Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 16

16

THIS GIRL KNOWS . Somehow, in the span of a heartbeat, she knows that I can See her golden root.

It is the deep color of sunset, and it seeps out of her eyes in wisps of curling smoke. She has no pupils or irises. There is only the gold of her power.

And I know exactly what that power is and where it comes from.

Her head moves left—what might be the beginning of a headshake—and then she is dragged away, under the door, across the tile, and back out to the open bathroom.

I’m on the floor and opening the stall door in a blink. “What’s going on?” I shout.

The scene before me is harrowing. The girl is on her back on the floor struggling against a stronger, older white man. He has both her feet in his hands as she kicks at him, but she’s much too small to do damage. When I yell, the man drops the girl’s feet and stands to face me, and she crabwalks away with tears streaming down her face.

“I’d walk away if I were you,” he growls. “Walk out the door. You never saw this.”

“Unlikely.” I let my eyes fill with the rage, the disgust, that this man rightfully deserves. “You’re the one who should walk away.”

The man is a few inches taller than me but much broader. He wears jeans and a loose black denim jacket, unbuttoned to reveal a tight-fitting burgundy T-shirt over a firm chest and trim waist. A fighter, or an athlete, or just someone who lifts a lot of heavy weights. Whatever he is, he’s no slouch.

But neither am I.

I let the furnace in my chest creak open, invite the flames to rise, keep it faint, so faint that the King might not sense it—

“Stop!” the girl shouts—but her scream is not directed at the man; it’s directed at me. She scrambles to her knees, facing me. “Stop! Don’t.”

I blink, taken aback and not sure what she’s even asking me not to do, until I realize that her eyes are glued to my chest and filled with fear not for herself but for me.

Like I can See her root, she can See mine.

“What are you—”

“Don’t,” she says again, voice hardening. “He’s not hurting me, not like that. He just wants my root. It’s okay, please. I’ll be okay—”

“Not like that” does very little to assuage my fears.

“I don’t care what he wants!” I say.

“Things were going just fine before you showed up,” the man says, eerily calm. His pale face breaks into a slow, greasy-feeling smile. The hairs on the back of my neck rise. His hands are empty, his posture loose, no tension in his neck or legs. Just because he’s not preparing for an attack doesn’t mean he won’t if he gets close enough. “Me and girlie here were just taking a potty break.” A lie. He doesn’t even try to sell it.

My eyes narrow. “She can go to the bathroom on her own, I suspect.”

The man advances a step toward the girl. I step closer too, pivoting so that my shoulder is in his path.

“Walk away from me,” I advise.

He smirks. “Why don’t you walk away from me ?”

“I’m not turning my back on a girl who is very obviously being attacked, kidnapped, or—”

The girl, to my surprise, pushes to her feet and shakes her head for real this time. A full back-and-forth, with her curls bouncing around her face. “Please just stop.… It’s better if you don’t.” At the last word, “don’t,” she gestures with her chin toward my chest—where my root furnace is still slightly cracked open. Not enough to visibly leak anything or even be detectable by the twins, but my greatest weapon is at the ready for my call.

For his part, the man doesn’t seem to know what she’s looking at—his eyes are dancing between her face and mine, a slight frown of confusion drawing his brows together.

He doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He can’t sense my root.

So he’s human, then.

To my shock, the girl slides closer to the man, teeth clenched in a tight jaw and eyes cast to the floor. “I don’t want you to get caught up in this.”

“Good advice,” the man says, smiling again. His hands are behind his back, working something out from beneath his jacket and untucking it from his waistband. If it’s a gun, I’m screwed. Arthur’s strength makes me faster than I would be otherwise, but I’m not faster than a bullet.

Thankfully, he doesn’t pull out a gun. Instead, he brings out a switchblade.

I nearly laugh out loud.

I can cast and forge a blade of root twice that size if I want to. One solid enough that even this human man could see it. But a weapon that well-constructed would absolutely draw any nearby demon or cambion’s attention to us. Is that what the girl is worried about?

Before I can wonder any further, the man speaks a garbled, guttural word—and the switchblade in his hand erupts in green mage flame, elongating until it’s the shape of a longsword. It burns a bright, sickly green-yellow at the tip—and is so foul-smelling that I nearly gag as I reel backward in shock.

His mouth curls and warps around words no human should ever speak. The sound lands so unnaturally on my ear, so jarringly not of this plane, that everything, everything inside me tells me to run.

The man grins. “Not so mouthy now, are you?”

The blade is not yet solid, but it’s gaining shape. He notices me watching it as it goes from air and flame to a deep crystalline solid. I know what magic looks like, but I don’t understand what I’m looking at right now.

A fully corporeal, forged aether weapon. Not the bright green of the twins’ power, but the pale vomit-colored green of a full demon. But this man isn’t a demon… is he?

He chuckles, breaking my concentration. “See that, do you?”

I blink. A normal human girl couldn’t See this. Shouldn’t See this. My cover is blown.

I open my mouth, close it. “I—”

“No!” The girl rushes between us, arms spread wide, partially blocking the man’s view of me, placing her chest directly in the path of his glowing blade. “Leave her alone!”

Suddenly, the answer rings clear in my mind: this man is a warlock.

A human who has bargained directly with a demon for temporary power, and at some cost he likely doesn’t comprehend. The types of humans who know about demons and make pacts with them are either very rich, or very foolish, or both—and all are greedy.

I wonder which one this man is.

“You can See this, girlie. You know what it is.” He holds the blade high, and I wonder if he even knows what he’s holding. If it matters. If all he wants is violence. “If you don’t want to watch this girl get sliced in half, you’ll shut up and let us walk out of here.” His voice wavers slightly—and I can tell by the way the muscles in her back tense that the tip of the blade is pressing tightly against her chest.

Foolish and greedy—and desperate.

That last one is what makes my entire body freeze.

I’d rather fight a demon in a bathroom than a human man with malicious intent.

But before I can open my furnace further, the girl speaks, voice resigned. “If you fight her, you’ll draw attention to all of us. You want root, not some random human girl who just happens to have the Sight. Let’s go.”

This warlock might be foolish and greedy, but he wants an easy answer, and this girl just gave him one. He looks at me, glances at the door, where voices have gotten louder—and the bar is filling up—then at her, then me again. “Don’t follow us.”

“She won’t follow.” The girl glares at me over her shoulder, eyes wide and serious.

And with that, the girl turns. His blade follows, shining bright against her sweater. She backpedals slowly toward the door, and the man goes with her while her shining golden eyes hold me still, sending a message I can’t miss. Don’t follow us. Please just stay there and let us go—let me go.

As soon as her back hits the door, she turns to grasp the handle. While she pulls it open, the man flips around, blade pointed directly at me now, the green magic dancing across the ceiling. His message is clear too. Make one wrong move, and she gets cut wide open.

They’re too far away for me to reach them quickly. His blade, even if it wasn’t enchanted, will meet her body before I can stop it.

My feet are frozen to the floor. My chest is heaving, taking shallow, frantic breaths as everything in me fights the scene before me without moving.

Then I blink.

And they’re gone, the door swinging shut behind them.

I race toward the door, heart pounding. It’s only by instinct that my root furnace closes itself tight in my chest again before I burst out into the hallway.

The crowd has gotten thicker, the music louder—or my senses are too flooded as I whip my head around, searching for them.

Cold wind slices into my body from my left—there! A door to the outside. I push between a couple talking in the back hall that runs behind the bar, ignore their shouts of indignation, and race toward the door, hitting it shoulder-first before it can close and latch.

But the warlock and the Rootcrafter are gone. Outside, fluffy snow has started to fall. The landing ends in a black iron railing directly in front of me, offering two directions down to the empty parking lot: a loading ramp on one side and stairs on the other. A scuffle breaks the quiet from somewhere straight ahead—an engine starting.

I dart to the icy black railing, place both hands on it, grip it tight, ready to launch myself over the side—

“What the hell are you doing, Bree?!” A strong hand yanks me backward by the collar, tearing my hands from the metal railing, and lifts me up in the air. I twist in their grip, see Zoe’s flashing red eyes.

“Zoe—” The fabric cuts into my neck, choking me. Tires squeal behind me. A car getting away. No, no—

“We trusted you!” Zoe cries. “You told us you wouldn’t run—”

“There was—” I gasp out, scrabbling at my collar, toes dragging on the concrete. “A girl. A girl in trouble.”

“What?” Zoe blinks, the angry crimson bleeding from her eyes to reveal a concerned brown.

“In the bathroom,” I repeat. “She needs help—”

“Which way did they go?” Zoe drops me to my feet and strides forward, searching the lot for herself. On high alert, eyes bright and fingers flexing at her sides. Her head whips around. “Which way, Bree?!”

“I didn’t see.” I rush beside her. “I came out here and the lot was empty, but I heard tires—”

She raises her nose to the air. “Yeah, I can smell them too. They peeled outta here real quick. I smell fear. Anger. And—wait—” Abruptly, she blurs closer to me, tugging me close enough to bury her nose against my jacket before nearly tossing me into the railing. “Gross!” She snarls. “You smell like warlock . What—”

“I told you, she’s in trouble!” I say, rubbing my neck where my collar had been yanked tight. “There was a girl in the bathroom with a warlock. He was kidnapping her for something. Her power, I think. She told me to back off, but we have to go after them—”

“We… we can’t,” Zoe says, growing suddenly still.

“What do you mean? We gotta follow them—”

“How would we?” She jerks a chin out at the lot, where flakes are starting to come down more heavily. “Whoever you saw is long gone by now and traveling by car. The snow’s coming down, and it’s only gonna get worse. Besides, even if we could go after them and you fire up your power, they’ll wanna grab your ass too! Then what? Warlocks don’t work alone; there’ll be at least two more with him, with who knows what borrowed magic.”

“But—”

“And shit’s going down right now, right here!” She jerks a thumb behind her. “Regazel just showed up, and it looks really bad that I left the meeting to go find you. There’re protocols with demons, Bree, serious ones—”

“Zoe!” I cry. “The girl—”

“Is gone!” Zoe says, waving her hand. “Also…” She shrugs, voice too light, too dismissive. “Sketchy stuff goes down at the Rat; you know that.”

“?‘Sketchy stuff’?” I exclaim. I stare at her like I don’t know who she is. “This wasn’t sketchy; this was wrong —”

“You said yourself this girl told you to back off, right?” Zoe says, advancing on me. “She knows more about her situation than you do—”

“She was a Rootcrafter!” I say.

Zoe’s gaze heats my skin. “What do you know about Rootcrafters?”

I gape at her. “Don’t worry about what I know. What do you know about Rootcrafters?”

Zoe holds my gaze, fiery and red, and opens her mouth to bare her fangs. A gesture that stopped scaring me ages ago.

“What do you know, Zoe?” I ask again, unmoved.

Zoe closes her mouth with a snap and backs off. “Ancestral magic users have the strongest access to aether—to root—than any other humans. Rootcrafters, especially. And their emotions can… can be richer, too. So greater demons prefer to feed on them.” She looks away. “Let’s go back inside—”

The only demon I know of who feeds on Rootcrafter power is the Hunter. The Shadow King. Erebus. A chill falls over my body, deeper and colder than anything the winter mountains could send my way. “Greater demons, plural, or just one?”

Zoe stares at me, something in her eyes warring. Then, abruptly, the fight I see within her is over. “Let’s go back inside, Bree.”

“Answer the question.”

“No.”

“Are the Rootcrafters okay?” I ask. “Will she be okay if he feeds on her?”

Zoe looks away. “Physically, yes, but… spiritually? Her magic? I don’t… I don’t know,” she mutters, turning back to the door. “Elijah is expecting us. Please, let’s—”

Her magic . Rootcrafters’ magic is what ties them to their communities, their families. It connects them to one another, even before an ancestor is ever called upon. And Rootcrafters’ innate branch of power—their personal magic—is what their ancestors enhance. But unlike my own body, Bloodcrafted to hold limitless ancestral root, the average ’Crafter is only meant to borrow power from their ancestors for a short time.

I don’t have to think long to see what the danger is: The King is beyond ancient and beyond powerful. If he feeds on that Rootcrafter girl mid-working, drawing everything he can from her with his vast appetite, her personal branch of power will likely give out before her ancestors’ root will. And if her personal branch of power breaks… she’ll be cut off from who she is.

Disconnected from her own family and severed from her community.

A type of death.

I grasp Zoe’s arm. “Where does he feed on them?”

“I don’t know! He doesn’t tell anyone how he feeds, when he feeds—” Zoe throws up her hands, a nervous, thin laugh escaping her. It’s the kind of quick laugh you hear when someone doesn’t want something to be true. When they’ve decided to turn away from the hard thing in favor of easy ignorance, and the laugh helps to paint the world over. “He needs to consume aether and human energy just like any other demon, but he doesn’t need to feed as often as other demons. Maybe it’s not even him!”

“Does he hire warlocks?” I ask, and she shudders like she always does at the very mention of the pact magic users. I remember one of my mysterious someone s having a similar reaction to a warlock at the Crossroads Lounge. Warlock pact magic is not very popular among cambions—even the King himself openly despises warlocks. I can’t imagine why he’d work with one, unless… “Does he hire them because the warlocks are human, so they can get to other humans more easily, go undetected—”

Zoe scoffs. “You know we can’t even bear to be in the same room as pact magic. It’s so bitter and sort of rotten and—”

“Is it him, Zoe?” I ask.

Zoe blurs toward me, mouth twisting in a scowl an inch from my face. “You ran away with a demon , Bree. Not just any demon but the King . What did you expect to see when you were with him?”

In the quiet between us, something deep and terrifying opens up inside me. A silent scream tears at my guts, my heart, my lungs. I don’t have an answer for her, and she knows it.

Her eyes soften infinitesimally. “I’m sorry about the girl you saw. I know you want to help her, save her and her magic. I—I want to save her too. Wish we could,” she says, “but we really need to get back inside. We can’t lose this lead or the old man. He’ll… he’ll get mad at us. Punish us . Me and Elijah. Okay?”

I blink at her, the storm inside my heart churning so deeply I’m nauseated. “Punish you?”

Zoe nods, eyes skittering away from mine. “There are things you don’t know… about me and Elijah. It’s a trial situation, and if we mess it up—”

“What will he do to you and Elijah?”

“Please, Bree?” Zoe says quietly, voice wavering. “Can we go? I have to be there with Elijah, and you—you can’t be out here alone.”

I don’t answer. I don’t even feel it when she tugs on my jacket the first time. She tugs again, and my eyes find her, dazed from all I’ve learned in the last few minutes. Worried for the strange girl. Worried for Zoe. Even worried for Elijah.

“You gotta take this off,” she mumbles. “The smell… it’s too strong.”

I let her take the jacket off me. She carefully folds it inside out and stuffs it under her arm. “Come on. I’ll tuck it behind the bar before we head back to the table.”

As I follow her back inside, all I can think is that she’s right: I chose to be in the Shadow King’s circle. And Zoe and Elijah did too. And we keep choosing.

But that girl in the bathroom didn’t choose her fate; she resigned herself to it. And tried to save me, a stranger, in the process.