of violet flickering in her eyes like lightning cutting through the flecks of gold. Then she bent and pressed her lips to Tessa’s brow. “You will break, Tessalyn. Make sure you get back up and take what is yours.”

Oh my word!!!

“You’re too busy trying to separate lies from reality. You’re too busy trying not to break so completely that you can’t be fixed. But that’s impossible. You always break. We help each other glue the pieces back together, but it’s never quite right. The pieces of yourself never quite fit back together the way they once did. Until eventually, you don’t remember what it was like to not feel cracked and scarred.

Until eventually, you are just a shell of what you once were, but you know there’s no way to go back, so you just move forward, even if death’s song sounds sweeter and sweeter every time.”

The Priestesses always healed them of any physical injuries they received during the tests, but the mental wounds scarred, often ripping open at inopportune moments. The invisible marks were far worse than any physical ones.

“The way she spoke, she’s broken so many times she just figured out how to hold the pieces together.”

“I don’t want her to break. I just need her to bend.”

“Something can only bend so far before it snaps.”

All she knew was her world was a little darker, and she found herself caring less and less every day.

I think this is a dangerous place to be - in the grey- not broken yet, but becoming numb

Theon started leading her to the elevators, and Tessa couldn’t help herself. She knew it was a bad move, impulsive one might say, but she looked back over her shoulder, her gaze connecting with Tristyn’s. She winked at him. “Older brothers, am I right?” she said with an eye roll and a jerk of her thumb at the three Legacy. “Maybe I’ll see you around, Tristyn.”

Oh my gosh!! Can I just say I love this girl??

But not even death wants me, even when handed to her willingly.”

And yet they will probably all miss her truth - she needs to be wanted and cared for just because she’s herself

They didn’t get to have her secrets. They didn’t get to have her past.

But there it was. She’d laid it all out there. All but told him she would rather death come for her than live out the life fate had dealt her.

Yep and there he goes messing it up!! Missing her truth

but I won’t be giving you any more pieces of my soul tonight.”

“He helps glue the broken pieces back together, even when I don’t think it’s worth it anymore.”

And the agony

She was alone. Stuck in her own head. And that was a dangerous place to be.

“It matters because very few want me, Theon!” she cried. “They want what I can give them, what I have to offer, but never me. And you have just told me you are no different. So I am trying to figure out what exactly it is you want from me⁠—”

Can the agony of her situation get any worse?

“And what will you do when there is nothing left, Theon?” She heard him suck in a sharp breath. “What will you do when

you have taken everything and left me with nothing?”

have nothing left to give. What little I had, you already took. Congratulations. You already won.”

It is all anyone ever wants from me. All that I am useful for. The only reason anyone bothers with me.”

Just do as you’re told and stop being a burden. Be what they want you to be now, so you can be who you were meant to be later.

“You can shatter, Tessa,” Corbin said solemnly. “We’ll put the pieces back together just like we’ve always done.” “What if there’s nothing left of me?” she asked, tears coursing down her face now. “Then we’ll help you find yourself again. Just like before. Just like you’ve done for us.”

I love this group of friends

He didn’t care who became a casualty for the cause. Like he’d told Tessa, failure wasn’t an option.

Interesting…even Tessa

Never once did it register how much trouble she was going to be in because all she could think about was open spaces and fresh air not tainted with expectations and demands.

and she wasn’t about to apologize for how she held the pieces of her soul together.

No one would save her. No one would protect her. No one would stop them, just like no one stopped Mother Cordelia. No one stopped the Priestesses. And another piece of her soul shattered as she went lax in Luka’s hold.

“One wants me calm. One wants me wild. Your expectations are becoming impossible, Master,” she said, getting to her feet, and her voice sounded strange even to her. It was laced with something dark. It was laced with something powerful.

“In all things there must be balance. Beginnings and Endings. Light and Dark. Fire and Shadows. The sky, the sea, the realms. But when the scales tip, And Chaos rains, Who will fight? And who will fall?

For Dark must bow, And Light must rule, But Chaos does not choose. Control the uncontrollable, Or to fury they both lose. Life must give, And Death must take, But Fate requires more. Destiny beckons, And sacrifice demands. Who will be left standing, When Chaos comes to reign?”

“But that aside, I want you to know you are strong enough for this, Tessa.”

Who is Trystan? A guardian? Her father?

“It’s something you can’t learn until you’re forced to walk through it, but you’d know that strength grows in the moments you think you can’t go on, but you do anyway. Strength is fighting back. Strength is doing whatever it takes to claim what is yours, even if others try to convince you it is not yours to take.”

“You are, Tessa. If you are weak enough to fall, you are strong enough to rise back up. Weakness and strength come from the same place, and both are necessary. Both provide purpose, and both can lead to destruction or salvation. You just need to embrace a little chaos,” Tristyn said, a fierceness filling his features. “And when you come out on the other side of this, the Heir of the Arius Kingdom won’t be the nightmare. You will be.”

he’d pretend he wasn’t what he was in the same way she pretended to be what he demanded of her.

Her power was valuable to him. Not her.