Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 14

14

THREE MONTHS

AFTER brIANA MATTHEWS DISAPPEARED

Bree

THERE’S A DEMON flying above the businesswoman’s head.

The woman is tall, white, dark-haired. Dressed in a long winter coat over a blue pantsuit with a nice bag on her shoulder. And she’s talking on her earbuds, preoccupied by a phone call as she walks through downtown Asheville. She seems irritated, which I’m sure the demon loves. Its teeth gleam a bright green in the twilight. Its disproportionately wide mouth is open in an O shape as it sucks on her low, brewing anger while its black-tipped claws swipe at her hair.

An imp, playing with its food.

I’m so focused on following the streaming green aether flowing from its silver iridescent wings that I stumble over a raised brick in the Pack Square Park walking path and nearly face-plant down the middle. As it is, my low “humph” is enough to make her pause, start to pivot—and barely miss me as I dive behind a low stone pillar with a lamp on top.

I suck in my breath and release it silently while I wait for her to turn back and carry on the way she was going through the quickly darkening park.

It takes a second, but then she’s moving again. I peek up and around the lamp to find the isel fluttering around her shoulders. It’s gotten her scent now and will probably linger around her for days, feeding on the negative emotions she’s carrying like an invisible parasite and amplifying them however it can to capture an easy meal.

“You gonna let it get away, or…?” a smug, low voice says over my left shoulder. I jerk my elbow back, but Elijah is much too fast. I knew I wouldn’t hit him anyway.

It’s the thought that counts.

“ No . I’m just not exactly sure how to”—I flap my hand, as if that’ll help explain—“hunt a lesser demon while it’s feeding off a moving human being.”

Zoe appears at my other side, crouched low so I can see her face. “She’s distracted. Typical human. Once she pauses, burn the crap out of it.”

“What do you mean, ‘typical human’?” I retort. “I’m human. You’re half human.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Elijah says, pointing toward the other end of the park. “We just distracted you —and now she’s crossing the street and getting away.”

“Shit.” I spring up from my hiding place and jog-walk as fast as I can through the park so I don’t draw too much attention to myself. By the time I catch up to the woman, she’s across the street and passing a Starbucks. While I’m loosely following her, debating what to do next, she stops in front of the window display of a local witchy-themed crafts store selling handmade candles, wooden carvings, and an assortment of large, colorful crystals.

Elijah catches up to me easily—then he elbows me in the ribs.

Right.

Erebus’s deep voice echoes inside my ears. Your Bloodcraft comes from within you. Your furnace lives inside you. But your targets are real, so you must make your power real. Externalize that which is internal. Force it out with your will, then shape it with your focus.

Cut, I think. And the hidden root in my hand takes the shape of a small throwing-knife with a slim handle, perfectly balanced in my palm.

I tug the knife slowly out of my pocket, more so that the movement does not catch the businesswoman’s attention; it’s not like she or any other nonmagical human can see the magical weapon anyway.

I glance down at the tiny, near-translucent, deep-purple blade in my fist and feel a rush of satisfaction at the shape I’ve been able to create just by imagining what I need my power to do. Not for the first time, I wonder if this is how Merlins feel, with their steady access to aether all the time. Their ability to create anything they can imagine.

My little knife is not a solid construct—otherwise, it’d be visible to everyone on the street—but it’s solid enough that a demon will feel it. Elijah, sensing the creation of my blade, shifts aside so I have room to throw it—and checks for any watching humans before I do. After a moment, he nods. All clear.

The woman shifts too—to face away from me. I lift the blade in my palm, drawing my hand back at shoulder-height.

With a flick of my wrist, I let it fly. It hits the imp in the chest, burying itself right to the hilt.

The lesser demon falls off her shoulder immediately, and the woman tilts forward when it drops, as if she’s just lost some of her steam. She blinks, suddenly confused. She probably feels lighter, or at least less irritated.

She’s lucky the only demon that found her tonight was an imp. Its Gate is probably nearby, as imps are too weak to fly far from their entry points into our world. Most of the Shadowborn that cross are invisible and incorporeal, and most are lesser demons with one of two things on their underdeveloped minds: aether to fortify their bodies or human energy to clarify their minds. Imps are annoying, but like every full demon, they are ruthless, relentless, and hungry.

Always hungry.

The businesswoman blinks again. “What just…?” she asks no one in particular.

Elijah has already slipped around to block her view of me, making it appear as though we are deep in conversation. Still, I chance a quick peek around him to find the lesser demon writhing on the ground. It’ll dust soon, invisible to any passersby. For now, though, it’s dying.

I watch it squirm and shift—and remember another scene like this one, except it was someone else standing over a demon he’d pinned. Someone else cornering and interrogating a demon while I hid and watched from behind a tree. I remember that the screams of that isel haunted me for hours afterward, but I can’t remember the face of its killer.

After a moment, the woman continues her phone call and her walk along the street—and Elijah nods. “Well done.”

A rare compliment, but I’ll take it. “Thanks.”

“Night’s not over.” He points with his chin back down toward the park where Zoe’s waiting for us against a low wall. “Let’s go.”

February is cold in Asheville, but at least it’s not currently freezing . There’s no snow on the ground, and the wind is calm. The streets are busy enough that we have to weave in and out of other people—couples and groups—as they cross the park to seek out warm restaurants and bars for the night.

It’s my first night hunting with the twins. I’ve been training with Erebus for months, though, and he finally ordered them to take me out to practice forging and using weapons in public without drawing any attention to myself. There are humans everywhere, and so far, we’ve killed five lesser demons—two imps, one too big and scaly to be called a squirrel, one that looked like a glowing rat, and another that had leatherlike wings like a bat.

As if reviewing our progress, Zoe hums. “With the imp, that makes five. I say we go for one more, then call it a night. Bree can spot a lesser, kill it, and do so stealthily. We could get a slice of pizza and head back in time to catch Real Housewives .”

Elijah snorts. “Living with the king of all demons and you spend your time watching Real Housewive s.”

Zoe shrugs. “He’s not home until tomorrow. You can’t be the teacher’s pet when the teacher isn’t home, Jah.”

Elijah’s jaw drops. “I am not —”

“You so are!” Zoe exclaims. She turns back, smirking, affecting her brother’s lower voice near perfectly. “?‘Can you tell me what the Court was like before Arthur, sire? What trials do the Mageguard need to pass before they are initiated? At the academy, when do Merlins—’?”

“Shut up!” Elijah claps a hand over his sister’s mouth.

Zoe continues, muffled, until she yanks his hand down. “?‘Please, sire, tell me about the good old days, when demons roamed the earth freely—’?”

“Zoe!” Elijah snaps, eyes flashing a burning red. He glances over my head and back up the street, where a few people are headed our way from deeper downtown. “Keep your mouth shut.”

Zoe sidesteps her brother and swings around, letting her long twists swing with her. “Not like they’d believe anything we say. If I say the word ‘demons,’ these humans will probably think it’s a metaphor. Like, my haunted feelings about my past or whatever.” She rolls her eyes, unbothered. “They don’t care if we kill them; they don’t even know they exist.”

I speak up abruptly. “Why do you bother killing the demons that feed off humans?” It’s a question I’ve had for a while. The Legendborn kill demons because they want to protect humanity, but Zoe—and to some degree, Elijah—don’t seem all that interested in protecting other people. “Since you don’t like humans.”

Zoe lifts a feathered brow. “Because killing demons reminds the lesser ones who outranks them. Helping the humans is just a necessary byproduct.”

“When you say you outrank them…” When Elijah eyes me warningly, I hesitate, uncertain how to proceed. This seems to be a touchy subject for the twins… their family and where they come from. They aren’t from the South, that much I can tell—or at least, they weren’t raised here. No accents, no drawl. And from what I’ve gleaned from grocery expeditions over the past three months, the twins have no appreciation for Southern breakfast food. They don’t glance twice at grits, never ask about hash browns, and don’t crave biscuits. That last one is a shame, really. When it comes to who they are beyond being wards of the Shadow King, they don’t ask me questions, and I don’t ask them. It makes hiding that I’m the Scion of Arthur a lot easier, which is a relief. Makes conversations like this tricky, though. “Do you mean as in… cambions?”

Elijah turns away. “Yeah, let’s say that.”

I wonder if I’ve met a balanced cambion like the twins. If I have, I can’t remember.

“But what about goruchel?” I say, keeping my voice low. “Do you kill them?”

“We could,” Elijah says, but he doesn’t sound confident. He’s scarily good at manipulating aether, but I’ve never seen him draw on it the way Zoe can. “If we were ordered to, that is.”

“And we could do it without relying on a damn bloodmark ,” Zoe says pointedly. When she grimaces, her fangs flash in the light of a nearby coffee shop’s window, nearly glistening like the imp’s. “We’d kill one for real. Cuz we have the stomach for it.”

This time, it’s my turn to lift a brow. “I’ve killed a goruchel. I have the stomach for it.”

“When I say ‘kill,’ I mean up close, Bree,” Zoe says smugly. “Not throwing some dagger or blasting them from far away—”

“I drove a blade through a greater demon’s chest,” I say evenly, “and then watched it scream and bleed out until it died. That close enough for you?”

The twins pause at that, eyeing me with near-identical suspicion. Around us, the early evening has gone quiet as the streets empty, so we no longer have an audience. I let them survey me, let them try to suss out whether I’m lying.

Erebus may have removed my knowledge of the living, but he hasn’t taken away my memories of the dead. I remember killing Rhaz—and I remember it well.

After a moment, Zoe stands back with a quiet “Huh.”

Elijah takes a second longer than his sister to make up his mind, but he doesn’t give me the satisfaction of acknowledging what he’s decided either way. “Whatever.” He sniffs and turns on his heel on the sidewalk, heading south toward the Whole Foods off Broadway Street.

Zoe catches up to Elijah and slings an arm over his shoulder while they talk. Probably about me. Probably about Erebus. Probably about how much of an annoyance I am. How much attention the King gives me. Not that I care.

However, I have no choice but to follow. The twins and I are, unfortunately, stuck together. At least in public. And none of us is happy about it. When we’re outside the house, I have to be chaperoned by them. For a while, they just left me behind to avoid having to let me tag along everywhere. Tonight started out interesting, but I can tell they’d rather not be on Bree duty.

A couple passes us by. A dark-haired girl and her tall boyfriend, bundled up in matching North Face jackets. I don’t recognize either of them—I never ever recognize anyone , anymore—but something about how she curls into him and the way his arm hangs heavy around her shoulders makes my heart twinge with envy. I don’t know this couple, but the connection they have feels like something I might have had, once. Like something I could have—or should.

With whom? I have no idea.

This happens sometimes. I see a glimpse of some stranger, feel something familiar, and get a hunch that there’s a person behind that familiar feeling… then the hunch fades to nothing.

Over the past three months, I’ve uncovered more about the knowledge gap that Erebus created within me. Even though he still won’t answer any direct questions about what he did, he has experimented with me to help us both understand how it works.

We confirmed that Erebus was right that first morning: there is a difference between “memories” and “knowledge.”

I don’t lack memories—what I lack is information .

My own personal history is complete. Those memories are crystal clear, but it’s as if I have lived my entire life with nameless, faceless ghosts.

I know my past, but I don’t know the people from my past.

I remember the conversations I’ve had with others, but I don’t know with whom I was speaking. I remember the things I’ve done ; I just don’t know the people who were with me when I did them. There are gray, misty spaces where their faces and bodies should be, blanks where their names and backgrounds should be, and only silence where I might recall their voices. I can make guesses about these people I no longer know, but that’s all they are: guesses. The facts have been erased and the people have gone missing.

Like an afterimage burned into my mind or a resonant echo, the only detail I’ve retained about the people in my life is a single emotional remnant from the memories of our last encounters. For each person I’ve managed to conjure so far, that single emotion resonates so loudly and clearly that it has now taken the place of their identity. The father who makes me feel regret. The Merlin boy who makes me feel guilty. The chasing boy who makes me feel longing. The best friend who makes me feel worried. The many people who leave me feeling helpless, who must be my enemies. And the list goes on.…

Out of every living person in my previous life, the only people who have not been erased in full are the goruchel demons I’ve fought. Erebus believes I have retained them because demons are a type of undead people, while everyone else that is missing is alive. Perhaps that’s true. I still remember my own mother. I remember murdered boys named Russ, Whitty, and Fitz. I remember a man named Martin Davis, who was murdered in front of me. Of all things, the violence is clear—

Like someone using his aether blades to slice another person’s head off.

The thought pops into my mind without warning, and I trip over my feet, stumbling.

The twins glance backward, alerted by the sound. Elijah keeps walking. Zoe scowls at me as she backpedals. “Can’t even walk right.”

I ignore her to chase the memory down. Who killed a person like that? I try to imagine the killer’s face but can’t. They could be someone whose emotional resonance I’ve already recalled—or they might be someone else entirely.

But I know the killer’s victim, and I know I despised him. His name was Maxwell Zhao.

A deep buzzing sound interrupts my thoughts. Elijah reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. “Zoe.” His sister stops, giving me enough time to catch up to them. Elijah shows his sister the screen on his phone, tilting it so that I can’t read what’s on it. “Contact wants to meet up tonight. At the Rat.”

The Rat, short for the Ratskellion, is a café and bar downtown. The twins frequent it and other places for their assignments and have never taken me. So far, these assignments are the only thing that Erebus has strictly forbidden me from attending. Every time the twins are away from the house and I ask him about these outings, he shuts me down. Changes the subject. And the twins seem to enjoy that there is something they are permitted to do and know about that I can’t—which only makes me want to know more.

Zoe reads the text on the screen. “Thought he’d be dropping by tomorrow ?”

“Apparently he’s headed there tonight.” Elijah pockets his phone. “We gotta go. Both of us, or he won’t take us seriously.”

They look at me, heads tilting the same exact way. Mouths frowning the same exact annoyed and frustrated way. I feel like a container of leftovers in the fridge. A mystery of unknown and undesirable origin. Something they know they need to discard.

“I could go with you,” I offer, taking care not to be too eager or too excited by the prospect. Instead I match their energy with my own affected boredom. “I won’t get in the way.”

Zoe and Elijah tilt their heads to the other side, this time with expressions of near disgust.

“Nah.”

“Nope.”

“To which part?” I exclaim.

“Any part.” Zoe scoffs. “You’ll be too obvious, and the old man doesn’t want you at the Rat.”

“I won’t be obvious,” I counter. “I’ll just sit there until y’all are done. Or sit somewhere else, if that’s better. Or stand in a corner.”

“None of those is a legitimate option.” Elijah sighs heavily and scratches the back of his head, turning to his sister. “If the contact’s gonna be there, we need to get her home. Come on.”

Before he can turn away, his phone buzzes again. He checks the lock screen and curses.

“Shit. Says if we’re not there in an hour, he’s leaving—and taking his lead with him.”

“Who does this guy think he is?”

“He’s someone with intel, and he knows we’re people who need that intel.”

Intel? I resist the urge to ask more questions. I’ve come up with half a dozen likely reasons for the twins’ trips to the Rat. The more time I spend with the King, the more I realize that, after fifteen hundred years of planning revenge on Arthur Pendragon’s secret society, he has more irons in more fires than I can possibly count. Plans upon plans, machinations upon strategies. As many objectives as he has identities, probably… which is to say, a lot. But what does he trust the twins to pursue in his absence, and why are they the ones who chase intel instead of him doing so himself?

“An hour is tight,” Elijah says with a groan. “We can’t get Bree home and get back in time.”

Zoe continues to talk about me as if I’m not there. “Maybe she can get back on her own?”

“The old man’ll skin us alive if his precious project makes a run for it.”

“If she runs, we’ll chase her, simple as that—”

“I won’t run .” I cross my arms over my chest. “Not like I’d get far anyway without an ID or a phone or actual money. I’m here because I want to be, remember?”

It’s true. I may not remember the people I left behind, but I remember why I’m with Erebus and the twins. I’m getting stronger every day, gaining better control every day. I’m well on my way to being able to fight my own battles—finally.

The twins exchange glances. Then, like they are prone to do, they share a swift conversation that I’m extremely in earshot of but not invited to.

“If she gets hurt, it’s both our asses,” Elijah mutters.

“She’s annoying as hell but mildly capable.”

I huff. “I kicked your entire ass the first day we met, Zoe.”

Zoe rolls her eyes. “She doesn’t follow directions. Not unless the old man gives them.”

“I can hear you!”

“It’s not ideal.” Elijah studies me. “ She’s not ideal, not for a contact like this.”

“But we can’t miss the meeting either,” Zoe insists. “The old man’ll hate that, too.”

“And I’ll hate that. I worked hard for this one. We need the lead. Can’t lose it.”

It sounds like a debate, but none of this is necessarily conducive to my joining them. Usually their banter leads up to a joke at my expense, which is so very typical of the twins. They like to watch me squirm. A demon thing, I think.

I don’t know what this “lead” is, but I’ve heard Elijah mention it before. He’s always on the phone and stepping out. Always digging through the internet on his laptop while Zoe watches TV, absentmindedly typing with one hand and scanning search results and forums with the other. He walks around on his phone in the kitchen, twirling a pen that he stuffs in his mouth when he needs both hands to text. They’re hunting for someone or something.

“Well?” I demand.

The twins look at each other for another beat, exchanging some silent communication that’s not meant for me, before Elijah sighs and looks away. “Fine,” he says to no one.

“Fine,” Zoe says to me. She steps forward and taps my nose with a fingertip, borrowing Erebus’s deep tones and enunciation. “Behave, Briana.”

“Personal space, please.” I jerk my head away from her finger and its sparkly green nail.

Elijah turns back the way we’ve come. “Let’s go, pet .”

The Ratskellion is tucked down a handful of worn stone steps with a winter-snow-battered door. Its dingy windows are so desperately in need of cleaning that the panes are dirty-dishwater brown. It’s early enough on a Friday that the crowd will probably be a blend of patrons, half café regulars drinking coffee on laptops and half bar patrons getting an early start on the evening.

What I do not expect from the Rat, however, is for the name of the bar to be scrawled in bright green aether, wavering and hovering a few inches above the door like living neon.

Whoever cast this sign, they meant for it to be seen by someone with the Sight. There’s only a tiny brass plate visible to the human eye. Foot traffic would pass this place by and assume it’s abandoned or condemned unless they happened to actually witness someone walk in or out.

“Those steps look hazardous,” I mumble, staring warily at the steep but dry steps. Black ice is a thing, I’ve discovered, this far up in the mountains. The twins check the street for onlookers, then leap down the ten-foot flight. I step down a bit more carefully. I may be strong, and I could make that jump as easily as the twins, but I don’t heal overnight like they do.

At the low landing, the door swings inward at Elijah’s touch. As I pass underneath the floating Ratskellion sign behind Zoe, I feel the brush of magic against my skin. When the door closes behind us, we step inside a long, dimly lit, empty gray hallway. I take a second step, and my feet find something sticky on the floor. And the hallway smells like fruit that has just turned. I gag involuntarily and cover my nose. The twins turn back and frown.

“Stinks,” I explain.

Elijah’s eyes narrow as he steps closer. “The owner here is a human who keeps his hands dirty in the demon world. He’s loyal to the old man. Lets us do business on the premises as long as we blend in with the locals. It’s the only neutral territory some of my contacts will accept. Don’t disrespect anyone you don’t know, don’t make a scene, and don’t raise your voice. In fact, don’t say anything to anybody.”

I drop my hand. Breathe through my nose. Smile without teeth. “Fine.”

“And keep that furnace of yours locked up tight,” Zoe says as Elijah moves toward the second door at the end of the hall. “Our contact is a goruchel, but there may be others inside.”

“I have it under control,” I insist. And I do.

“Good,” Elijah calls back, “because the old man will tear our ears off with his bare hands if some random shadow asshole gets even half a mouthful of you.”

“Don’t say it like that,” I mutter. Beside me, Zoe snickers. “My power does those things, or is those things, or—whatever. My power is not me . I don’t know everything, but I know that much. I know myself just fine.”

Zoe shrugs easily. “Your power, you, they’re one and the same. We may know ourselves best, but we don’t always know what we’re capable of doing—or becoming.”

I pause at that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Zoe get… philosophical. Before I can ask what she means, exactly, Elijah tugs the door at the end open with a final warning. “In here, Bree has no power. In here, you’re a normal human girl.”

It’s been months since I’ve been the Scion of Arthur—to the court I can’t claim, to Erebus, even to myself. Months since I’ve been a Medium; the graveyards nearby are dirt and stone and shrubs to me now, nothing more. I’ve only been Bree, and my only power has been my Bloodcraft. But here I’m none of those things at all.

I close my eyes as I let that thought settle into my bones and veins and lungs.

Inhale. Normal. Exhale. Human. Inhale. Girl .

I breathe out again, this time with my low belly only, pushing quietly until all the air leaves my lungs, holding my upper body still… then draw in through my nose while I imagine closing all my root inside an iron-encased box.

When I open my eyes again, I follow the twins into the Rat as a normal human girl.