Tethered by Shadows, Chapter 7

The Legacy

Chapter Seven: The Legacy

Elara hadn’t set foot in her grandmother’s attic since she was thirteen, when Hazel had shown her a cedar chest and told her, One day, this will be yours to open. When you’re ready.

She hadn’t felt ready then. She didn’t feel ready now. But after the attack in the hall, she didn’t have the luxury of waiting.

The three men hovered behind her as she tugged the cord and the attic light buzzed to life. Dust hung thick in the air, disturbed by her cautious steps. Boxes leaned like crooked teeth along the beams, but her eyes went straight to the cedar chest in the center.

Her hands shook as she knelt. The key still dangled from the lock.

“You okay?” Simon’s voice was gentle, steady.

She nodded, though she wasn’t. “I have to be.”

The lid creaked open. Inside were bundles of letters tied in twine, leather-bound journals, and objects wrapped in faded cloth. A faint herbal scent drifted out: sage, lavender, something older.

Elara reached for the top journal. The leather was cracked, Hazel’s familiar scrawl looping across the cover: For the girl who will see both worlds.

Her throat tightened. She flipped it open.

Hazel’s words spilled like secrets whispered across time:

Our family has always carried a thread of the unseen. Some of us dream true, some heal, some see what others cannot. But once in a generation, one of us becomes the bridge, the one who draws both light and shadow. That child will be hunted by the dark. That child must never be left unguarded.

Elara’s pulse thudded. Bridge. Hunted. Guardian.

Her hands trembled so badly she nearly dropped the book. “It’s me.”

Adrian leaned over her shoulder, his forever ink-stained fingers ghosting over the page. “She knew. She must have prepared for this.”

Simon’s expression was grim, but there was no surprise in it. “Makes sense now. Why I felt pulled to you, why we all did.”

Jason let out a bitter laugh, pacing the narrow space. “So what, we’re not even here because we loved her? We’re here because some dead grandmother scribbled destiny into a journal?”

The words sliced Elara open. “Don’t say that. I know what we had, what I had, with each of you. That was real.”

Jason turned, his glow sparking dangerously. “Was it? Or was I just a pawn in some cosmic game, doomed to end up here?”

“Enough,” Simon snapped, stepping between them. His steady light flared, silencing the attic. “Love isn’t erased by fate. Whatever bound us here, it doesn’t change what we felt when we were alive.” His eyes softened as he looked at Elara. “What we still feel.”

She swallowed hard, torn between gratitude and guilt. Hazel’s words echoed in her skull: must never be left unguarded.

She flipped further through the journal. Pages detailed rituals of protection, sigils drawn in Hazel’s confident hand. Notes about energy, about shadow. And always, always, the warning: The shadow will come. It will test. It will hunger.

Her breath hitched when she reached the last entry.

If you are reading this, my darling, then the shadow has already found you. It will try to claim you as its vessel, to pull you into its endless hunger. You must not let it. The guardians will stand between you and it, but they will not last forever. Their light burns quickly in the dark.

Elara closed the book, clutching it to her chest. She couldn’t look at them, at Jason’s anger, Simon’s steadfastness, Adrian’s quiet sorrow. Hazel had written their fate as clearly as if it were scripture.

“They’ll burn,” she whispered. “She said you’ll burn away protecting me.”

Adrian crouched beside her, his dark eyes catching the thin attic light. “Then we find a way to burn brighter. To last long enough for you to end this.”

Jason scoffed but didn’t argue. Simon simply nodded.

Elara placed the journal back, then pulled a cloth-wrapped bundle from the chest. Inside was a silver pendant on a chain, etched with the same sigil Adrian had drawn in his frenzied writing. When her fingers brushed it, warmth pulsed up her arm, steady and alive.

Hazel’s voice seemed to breathe out of the pendant itself: You are not alone.

Tears blurred her vision. She slipped the chain around her neck. It lay against her skin, heavy and protective, like Hazel’s arms.

When she looked up, all three men were watching her.

Simon’s expression was reverent. “It suits you.”

Adrian’s voice was low, certain. “It’s a key.”

Jason tried for sarcasm, but his voice cracked. “Looks like you just got promoted from damsel to chosen one.”

Despite everything, Elara almost smiled. Almost.

Then the floor groaned beneath them, and the attic bulb flickered. Cold seeped into the space, sharp and sudden. The shadows stretched along the rafters, reaching.

The whisper slithered through the air, low and mocking. Found you.

Simon moved instantly to her side. Jason swore and squared his shoulders, his glow sparking like lightning. Adrian pressed his hand over the journal, whispering the strange words again.

Elara clutched the pendant, feeling its warmth surge. For the first time, she didn’t feel entirely powerless.

She lifted her chin into the dark. “You can whisper all you want. I’m not yours.”

The shadows hissed, then receded like a tide pulling back into the sea. The bulb steadied.

The silence that followed was heavy but victorious.

Jason let out a shaky laugh. “Well, congratulations, Elara. You just talked back to the abyss.”

Simon’s hand brushed close to hers, a phantom warmth she almost felt. “And it listened.”

Adrian’s eyes lingered on her pendant. “Hazel was right. You are the bridge. Which means… you might be the only one who can end this.”

The weight of his words settled into Elara’s chest. The attic suddenly felt too small, too full of secrets and destinies she hadn’t asked for. But when she met each of their eyes, the fire in Jason, the steadiness in Simon, the haunted resolve in Adrian, something inside her steadied.

She wasn’t just a girl with ghosts anymore.

She was the one they had all loved. The one the shadow wanted. The one who might finally decide the end of this story.