Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 7: Legacy

by mallowmelting

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR NIGHTFALL! War has finally come to the Lost Cities. The Neverseen have grown stronger under their new leader—but the Black Swan have been winning battles too. Faced with deadly biological warfare, an impossible-to-open cache, and a set of triplets with dangerous abilities, Sophie has to put a stop to the bloodshed and destruction—before it's too late.

2. Epigraph

When you are twelve,
you will stand at a crossroads
and make a decision
that you will spend the rest of your life
alternately
immensely grateful for
and deeply regretting.

You will stand,
half-blind with the naïveté of youth,
staring out at two paths
obscured in the misty haze of uncertainty
vanishing into the darkness of a future
that no one, anywhere, ever,
can advise you about.

You will hesitate
and deliberate
and consider
and agonize—
and you will make a decision
halfway mad with indecision and uncertainty
never quite sure of your own damn reasoning.

You will rejoice for it.
You will suffer for it.
You will be rewarded for it,
and you will be punished for it.
You will celebrate it and grieve it,
bless it and condemn it,
gain from it and lose from it,
praise it and ache for it.

You will cry many a night
apologizing to yourself and your parents and the world
so goddamn sorry
for something you can't even name.

You will never stop looking back,
wondering
what if
what if
what
if.

But you will make a decision—
that I am now certain no twelve-year-old
should ever be forced to make—
and I am telling you,
here,
now.
I am proud of you.

—and I forgive you. (source: pencap on tumblr)