Tainted Legacy: The Ash Academy Series Read online

  Tainted Legacy

  Ash Academy Series

  Tabitha Peattie

  Books by Tabitha Peattie

  Ash Academy series:

  Tainted Legacy

  Tainted Truths

  Broken but Not Dead series:

  (Release date 2018)

  Contents

  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

  For my little sister, who inspires me as she grows into an amazing woman.

  Prologue

  “Oh darling look at her. Our daughter is a beautiful girl, isn’t she amazing?”

  Horace looked at his wife and agreed that the small bundle in her arms was a miracle. He had never felt prouder of his wife, nor had he ever felt more terrified of something so small. His beautiful baby looked so fragile and innocent.

  In the corner of the room the Seer cleared her voice. Horace loathed tradition just then. This was a perfect moment and he hated sharing it with a stranger.

  “OK Seer, make your prophecy then leave me and my family to celebrate.” His voice sounded raw to his own ears, so many emotions warring within him, he was struggling to keep them in check.

  The Seer was a small woman hunched over, her grey hair lay in long mats over her face. It is said that she lived through the first civil wars of the Gifted, over a thousand years ago.

  As was tradition, the moment Ava was born she was at the door ready to give her foretelling.

  The Seer’s eyes glazed over as she came and touched the baby’s forehead. She stared unseeingly ahead. Her voice became hauntingly beautiful as she spoke the words which would mould the baby's life forever.

  “ The life born today is one destined for death. Never has there been a blacker aura, nor will there ever be one more feared than the child in your arms. She has the power to destroy the world and everyone in it. There is no salvation from the death that follows her. No matter how far she runs or hard she fights she is doomed. However, where there is darkness there is light. You will have to stop the darkness so that her light can shine through. This is what I have seen and so it will be true. The fates are at work, we are servants to their wishes. To fight would be futile.”

  With those eerie words, she turned on her heels and shuffled out, leaving a deadly silence in her wake.

  Horace stared at the door, which the Seer had left through, struggling to breathe. With those words, his daughter was cursed. He could see the future in a moment of complete clarity, it was a dark place with his family broken. He felt as if he was drowning in fear and pain. How could this be happening to him?

  Horace turned to see his agony mirrored in his wife's eyes.

  “ I will not let anything happen to her, you hear me? We will protect her. I promise. Screw the fates, she is ours and nothing will happen to her.” He resolved. The promise set like a heavy, impossible weight at the pit of his stomach. He would do everything to stop the tears running down his wife’s cheeks.

  In this room was everything that mattered to him and he would do anything to protect them.

  “Should we take her away from all this.” Lillian voiced to her husband, trying to think, as rationally as possible, how best she can protect her daughter.

  “No, we don’t know if taking her away will only fulfil the prophecy.” He replied, trying to think of other solutions. How will he save their own child from her future?

  “So, we bring her up to be good. We don’t let her see any darkness in the world.” Lillian said with resolve to her husband’s nod. They would protect her from anything, even from herself.

  “ Ava my little baby girl, you are so beautiful just like your mother. You couldn’t harm a fly and no harm will ever come to you. That's a promise from your daddy!” He whispered her name for the first time with a promise which will change his and their whole world.

  Chapter 1

  “I’m not ready for this day. Are you sure we are doing the right thing for Ava?”

  Ava woke to the muffled sound of her mother worrying just outside Ava’s bedroom door. Instinctively her eyes snapped open and she started to get out of bed and go towards her mother’s disturbed voice.

  “I’m serious Horace, she has no idea about what she is going to face and I am worried for her. We thought it would all die down, but it hasn’t. We can’t protect her if we let her go.”

  Ava stopped and stared at the door as her mother continued. What was her mother talking about? Why was she so worried? Ava was about to start her first day of school and was nervous enough as it was, without her mother freaking out.

  Her mother had been preparing her for this day, for the last 18 years. The day she would finally send her innocent daughter to Ash Academy.

  Ava’s parents had kept her sheltered from the rest of society, so all she had were her parents and their close family’s opinions to help when getting ready for this momentous day.

  She knew her mother was getting increasingly nervous about her going off to school as it was a boarding school. Once you started you weren't allowed to return home for three years. It was an old Gifted tradition, the reason behind it is that you grow into an adult and at the end of the three years your family accepts you back for the adult you have become and not the child you once were. Ava hadn’t spent a single night away from her parents and both her and her parents knew the separation was going to be tough.

  However, whilst her mother had been buzzing around shopping and packing then repacking, she had never expressed this concern about Ava being unprotected. This made the eavesdropped words all the more confusing for Ava.

  Her mother’s voice got fainter as she must have been talking to her father whilst they were walking further and further away from Ava’s room. Ava sighed and fell back into her bed sheets looking up at the glowing stars above her bed.

  Nerves began to course through her body at the thought of how monumental this day was and how she felt unprepared for what was about to happen. Part of her was excited to meet new people, in her 18 years of life she hadn’t met many.

  People often came to their house but her parents usually didn’t let them meet with their daughter. From what Ava could understand, in her eavesdropping sessions, this was usually because the people who came to the house weren’t friends. They would come asking for something, usually money or support in their endeavours.

  She never felt that her sheltered existence was a bad one so she didn’t fight it. Her parents and family gave her everything she could ever dream of and supported her through all her hobbies and adventures. Ava always knew that she would be going to Ash Academy so anytime she wanted to experience more, see more or meet more people she knew she just had to wait.

  The waiting was finally over!

  Rushing around the room Ava got ready in her planned outfit. She and her mother had spent days buying potential first day of school outfits and they had finally settled on this one and she was pleased with the result.

  It was a maroon skater skirt that stopped a few inches above her knee, paired with a high necked black top and so much intricate lace patterning it looked like a work of art. Her mother had tried to browbeat her into wearing 5 inch heels but she didn’t want to fall, or her feet to be hurting on her first day. She had finally won the argument and finished the outfit off with some cute black kitten heels.

  Ava looked in the mirror critically trying to imagine what she would look like to all t
he new people she was going to meet that day.

  Staring back at her was a short young woman. With long brown hair that was neither straight or curly. Her hair was the bane of her mother's existence and no matter how many products and straighteners she used, it always ended up doing it’s own thing. Currently it was wavy on one side and crimped on the other. It reached her waist and was so thick and heavy her cousins always joked that without her hair she would lose a stone in weight. Her skin had an olive tone to it and she had big brown eyes.

  Ava looked closer at her face and didn’t really know what people would think of her. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t stunning like her mother or a head turner like her cousins.

  Whilst tackling her hair into submission Ava looked up to see her mother standing uncharacteristically quietly at the door, watching her daughter with sad eyes.

  “Seriously, Mum, I’m not going to war. I am not going to the death penalty. I am just going to school. You know that Norms start school at 5. They would consider me an adult at 18. “

  Ava tried to reason with her mother and make her smile.

  “Now I feel guilty. You should be the one who is getting the words of encouragement, not me. I know you’re not going off to a death sentence. However, you are my only daughter and I am going to miss you so much.” Lillian’s eyes started to get watery as she walked over to her daughter picking up the hairbrush to try and tame her daughter's’ wild hair.

  “I’m going to miss you too.”

  Ava said quietly as she sat in front of her dresser mirror and let her mother attack her hair.

  This was their routine in the morning and secretly Ava’s favourite time with her mother. In that moment, her mother’s focus wasn’t on the hundreds of chores she had to do, instead it is focused solely on her daughter.

  “ I remember my first day. I was so nervous but then as soon as I got there I started talking to the other girls and it was fine. You are all in the same boat. I know I have told you this thousands of times but I know you will be fine. Just let them get to know you for who you are.”

  Ava nodded. They had had this conversation a lot in the run up to this day so she knew her mother meant well.

  “I know, it doesn’t stop me being nervous. What if I make an idiot out of myself? I haven’t been out in the society like the other girls have. What if I offend someone?” Ava voiced her worries, again this was a conversation they had many times.

  “You know why you haven’t been out in society darling. There is no way the daughter I raised would ever embarrass herself or offend anyone. Your father and I have tried to stay as far away from the rest of the Gifted so that you could just grow up being you and not feel the pressures of our society.”

  Her mother continued gravely.

  “We are so proud of you and the young woman you have grown into. The last thing we wanted was for the Gifted community to take your childhood from you. It was important to us that you grew up knowing right from wrong, good from bad. So that when this moment came and you had to make those choices for yourself you wouldn’t waver or question yourself.

  “I would make the same decision again in a heartbeat. I know it makes you nervous not knowing anyone at the school but you will get to know them and as soon as they see what we see in you, you will have friends for life. I am sure of that.”

  Lillian had stopped brushing her daughter’s hair and was staring Ava straight in the eye through the mirror. The conviction of her words gave Ava comfort.

  Ava’s sheltered upbringing meant that she was kept away from the 11 other families of the Gifted. The families had grown so big that they were more like factions.

  Lillian and her husband, Horace, were the head of the Black family. This meant that this responsibility would be inherited by Ava when she was ready. The 12 families had varying associated powers with their houses. Though all members of the Gifted had some level of power over all the elements, each Gifted would have an affinity towards one gift. The Black family was associated with darkness and death. This meant that they were keepers of gifts such as poison, pain and deceit.

  The Gifted community was founded with balance and the Black family was on one end of the spectrum, the White family was their opposite. The White family’s affinity was life and they harboured gifts such as healing and empathy. These two houses were the strongest of the twelve houses as they are life and death. The other houses held all the powers in between.

  Ava had been brought up to understand that the houses were so big and that categorising individuals, for the family they are from, is not as easy as it once was.

  In her opinion, it is an outdated system as there were many bi-family households and they were often shunned by either or both factions. The families often had disputes against one another that meant your ally one day could be your enemy the next.

  Ava had largely read about this and heard about it from her cousins. Neither of her parents had much time for politics. Her father once told Ava that everyone was so busy trying to stay on top, they never enjoyed the view.

  As for her being the heir of a family whose powers are supposed to be founded in darkness, Ava didn't give it a second thought. She hadn't seen her parents Affinity they just used their general power in their everyday life.

  Her cousins used their affinity for destruction regularly but this was more for comical purposes then to hurt anyone. Ava just believed that though their house was founded in ‘darkness’ and everyone believed the different houses held different powers. The reality was, their community was so old that this was more an exaggeration.

  The politics and posturing for favour was another thing that worried Ava about starting at Ash Academy. She didn’t want to have to play games to make friends, she was simply who she was and she hoped that people would accept that.

  “I know Mum, I wouldn’t have changed anything about the last 18 years. I have no regrets. I’m just nervous. It’s the fear of the unknown. I guess it’s a leap of faith and I hope that I make it.”

  Ava said nervously laughing.

  “I like the leap of faith analogy. Yes, you have to trust that it will all be OK. The people there will surprise you. I know it.”

  Her mother agreed smiling encouragingly. Ava unfortunately could see past the smile and see the sadness in her mother’s eyes.

  “I know it sounds silly but is there something more I need to know before I go? You and Dad have been…” Ava got cut off mid-sentence as her mother hurriedly put down the hair brush.

  “OK darling you are looking perfect. I will meet you downstairs for breakfast in a few.” Lillian said over her daughter as if she hadn’t heard her.

  Ava still sat, aghast as her door had closed. What the hell was that reaction? Her mother was usually quite flighty in nature, always in a rush to get this or that done but she had never cut Ava off like that. A feeling of dread started to pool in the pit of Ava’s stomach. Her mother was keeping something from her.

  Ava finished getting ready and headed downstairs still pondering on her mother’s bizarre reaction. She didn’t want to ruin her last day by pushing further on a topic that clearly made her mother uncomfortable. Still, her mother had said that she didn’t know what she was facing. So why couldn’t she tell her?

  Ava found her father at the end of their large table in the dining room. His newspaper obscuring her view of his face so all she could see was his perfectly styled long dark hair over the top. Her mother was sat next to him buttering her toast whilst talking non-stop to him about the roses outside. The normalcy of the scene comforted her, this was home. She would miss this.

  Sitting down, her mother tried to draw her into the conversation as always. Ava gave into the typical morning routine knowing that this would be another thing she would miss whilst away at school. Her dad never spoke during her mums’ rambles.

  In all of Ava’s life she had rarely known her father to talk much. Her mother made up for his silence often arguing both sides of an argument until she could arr
ive at a conclusion, whilst her dad sat on silently, either looking at his wife with soft loving eyes or flat out ignoring her.

  “Don’t you agree Ava? That the Rose garden needs moving so that we can smell them through the front windows of the house?”

  Nodding her head and making appropriate sounds of approval Ava dug into her cereal. With a mouth full of Krave and her mum chattering away, her two favourite cousins waltzed into the dining room. As usual their entrance was loud, nothing Clarissa and Cassandra did was quiet. Even their clothes screamed attention.

  Ava’s twin cousins stood a good 8 inches taller than her 5ft 2 frame naturally, but with their usual heels on they dwarfed her further. Today their white blonde hair was jazzed up with blue highlights and they both sported matching outfits of black puff skirts, electric blue strappy tops, striped knee-high socks and shoes which resembled stilts more than stilettos.

  With their eccentric look they would be described more as striking than stunning, but no matter where they went, they were guaranteed to turn heads. Which was the whole point in life according to the twin’s mantra.

  “There she is, our favourite cousin!”

  “See I told you they would still be having breakfast and.....”

  “That is why we waited because I remembered how grouchy our cousin can be in the morning, remember that one time….”

  “Yep that time we woke her up by making a small storm around her hair….”

  “She was not amused…”

  “How we laughed, we were amused though…”

  “and it took an age to get all those knots out of her hair.”

  As always, they spoke so quickly that you were unable to tell who was saying what and usually it didn’t really matter because they very rarely spoke a whole sentence individually.