Page 67 of Ties of Legacy

“Then they need to storm the cave!” Elliot said, his voice rising as he thought of the threat to his home town.

Avery shushed him, looking back toward the cottage. “Of course they’ve tried that, too. But the cave where it dwells is pitch black, and any light source they take inside is instantly extinguished.”

“The lamp,” Elliot said, understanding at long last.

Avery nodded. “Precisely. They commissioned me to purchase a lamp that is also fueled by two Legacies—one that combines the properties of both Sovar and the kingdom over the mountains and that won’t go out, no matter the circumstances.”

“I can see why you’ve been so anxious to get back,” Elliot said. “But I don’t understand the need for secrecy. Or why anyone would hire Rene to prevent your return.”

Avery worried at her lip before sighing. “Their desire for secrecy relates to something else entirely. And it might be the same reason someone wants to keep the town in a state of unrest and uncertainty. The townsfolk want to keep from drawing any attention because…because the local lord is dead.”

Elliot stiffened, his mind going blank at the unexpected mention of his father. His father had been dead for three years already. How could it still be a secret?

“They didn’t kill him,” Avery hastened to reassure him, misunderstanding his tension. “He died of a heart attack. But he was an incredible man and did a lot for Bolivere. In particular, he was a famously effective negotiator, and over the years he arranged all sorts of advantageous deals for the town. It had reached the point where he didn’t even need to be present when agreements were being made—any agreement entered into under his name was automatically given with good terms. Sowhen he died, the people banded together and decided to keep his passing a secret. To the rest of the kingdoms, Bolivere is still under his guidance and support.”

Elliot drew a shaky breath. The whole town was maintaining a charade that his father was still alive. Was that why he hadn’t received his proper inheritance? Had his father been the one to hatch the plan before his passing? An ache started deep in his chest, and he hunched over, rubbing at it.

“Are you all right?” Avery disentangled her hand from his to place it against his forehead. “You don’t look so well.”

“I’m—” His lips formed the word fine, but his body wouldn’t let him say it.

He wasn’t fine. He hadn’t been fine since the day word had arrived that the father he hadn’t seen in nearly five years was dead. The message had arrived the day before his eighteenth birthday.

He had already made his plans and packed his bags before it reached him. When morning dawned—bringing with it his birthday—he was going to start the journey back to his home. Back to Bolivere. Back to the father who loved him.

That had been the deal. His mother had claimed that since his father had already had the first thirteen years of Elliot’s life—and thirteen of her years alongside him—it was only just that she be given a mere five. Elliot had even left Bolivere with her willingly at first—if reluctantly—determined to stand as her protector. But by the time he reached eighteen, he had long since learned the true nature of her selfish character—the character his father had previously shielded him from.

The lesson hadn’t come from the black eyes he received from the various groups of local youths whenever he attempted to defend her honor, but from her own mercurial and callous treatment of both Elliot and the string of people she leached off. Whenever one protector or town began to see through her stringof lies—their admiration for her beauty and charm turning to disgust—she moved on to the next sympathetic target.

By the time he neared eighteen, he was counting down the days until he had completed his time with his mother and could return to his father. Except when the day finally dawned, his father was already gone.

In her never-ending selfish quest for new levels of excitement and admiration, his mother had robbed him of his father’s final five years. Elliot had endured for years in the knowledge that he had a home waiting for him and at least one parent who truly cared for him. But in one message that had all been stripped away.

The blow had been almost enough to fell him on its own, the words of the short letter swimming before his eyes. His father’s steward must have changed sometime after Elliot left Bolivere, because the one who wrote to him had possessed only enough courtesy to pen him a short missive with the most basic fact of his father’s passing, not even bothering to sign his name. Perhaps he didn’t want to take responsibility for the changes Elliot’s father had made before his death—the news of which was a further blow that crushed Elliot almost completely.

The details of those changes had been delivered by his mother. The note to Elliot had been enclosed in a longer missive to the woman who had been his legal guardian at the time of his father’s death. To her, the steward had written of the terms of her husband’s will. Elliot’s note had mentioned a pouch of coins to be used for travel expenses, and the pouch was opened in his presence by his mother and solemnly handed over to him in its entirety. She didn’t even mention the indignity of her own complete removal from the will. Even his mother understood better than to meddle with an inheritance.

Elliot had raged, some of his fury directed at his mother and some at himself. If only his misguided youthful honor andloyalty hadn’t led him to leave his home without a struggle. If only he had expressed his true feelings loudly and clearly, so that his father never doubted where Elliot’s heart really lay.

Elliot’s mother had thought he would stay with her after the news—had seemed to think it the only possible course. She had even attempted to comfort him with the reminder that his father couldn’t disinherit him from the title, at least, even if he could do as he liked with the estate. And she had begun to talk of how the coin might benefit them both.

But Elliot had ignored her, leaving that day as planned. All he had cared about was going somewhere far from his mother—anywhere as long as it wasn’t Bolivere.

His mother had walked away from her marriage with far more coin than her husband had been obligated to give his deserting wife, and she had no claim on any of the remaining wealth that had originally come from Elliot’s paternal grandparents. Without his mother’s extravagant spending, the coin his father had left was enough to sustain him for three years as he mindlessly wandered the kingdoms, trying to forget the home that was no longer his. But it was nothing compared to the wealth of his father’s full estate.

Not that it was the loss of his fortune that hurt so badly. Elliot hadn’t dreamed of his old home because he cared about being lord of the manor one day. He had treasured thoughts of Bolivere because it was his home, and he had believed himself to be valued there. He wasn’t surprised his father would want his fortune to benefit the town, but it hurt that he no longer believed Elliot could be entrusted to steward the wealth for the benefit of Bolivere as he himself had done. Even worse was the mention of travel expenses—as if his father had thought Elliot wanted to keep traveling. As if he hadn’t known Elliot intended to return home as soon as possible.

For three years Elliot had stayed on the move, fleeing the pain that came whenever he thought of his childhood home—the place that was home no longer, the place that hadn’t wanted him back. Even when he could no longer bear life on the road for another week, he had chosen a new home far from the echoes of his father.

Elliot had never asked what had happened to the house. The money would have been used to support town improvement efforts—re-doing the retaining wall around the small dam to the northeast would have been top of the list, he guessed, and he didn’t resent that. But they must have sold the house, and it pained him to picture a new noble family with no tie to the town moving in, erasing the heart and spirit of the home along with the memories of Elliot’s childhood.

Occasionally he had even imagined the old manor house derelict and empty, falling into disarray—as if the townsfolk would rather see it rot than have Elliot living there. The one thing he had never imagined was that it could be exactly the same as it had always been, maintained under a facade of normalcy—still running in his dead father’s name.

Shame squeezed him. The people of Bolivere were sheltering behind a masquerade, hounded by brigands like Rene, and picked off in the shadows by a beast that dwelled in the cave that had never really held a dragon. And yet they had chosen the path that led them there over Elliot’s leadership.

Sweat beaded on his back. He had resented the fact that one youthful mistake—made with good intentions—had been enough for both his father and the town to judge and reject him. And his resentment had made him run from the pain of his father’s death instead of confronting it as he should have done.

By the time of his father’s death, his eyes had been opened to the extent of his mother’s callous selfishness, so could he really blame any of them? Wasn’t it natural that people who hadn’tseen him for years would fear he might have been tarred with the same brush? Especially when he hadn’t returned in so long. At sixteen, when he had considered turning sailor, he had allowed his mother to convince him to stay with her. Instead, he should have left her and returned to his father. He should have given his father—and Bolivere—a chance to see his true character.

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