Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 10

10

TWO MONTHS

AFTER brIANA MATTHEWS DISAPPEARED

Mariah

THE NEW YEAR has come and gone. The Appalachian Mountains have already seen a few fleeting rounds of snow. The new semester at Carolina is underway, my junior year of college is halfway over… and Alice Chen still hasn’t woken up.

I visit my aunts’ house every weekend, and Bree’s best friend is the same as she was the weekend before, lying in the guest room where she and Bree had once slept while on the run from the Order. Alice doesn’t weaken or wither like a regular coma patient would—her body doesn’t seem to need sustenance or water. Now, leaning against the doorway early on a Saturday morning, I wonder if this is it for Alice. If this is her life now.

The girl I met was observant, quick-witted, and suspicious in all the best ways. She knew Bree better than anyone but didn’t hesitate to question Bree’s new reality. I got the feeling, sometimes, that Alice was making up for lost time.… Not sure whether that time had been lost between them in the past, or if it was time she anticipated losing with her friend in the future. The Alice Chen I met was smart enough to know that Bree’s life had an expiration date but wise enough not to remind her best friend of that fact on the regular. Not that Bree needed reminding.

In the past two months, I’ve wondered if the ticking clock of Bree Matthews’s life is something Bree herself is thinking about while in the clutches of the Hunter. If my friend is counting her remaining time on this planet in months and years instead of decades. Sometimes I wonder if the next time I see Bree again, she’ll be dead. If death is the price of being the right chosen one at the right time.

I’m a Medium. We’re no strangers to death. People think death is a dark, dormant thing, like the earth in the middle of winter. And it’s true, death can feel dim, but when you grow up around Rootcrafters, you know that ain’t always the way. Around us , death can be bright. At least to me.

I can sense death and, with an offering and a boost from my ancestors, guide others to their loved ones. And I know what a body feels like when it’s no longer in use.

I worry sometimes if I touch Alice Chen, that’s what I’ll feel—a body no longer in use. The last time I touched her, I felt that she had come close to death—and skirted it. Call me superstitious, but I worry that if I touch her now, I might remind death that it missed her the first time, and it’ll come back for a second try.

Aunt Hazel and Aunt Lu worry Alice might slip away too. Before they head to their bedroom at night, they poke their heads in the room to make sure she’s still breathing. Her aether breath is easy to spot. It’s so bright, the glowing wisps illuminate the entire guest room. Little, rhythmic blooms of light in the darkness that remind us she’s with us but not the same.

Wherever Bree is, I like to think she’d be comforted to know that we’ve got Alice under our roof. Wherever Bree is, I hope she’s still breathing too.

Still, I find myself anxiously twisting a braid near my collarbone as I stare at Bree’s best friend. Alice Chen isn’t dead… but what she is can’t be good.

A quiet curse from behind me interrupts my thoughts. Aunt Hazel never curses, not really, but when she does, it’s the softest thing you’ve ever heard. Halfway to a blessing, almost, in that you’re just happy she cared enough to curse you in the first place. If a curse can sound like love, Aunt Hazel has found the way to do it, but usually, the only folks I hear her cussing about are the administrators at the university where she’s tenured.

I close the door to Alice’s room behind me and join my aunt in the kitchen. “Aunt Hazel, who you cussin’ at today?”

“Nobody,” she says with a sigh. She stands in the middle of an explosion of herbs and mortars and pestles and jarred preserves. Every surface of her kitchen is covered with ingredients for tinctures and salves and poultices and teas, half of which we haven’t used, just in case they interact with another. There are a few brass focal items, small leather mojo bags with charm-strung strings pulling them tight, and a couple strips of beaded leather piled in a mixing bowl. “Myself, mostly.”

I pick up a jar of feathery-looking pale green leaves. “Well, I don’t like that. You’re doing the best you can.”

Over the past month, Hazel has been doing everything I’ve ever seen an herbalist do to cure Alice and then some. She’s not a Wildcrafter, a Rootcrafter who can manipulate plant energy to heal, among other things, but a Magnifier. As a Magnifier, she specializes in connecting folks to their own life force, their own vitality. But on top of that she’s gotten skilled at creating small treatments and tiny cures. For one reason or another, her kitchen is drenched with golden magic by most evenings, sparkling in the air as Hazel works.

My Aunt Hazel is a bit famous. She’s a molecular biology professor at the University of Georgia to the nonmagical crowd and the most powerful herbalist and Magnifier in the area to every Rootcrafter in the Southeastern territory. Hazel brews teas and tinctures from every herb in her garden, plus some she’s asked me and Valec to deliver when we’re out of the house. I come back from school to help her in her cozy kitchen, which is part lab and part altar at this point. Each corner and nook of her glass-front cabinet is stuffed with dried green and brown and gray herbs—angelica and basil, celandine and clove, fleawort and feverfew for protection, healing, cleansing, circulation.

She’s applied so many poultices to Alice’s inner wrists, ankles, and throat that the guest room is flooded with the scent of the earth and growing things.

And still Alice sleeps.

Hazel’s brown face folds into a gentle smile, and she walks over to let me give her a much-needed hug. “Thank you for being here, Mariah.”

I wrap an arm around my aunt’s small shoulders and feel a pang at how narrow they’ve gotten over the years. I hate recognizing that the women who helped raise me are aging, even though I know to age is an honor. I just wish it didn’t remind me that time is passing. “Of course, Auntie.” I pull her against me, and she runs her fingers loosely through the braids down my back, patting my spine here and there as she goes.

“You know,” Hazel says after a quiet moment, “some of these aren’t for Alice.”

I frown and pull away from her. “What do you mean?” I look at the handful of things cooling on her stove in small pots or covered jars, sides still foggy from their heated liquid contents. Wonder which one of these was brewed for someone else in the community, or as a reinforcing tincture for her wife’s aura readings, or…

Hazel pats my hand and holds it in her own as she comes around to face me. “Look closely.”

I stare down at the table until I see it—a leather pouch hidden by a few scraps of dried thyme. “Is that—”

“Mm-hmm,” Hazel hums, and picks up the pouch. “Lu left it with me for a cleansing. After I’m done with it in here, I’ll let the moon and some black tourmaline do the rest. Set it out in the yard overnight.”

I hesitate, fingers itching to touch the leather. “Can I…?”

Hazel tugs open the straps around the worn leather bag. “Palms.”

I present both palms, cupped together, over the table and hold my breath when Hazel spills the talisman of the Grand Dame into my waiting hands. It sends an electric bolt from my hands, up my elbows, to the base of my skull, just like it did the first time I held it.

We call the stone at the center “the Heart.”

My Aunt Lu wears the Heart only for special occasions, not for her regular aura work at the Crossroads. Ceremonial stuff, home blessings, new births, that type of thing—and any time she has to face another Dame from another territory. Anyone from any Rootcrafter community can recognize a Dame by her energy, her glow, but if that isn’t enough, this talisman’ll do the trick.

Aunt Lu’s Heart is a large stone set in a dark gold disc about three inches in diameter. Every Dame talisman has a stone for protection and strength, two pillars of Rootcrafter practices everywhere. But lots of stones and herbs and materials can represent those pillars. It’s the center stone the reminds us of what the ancestor who set the piece had in their heart at the time of the setting. In this case, Lu’s Heart is a smooth brown onyx—for grounding, regeneration, and, most importantly, intuition.

“?‘Intuition is just a fancy word for gut instincts,’?” I murmur, remembering what Lu told me the first time she showed me the Heart.

“?‘And instinct is blood knowledge,’?” Hazel finishes with a smile. “?‘Knowledge from your bones, passed down through time.’?”

I hold the Heart up between my forefinger and thumb. “Don’t tell me she preaches about this thing to you, too.”

Hazel chuckles. “She used that line on our first date.”

I roll my eyes. “Using root to catch a pretty girl’s attention?” I pass my thumb over the stone—cold and still and quiet. “Sounds like Aunt Lu.”

Hazel bumps my shoulder. “I’ll tell her you said that.” She holds her palm up, and I pass the Heart back. She slips the Heart back into its pouch. “I’ve been thinking…,” she begins.

“Uh-oh,” I say reflexively, smirking.

“Hush.” She grins. “I’ve been thinking about what we can do for Alice, since nothing else I’ve tried has worked.” She peers up at me with curious eyes. “Thinking it might be something you need to do instead.”

I blink, startled. “What can I do for her? I’m no healer. I deal with folks who’re already dead, and Alice is still alive.”

Hazel presses her lips into a thin line. “Thing is—”

The crunch of gravel interrupts her, and we both glance at the front door. “Expecting somebody, Aunt Hazel?” The heavy thump of bass coming from the car in the driveway is too crisp and precise. “Valechaz?”

“He said he’d stop by.” Hazel frowns. “Listen, Mariah, I do want to try something with you. With the herbs?”

“Hold that thought.” I squeeze Hazel’s hand before walking to the glass front door to see an expensive-looking SUV roll to a stop in the driveway.

Valec steps out of the car in glistening leather boots, wearing a pair of deep burgundy slacks and a matching jacket. He’s on the phone, talking to someone while nodding. He glances up at me through the glass, and something in his expression gives me pause. I feel my brows tighten, and he looks away, turning so that his voice is even more muffled while he faces back toward the driveway. He’s a hiding type of man today, I see.

Hazel hums behind me. “That boy is up to something.”

“You read my mind.”

Valec has been digging into his particularly underground network for the past few weeks to look for a lead on Bree. Asking about the Hunter without alarming the local population of magic users is easier said than done, though. If someone hasn’t heard of the Hunter, then hearing about him from Valec draws suspicion. If they do know who he is, then they know plenty enough to fear any mention of his name. I wonder if Valec’s found something concrete that we can use.

While I’m waiting for Valec to end his call and come inside, another car rounds the corner. I know without seeing the driver who it is, and from Valec’s audible groan, so does he. The way the driver pulls in, the way he takes the turn at the end of the drive… Only one family member drives like that.

“Aunt Hazel!” I call. “Emil’s here, and he’s pissed!”

Hazel’s head appears from around the kitchen corner. “He better not bring mess to my house.”

“Looks like he tryin’ to,” I mutter.

We got a lot of family in this area. There’s Harper and Birdie Wyatt, play cousins who I used to ride to elementary school with. Gail and Ernestine Blevins, sisters who can sing like nobody’s business and who used to always get the soprano solos in the youth choir at Clarion Baptist. And then there’s my first cousin Emil.

The second car, a red SUV with a restaurant logo on the side, slams to a stop right by Valec, making the cambion jump out of the way. When the door opens, a tall, chestnut-brown-skinned man emerges wearing jeans and a light black jacket. Emil nods at me, then clears his throat. Valec says, “I gotta go,” and hangs up, slipping his phone into his breast pocket. “Hello to you too, Emil.”

“Valechaz.” Emil is an Earthmover. He’s older than me by a decade and nice enough, but like a lot of folks in the family, a little standoffish with Valechaz.

Valec dips his chin cordially. “How’s the restaurant?”

Emil lifts a shoulder. “It’s the slow season.” Emil owns a soul food joint in downtown Clayton. Caters some too. His greens are the only greens other than my Aunt Hazel’s that Auntie Lu will touch; it’s the turkey neck he simmers right there with ’em for hours.

I open the door and step out onto the porch just in time to see Emil fix Valec with a glare. “What are you doing here, Valechaz?”

Valec crosses his arms over his chest. “Visiting my niece-in-law. How ’bout you?”

“Need a mojo bag,” Emil mutters. “A blessing. Not something you use down at the Lounge, I expect.”

“We use blessings just like anybody else. Different kinds for different folks,” Valec replies. “You seem agitated, Emil. What’s your problem?”

Emil slams the door. “You know damn well that you shouldn’t bring your business into their home.”

“I don’t bring Crossroads business into anybody’s home.” Valec leans back against the door of his car, voice taking on that slow quality that sounds like he’s being casual—but means the exact opposite. “And if I did, why would that be a problem?”

“Cuz it’s winter. The veil is thin. The highway between the dead and the living is too open.” Emil circles his car to face Valec, dragging his hand through the air as he goes. Golden root trails from his fingertips, leaving a long stream of five threads floating in the air behind him. Emil must have called on an ancestor recently if he’s able to manipulate root that easily. Twine it around his fingers like a glowing ribbon. “And you don’t need to be around all that root.”

“I’m a cambion. Half human.” Valec sighs loudly through his nose. “I don’t go ’round consuming root, Emil. I don’t go after it like the greater demons, because I don’t need it to survive. Don’t know how many times I have to tell you this—”

“But you can still crave it,” Emil counters. “You could go over the edge, and then what?”

Valec straightens, and a scowl mars his expression. “I’m not some Shadowborn animal out of control.” He nods at Emil’s still-glowing hand. “All that root you’re swimming in? I See it everywhere, all the time. All that root you’re accusing me of being hungry for”—he points at the gold in the air, fangs showing as he lowers his voice dangerously—“ that root? That’s your ancestors giving you access to it. Which means that’s my ancestors and my descendants being real generous by powering you up. My people, long before they were yours, you arrogant, ignorant child .”

Emil clenches his fist, and the root goes with it. “You know who else’re your people? That demon who hunts Rootcrafters for sport and food.”

Valec rolls his eyes. “I ain’t the Hunter, man.”

“Don’t ‘man’ me,” Emil snaps. “There have been disappearances.”

Valec’s brows draw tight. “What disappearances?”

“Whatcha talking about, Emil?” I call out.

“Rootcrafter girls gone missing,” he says loudly. “Didn’t make the news.”

“Never does,” Valec says. “Which girls?”

“A Wyatt girl. Shieldmaker.” He glances up to me. “A Richardson, about Mariah’s age. Wayfinder. Another girl from a state over. Her daddy came by the restaurant asking if we’d heard anything.”

“Her branch?” I ask quietly.

“Wildcrafter.”

Valec’s eyes slide to mine, and I know he’s thinking the same thing as me. The same thing I say next. “Three different branches of root. Different levels of power. Different types of offerings made, different ancestors, different families.”

“Mm-hmm.” Emil nods, and his attention returns to Valec.

“Any of them make it back?” Valec asks. “Sometimes, they—”

“Still missing.” A pause. “Don’t suppose you know anything about all this?”

“I heard the Hunter was afoot months ago. Sent out warnings to the community but”—Valec bares his teeth—“didn’t know he’d already been taking folks. Like he’s powering up for something big—or draining himself quick on something bigger. I’ll check with my network. Thanks for letting me know—”

“How do we know it ain’t you ?” Emil says, pointing.

Valec rolls his eyes. “What am I gonna do with Rootcrafters? I got plenty of my own power. ’Sides, I been saving ’Crafters on our railroad, moving ’Crafters from station to station, since before your grandaddy could blow a spit bubble. It ain’t me, Emil.”

Emil steps closer to Valec until he’s well within striking distance for a human, much less a cambion. Valec’s fingers twitch at his sides. “Was all that rescuing done before or after you used to… indulge?”

Valec goes stone-still—like the air has frozen in his lungs.

“Emil Verne Richardson!” Aunt Hazel’s voice is shaking as she pushes around me to stand at the railing on the porch. Her fingers clench the wood so tightly, her brown knuckles turn pale.

Emil gives Valec a final smirk before turning away and walking toward the porch. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Auntie.”

“I’m not,” Hazel spits. Her shoulders tremble with the effort of staying upright, and I step forward to place a hand against her back. “I’m glad I saw just how nasty and mean-spirited you can be. You will get off my property. Right now.”

Emil flinches. “Auntie—”

“No, sir,” Hazel says. She glares at him and points one finger over his shoulder, back to his car. “You ain’t bringing all that ugly into my house. We got a girl here, resting. This is a place of healing, and you are poisoning my well.”

Emil’s eyes flutter at Hazel’s voice, lower and more stern than I’ve ever heard it. Of my two aunts, Lu is the one likely to bite someone’s head off, but Emil has crossed a line today. I spread my hand out over Hazel’s spine, pressing my fortitude right into her if she needs it. Just like she does to me when I need it.

Sometimes you need another voice to press itself into you and remind you that you’re right to say the scary thing, even if that scary thing is absolutely true.

“Go.” Hazel’s tone brooks no argument.

“But—”

“ Go , Emil,” I echo my aunt, stepping forward to be level with her. “And don’t come back ’til we send for you.”

The Grand Dame community is a matriarchal one; Emil is outnumbered and outgunned, and he knows it. He still looks like he’s eaten a rotten grape, though. He swallows and nods once to signal his understanding, then bows his head before turning on his heel and getting back into his car. He reverses, gravel kicking dirt in Valechaz’s face, and pulls a three-point turn in the driveway before speeding off.

We wait a long moment before Valec moves, blowing out a puff of air in a long stream.

“You didn’t have to say all that on my account, Hazel.” He turns slowly to look at us up on the porch, skin pulled tight around his deep brown eyes. “I had him on the ropes.”

Hazel releases her own ragged breath, the tension flooding out of her back beneath my fingers. “I know you did.”

Valec pushes off the car door smoothly to walk in our direction. When he reaches the step, he comes to a stop and wraps a hand around Hazel’s elbow wordlessly. She leans forward to drop a kiss on his forehead, lingering to press her love in good. “Come on, now. You’re all right.”

Valec smiles and straightens, releasing her. “I know I am.” His eyes sparkle, but the light is duller than usual. “Thank you, anyway.”

Hazel waves her hand at him and shuffles back inside. “Interrupted my brewing,” she says without an ounce of irritation.

Valec and I watch her go inside. The glass door bounces against the doorjamb in the quiet morning. I pull my sweater around my shoulders and shiver in the January mountain air. I turn back to find Valec studying me. Waiting, I suspect.

So I just ask it right out. “What’d Emil mean by that? You… ‘indulging’?”

Valec sniffs, shoving his hands in both his pockets, searching for the words as his gaze sweeps around the porch, the yard, the sky overhead. “I been around a long time, Riah.”

“Yeah, I know,” I mutter.

“Long enough to have made plenty of mistakes.” He shrugs. “Long enough to realize I need to make amends for them too.”

“Is that what you do at the Lounge when you broker all those deals between humans and demons?” I ask quietly. “You makin’ amends?”

“It’s a start.”

I release a low laugh, part confusion and part awe. “You been running the Lounge for over eighty years.”

Valec holds my gaze for a beat. “Like I said, baby cousin. It’s a start.”