Legon Awakening: Book One in the Legon Series (9 page)

Her face looked concerned. “Legon, what’s wrong?”

He paused, wondering if he should tell her about his
tattoo. “
It’s better to tell her now than later,”
he
thought.

“Come and look,” he said.

As he said this he gestured to his back and pulled
the back of his shirt down. His mother looked a little frightened
now and came around back of him to look. He heard a sharp intake of
breath and then he felt her fingers inside the back of his shirt
and then he heard the fabric rip. It caught him off guard. His
mother would never damage good clothes. She held his shoulders in
place when he tried to turn. Her hands were moving across his back,
over the tattoo. The movement felt frantic and scared. It felt like
she was trying to remove dirt or a smudge off his back. They
stopped moving and she walked slowly over to the chair. She sat and
held her face in her hands. Her whole body was shuddering, and he
could hear her say between sobs, “Not my son… not my son…”

Fear crawled up the back of his neck and he was
surprised by a crack in his voice. “Mom what’s wrong? What’s going
on?” She looked up at him. There was a pleading look in her
tear-stained face, a look that said, ‘Don’t make me, please don’t
make me.’

Her voice was rough. “I think it’s time I told you
how you came to us.”

His forehead scrunched. “Mom, I know how I got here.
Dad found me while he was hunting. They came across a camp site
that had been raided; they figured that I was left behind by
mistake when people fled from the robbers.” But as he said this,
like so many other times when he thought about it, he somehow knew
that it wasn’t right. Nobody would leave a baby in a campsite. Even
the robbers would at least kill or try to sell it. He had never
given too much credence to the story of how he came to be with
Laura and Edis. They were his parents now, and that’s what
mattered.

“No, Legon that’s not how we came to have you in our
family,” she said softly. Her face was still tear-soaked, but he
could see resolve cross it as well. After pausing for a moment she
continued.

“Your father was hunting, that part is true. He found
you and brought you home, but that’s where the truth ends.”

Trepidation began seeping into him, as she went
on.

“He was in the woods when he heard a baby crying. He
was with Brack and Arkin. They moved to the sound and found a
cottage, or at least that’s what your father thought it was. He
said it seemed more like a tree, but I’m not sure about all of
that, he was upset when he got home and I don’t think that he was
in his right mind. When they came to the cottage they could see
that it was horribly damaged…”

At this she paused and he could see fresh tears
filling her blue eyes again.

“When they entered the house they found a woman. She
was dead. Your father has never said much about her. I think that
what he saw frightened him. Apparently the inside had been
ransacked, but it appeared that nothing had been taken. They found
you in the house in a hidden space under the hearth.”

Legon interrupted. “They found me in the fire!” It
was a statement, not a question.

“No, dear, there wasn’t a fire burning and I don’t
think there had been in a long time. I think that your mother put
you in a very safe hiding place.”

“
My mother,”
he thought. His birth mother
hadn’t forgotten him or left in a hurry, running away from robbers.
She had been murdered and had most likely spent her last few
moments alive hiding him, in a place apparently prepared for just
that. This also meant that she had at least planned for the
possible day that she would have to hide her son from people who
wanted to hurt him. The fact that the house had been searched was
disturbing as well, because nothing was taken, or at least nothing
obvious had been taken. That probably meant that whoever had
attacked was there for reasons other than financial gain. Before
Legon had time to fully comprehend what he just been told, his
adopted mother pushed on, almost as if by saying this she was free
of some burden.

“After they found you they took you home. You know
the rest. We adopted you and now you are our son, and we love you
like you are our own.” She placed her hand on his at this last
statement.

Legon felt every emotion coursing through him. On the
one hand he was mad that he hadn’t been told this, but on the other
he knew his parents were just trying to protect him. He understood
the desire to protect the ones you love; when he thought about it,
he didn’t know if could have handled this news when he was younger.
Still, something didn’t seem right. Where had his birth father been
in this whole affair? He had to know about the hiding place and had
to know that his son was missing… unless he was killed too, and
Edis, Brack, and Arkin hadn’t found the body.

And what had they been looking for in the first
place? A thought came to him then that bothered him: if Edis hadn’t
been willing to share all the details of what he saw with his wife,
then what he had seen must have been pretty bad. Also, the house
had been secluded, and so his mother must have been hiding from
something. She may have had or at least known something that
whoever did this wanted, and it was possible that they had
interrogated her before killing her. That made sense; it also
explained why Edis had been unwilling to talk to his wife about it.
If his birth mother was interrogated, that meant that they had
probably tortured her, and Legon could understand why Edis didn’t
want to relive the sight in his head. A thought bubbled up.

“Mom, it’s going to take some time for what you just
said to… well, sink in, but I still don’t understand why you got so
upset about my tattoo. Isn’t it possible that my birth mother did
magic and that’s why it’s there?”

She paused. He could tell she was trying to figure
out what to say.

“Your tattoo was put there by magic. I’m sure of that
now, but the thing that has me so upset is that your tattoo is,
well… I’m not sure how to explain this. Arkin knows more about this
kind of thing than me. The tattoo is Elven.” She sighed deeply
after saying this.

“‘Elven’? What do you mean, ‘Elven’? Does that mean
that an Elf put it there? Why would they do that?” he stammered. He
didn’t like the thought of magic, but to think that an Elf of all
things had put the tattoo there was almost too much. The queen
hated the Elves and would stop at nothing to kill any in her
territory or anyone connected to them.

“It’s a crest, Legon. An Elven crest, the kind they
mark all of their children with. Like I said, I don’t know much
about it, but Arkin somehow does. Before I thought that maybe the
tattoo was just done in the same style as the Elvin ones, but now…”
Her face was blank and pallid; the color in her eyes seemed to leak
out, leaving them weak and frail.

As this last statement hit home Legon felt his jaw
begin to fall open. All brain function came to a screeching halt.
First fear came in, then terror, then denial. Arkin was wrong, or
his mother had misunderstood him. His first parents probably knew
magic and liked the Elven tradition like she said. He knew that if
it was an Elven mark then the people who killed his parents, or at
least his mother—“
Maybe my dad is still alive,”
he thought—
worked for the queen and may have even been Iumenta. This placed
him in danger. If the tattoo was from an Elf then he could be seen
as a spy and killed, or if the mark was from a human he could be
seen as an Elven sympathizer and killed—two possibilities with only
one outcome.

For the first time, Legon began to appreciate the
sacrifice his adopted parents had made on his behalf. They had
placed themselves in danger by harboring a possible enemy to the
state. At the same, time he was angry with them, not because they
had done anything wrong, but because they were there and he needed
someone to be upset with. His mother was looking intently at him.
Her face was dry, and it hit him that he had been quiet for a few
minutes.

“Sorry mom… I blanked out,” he began.

“It should be me who is sorry. We should have told
you sooner than this, and it’s a horrible thing to drop on
someone.”

For some reason this made Legon even angrier. They
knew they should have told him but they hadn’t. Was it because they
didn’t care about him? He had been of use, taking care of Sasha so
they didn’t have to, and working in that shop… was he nothing more
than labor? No, that wasn’t right. His parents loved him and they
just wanted him to be happy. What was wrong with that?

He stood suddenly. “I need to get outside and get
some air. There’s so much going through my mind. I’m sorry Mom.
Thank you for the tea.”

She nodded at him and seemed relieved. “Take your
time dear.”

He walked out the back door and toward the forest. A
walk in the woods would be good for him. It was overcast today,
which matched his new mood. The gray sky made all of the bright
colors of the field become more vibrant, and made the ground soft
under his feet. When he got in the woods the air was thick and
misty; there wasn’t a sound. The heavy air and the mist reminded
him of something… a dream maybe. It felt as though his feet were
carrying him of their own accord; he had no idea where he was
going. He saw a deer go bounding by and snap a branch. That too
seemed to remind him of something.

His mind flooded with thought; he knew that this news
of his tattoo would change his life in ways he could not yet
comprehend. He couldn’t go to a big city. If he did his tattoo
would be seen for sure. He might have to go south to the
resistance, but he didn’t like that idea. He would be too far away
to help the family with their taxes. But that wasn’t his problem -
it was his family’s. He had to protect himself or he wouldn’t be
able to do anything for them. It felt like his emotions had been
taken over, controlled by something other than himself.

“
It’s not my fault if something happens. There’s
no point in both Sasha and I getting hurt, or worse,”
he
thought. He could just leave them to their own devices. His mind
and emotions jumped wildly from fear of the unknown to anger. He
thought maybe they had the hardship coming anyway. It would have
come sooner if not for him. They were lucky he had been around.

He stopped and looked around, trying to see if he
recognized his surroundings. He thought he was on top of a hill. He
couldn’t see any landmarks through the mist, but the ground in
front of him looked disturbed, like there had been a struggle there
not more than a few days ago. There was something else that was in
a bush, something small, brown and square. Puzzled, he went to the
bush and bent over. It was a book. He picked it up and thumbed
through the pages. It was handwritten and looked to be a diary. He
knew he shouldn’t look at it, but he couldn’t return it to the
person if he didn’t know whose it was. He stopped at an entry that
was dated three weeks ago and began to read.

Today was a bad day. I had another one. It was
horrible. I threw up all over the place, and I hit the back of my
head on my brother’s mouth.

It was Sasha’s! He knew he should stop reading, but
couldn’t seem to bring himself to. He remembered that episode,
Sasha writhing on the ground while he’d tried to hold her. He felt
his lips where the back of her head had hit. He didn’t know he was
bleeding at first; his mother was the one to see. By the end of the
episode his face and chest were covered with his own blood and he’d
cut his face on the ground. He read on:

I can’t remember what happened. I almost never do,
but he was covered in blood when I came to. Oh I hate this! I’m a
monster! He’s so big and I still hurt him. I feel so bad. If it
wasn’t for my brother I don’t know what I would do. The people in
town are right, I’m cursed, I’m a demon, and when Legon leaves the
queen will take me. I’m so scared. A lady in town told me that they
will make me a whore and give me to the queen’s men for their
pleasure. Maybe I deserve it for being a freak. I mean look at me,
I can’t make a living, I’m a burden on my family… at least when I’m
gone my family can have their lives back again and…

He stopped reading. The string holding his emotions
broke. Now his problems seemed not to matter. He thought back on
what just crossed his mind, how selfish he’d been, how… he felt an
odd flash of heat and without warning his stomach turned. He tossed
the book aside and began to throw up on the grass. He felt more
heat, saw blue spots, and then nothing.

Legon’s eyes opened and he felt his head pounding. He
raised himself up on his hands and saw a pool of semi-dry vomit in
front of him. He must have been out for a few hours.

He wondered what time it was. He got up and walked to
the book and picked it up, but something was off… what was it? He
took an inventory and it hit him - he didn’t have a torch, candle,
or anything else to make light. The sky was still covered in
clouds, so he shouldn’t be able to see the ground at his feet, but
he could.

Legon swept his gaze out to where the town was. He
gasped. It was there right in front of him. Just a hazy outline,
but it was there. He began to feel uneasy. Maybe there was
something wrong with him. He began back toward his house through
the woods that were dark to all but him.

He got home in near record time. When he walked in
his family was sitting at the table talking to one another. They
started when he came in and his mother stood up a bit.

He walked into the now silent room and handed the
book to Sasha.

“I was on top of the hill and this was in a bush.
When I saw it was hand written I closed it… it’s probably a diary
or something. Maybe you know whose it is?”

She took it and opened the cover. Her eyes widened a
bit and then relaxed. She got up and hugged him. “Thank you. I was
worried sick looking for this thing. Thank you, Legon!” She kissed
his cheek and dashed up to her room.