Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 20

20

THE NEXT MORNING when I come downstairs, Erebus is in the kitchen and the pallor is gone from his olive skin. His high cheekbones are brushed with a dusty pink, the whites of his eyes bright as he informs Elijah of his plans for the day.

I don’t need to wonder why his demeanor has changed. Why he appears so rested and replenished.

Aether and humanity, those are what all demons need, and sometime overnight after he returned me to his home, Erebus consumed one or the other—or both.

The memory of the Rootcrafter girl arrests me where I stand, hovering in the archway between the main living room and the kitchen. I wonder if he fed on her. Or if by some chance, she made it out alive. Then I wonder if I’m just kidding myself the same way Zoe’s laugh fuels her own denial of what the Shadow King is capable of.

I watch Elijah and Erebus talk, hear Zoe clink around in the kitchen as she prepares her own breakfast, and realize that I can’t laugh this away. I can’t wish apart the truth, because even if I don’t remember who my people are, I know how I feel —and I know what I know.

I know what the King did to me yesterday, all in the name of training. It doesn’t matter that I want to become unstoppable—a relentless force that can’t be denied—if those are his methods for transforming me. I will become unstoppable on my own if I must, in my own way.

“Briana.” Erebus’s low voice calls to me.

My head snaps up. “What?”

“Come here, please.”

I walk into the kitchen. Both twins eye me carefully as I approach. In his chair at the counter with a mug of coffee in hand, Erebus narrows his eyes and wrinkles his nose. “Why are you… leaking guilt and anger? Is this because of how we left our session?”

As he speaks, I scent the tiniest hint of brightness from his breath. Magic—that does not belong to him. Too lively to belong to a demon or a goruchel. Too familiar to be aether.

I scented the same magic in the dimly lit, dirty bathroom at the Rat. The recognition strikes me so swiftly, I have to steel myself not to respond to it.

If I only suspected it before, then I know it now.

Root. He has recently fed on root. Not just any root, but the root that belongs to the kidnapped girl.

“Briana? I asked you a question.”

I blink back to the room, to the sensation of sparkling red eyes glancing across my skin. To the eyes of the twins on me, waiting for me to respond.

I affect a bored eye roll. “Yes,” I lie. “I’m still mad about our session.”

“I feared as much.” He sighs. “It is true that one route to my objectives has closed, but I have spent fifteen hundred years creating and attempting new strategies when previous ones did not come to fruition. Your failure will not deter me from retaking my Court and crown.”

I feel reckless, so I speak recklessly too. “ My failure? You’re the one who has been plotting and planning for fifteen hundred years with nothing to show for it.”

Silence. Erebus’s red irises flicker to black, his usual black pupils shift to crimson—and then his eyes return to normal. The only hint that I have enraged him.

As we hold each other’s gaze, I wonder what I could say to make him even angrier. Maybe even enough to lose his human form entirely. I wonder what I could get away with when he is, technically, bound to protect me.

“You’ll watch your tongue around a sovereign,” Elijah bites out, jumping to his feet.

“I do not need a defender, Elijah,” Erebus says without looking away from me.

Elijah’s jaw drops at his guardian’s measured response. “Sire, she speaks to you like you’re a common Shadow—”

“Briana is not my subject,” Erebus cuts him off smoothly, and this time, his eyes do flash at his ward. “I do not demand her obedience as I would a subject. As I demand it of you and your sister.”

“And why is that?” Elijah says, thrusting a hand out to himself and his sister. “We are balanced cambions. True hybrids. Rarer than rare. She is what, exactly? A walking battery? So what? We have served you for five years without complaint—”

“I would call this outburst a complaint, wouldn’t you?” Erebus stares at Elijah, whose face is twisted in unreleased rage. “Your father has served me for nearly twenty centuries. That is the sole reason I took you and your sister in when you needed shelter. You have proven your value over time, Elijah, but do not overstep generosity extended to you not of your own earning. You are a child. You and your sister are mere blinks in the eternal eye of time.”

“And Bree isn’t?” Elijah challenges.

“Briana is a once-in-a-millennium confluence of events. Irreplaceable and invaluable. You are her opposite in every way.”

Silence falls again in a room that is now filled with shadow. At Elijah’s side, a fine tremor has set in across Zoe’s narrow shoulders. Her brother’s eyes are glassy with emotion but burning with every response he visibly holds back.

I don’t have any love for the twins, but Elijah’s face, its mixture of shame and anger, sends a sharp stab of pain through my chest. A familiar pain, for another person who did not deserve Erebus’s ire. And Zoe’s frustration, bottled and held as she somehow avoids that same ire but watches her brother receive it all… it is familiar too.

And how I feel now, the sudden desire to protect them both… reminds me of… me .

The me from before.

“Leave them alone,” I command. The three of them look at me at once.

Erebus blinks. “Is that an order?”

“Yes, it is”—I raise my chin—“and I suggest you take it.”

“Stay out of this, Bree!” Zoe pleads.

Erebus watches me, eyes curious. “Let her speak. Tell me why I should follow your orders, Briana.”

I look to Elijah. “Because Elijah is loyal. He and Zoe have a lead on your crown and should be rewarded for their work, not insulted for their dedication. Be a leader, not a tyrant.”

Zoe’s brows shoot up. Erebus looks between his wards. “What lead? Speak.”

Elijah’s mouth works open and closed for a moment before he recovers. “I did not—” He blinks at me. “The lead is not substantiated. A contact, Regazel, he… he told us that a member of your Court knows where it is.”

Erebus goes very, very still. “One of my Shades has the crown?”

Elijah stiffens. “No, sire. But one knows where it is.”

“Which?”

Elijah hesitates. “Daeza.”

The King’s expression darkens as he speaks, but this time, the ire is turned inward. “Another dead end, then.”

“We’re not sure,” Zoe whispers. “We were going to ask to visit Daeza—”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Elijah begins to protest, but Erebus shakes his head. “Of all my Shades, Daeza is the least likely to let slip any information about the crown’s whereabouts, if she even knows such a fact; its return to me would put an end to her empire of”—his face twists in irritation—“earthly delights. If Daeza knows where the crown is, she’ll never risk my discovering it. She would kill you both as my emissaries for even asking.”

“If Zoe and I have suitable tribute,” Elijah begins, “we can visit. Investigate for ourselves.”

“No.” Erebus’s tone is final.

“We won’t make any promises to her, no bargains—” Elijah adds.

“No.” Erebus draws up to his full height. “If Daeza, by some miracle, does not kill you the moment you set foot in her domain, sending my emissaries to a Shade of the Court based on hearsay will make me appear desperate before my own subjects, when many already disparage me without the power of the crown and have abandoned their fealty for centuries.”

Elijah frowns. “But—”

“This discussion is over , Elijah,” Erebus says. “Briana, you are to train on your own for the day. Stay within the wards.”

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“There are pressing matters that I must attend to with the Order and Council. Trouble brews where I cannot afford for it to grow.”

“What kind of trouble?”

His gaze flickers to me. “The kind that sees too much.”

With that, he gives us all a hard look before closing his eyes and disappearing in a cloud of billowing dark smoke.

Elijah growls deep in the back of his throat and speeds to the back door, a blur in bright green. He’s on the other side and into the woods before Zoe or I say a word.

She collapses onto the stool at the countertop and leans her head back, groaning. “Ughhhhhh, that was not good.”

I sigh. “I thought he would want to hear about the meeting with Regazel.…”

“Not like that.” Her head pops back up. “Elijah wanted to get the details straight before he brought the intel to the old man. Like he said, it’s all hearsay at this point. All of those ‘ifs’ I mentioned, remember?”

I wince. “So I made it worse?”

“Sure did.” She shifts forward, dropping her elbows on her knees, and her eyes soften. “But I appreciate you trying to help us out. Elijah does too, even if he’s too proud to say it.”

“I won’t expect a thank-you.”

“You shouldn’t,” she says. “He wants to earn a place on the old man’s Court, to be on equal footing with our father.”

“Is that even possible?”

She lifts a shoulder. “Maybe. Our place here is an experiment. To see if a balanced cambion born from a Shade can become as strong as a Shade themself. The alternative is…” She shudders. “Being out in the world of humans on our own. Neither of us wants that. Our mom’s side of the family doesn’t know about the demon world. They don’t understand us.”

“Sorry to hear that.” And I am.

Her eyes dart up to mine. “We don’t miss what we never had, yeah?”

I smile. “True. I was just going to say, they’re missing out. You and Elijah aren’t… awful.”

“Thanks.” She huffs a laugh, then pauses, gazing toward the yard. “Sucks that we got banned from even trying to go to Daeza’s, though, cuz I was thinking last night that it’d be great if we could save the girl you saw the other night, or save another one like her. Maybe even save a lot of girls like her.”

“You do want to save her!” I cry, my heart expanding with warmth for her. “I knew it.” I don’t know if I’m too late to save the Rootcrafter from the bathroom, but I’ve got to try. And with Zoe’s help…

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be annoying. Of course I want to save her. Elijah and I need to stay in the old man’s good graces, but I’m not heartless .” She looks out the window again. “Another circumstance, another day, that girl that night coulda been you… coulda been me . And who would come looking for us? Who would fight a human, much less a demon, to save us?”

“Yeah.” I inhale sharply, then release a slow breath. “Who.”

Not for the first time, I wonder if those people who I can’t remember, the ones Erebus says treated me badly, might be wondering where I am. Wondering if I’m okay. Looking for me.

I had called the girl’s potential losses and disconnections from her community “a type of death.”

Does that mean I’ve died a type of death too?

I turn Zoe’s comments over and over in my mind, considering what it means to go missing and then be sought, be severed, then connected, but my mind catches on one sentence. Maybe even save a lot of girls like her.

“Wait.” I hold up a hand. “What does our visiting Daeza or finding the crown have to do with saving other Rootcrafters?”

She lifts a brow. “Do you even know why he wants the crown?”

“I know it’s an aether weapon, like Arthur’s Excalibur. The crown aided him in battle. Made him strong. Helped him lead his Court, his armies. And that he needs it to go back to the other side.”

Her grin spreads, slow and devilish. “I love it when I know something you don’t.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s not a competition.”

“Of course it is, but anyway,” she says, “Excalibur’s like… a fancy sword. The crown is better.” Zoe’s eyes dance, brightening in her face. “ Much better.”

My heart picks up. “Say more.”

We find Elijah in the clearing in front of the barn. He is sitting a few feet from the ward, staring sullenly at the glimmering surface.

“What’s a tribute?” I stop at his side and stare down at him. Behind me, Zoe watches with curious eyes.

Elijah glances up at me, then away. “What do you want?”

“What’s a tribute?” I repeat.

He leans back on his hands in the gravel, stretching his neck in the sun. “It’s an offering made from one leader to another or from one supplicant to a sovereign. It signifies respect, serves as a physical manifestation of your humility, and is a required precursor to a request. The Shades who hold territories allow new supplicants, new requests, every month.”

“What’s the best tribute for a Shade?”

Elijah rolls his eyes in my direction without moving. “The Nightshades are nearly as old as the King himself. Old enough to be their own lords. They are proud and stubborn and ruthless and hungry. The only tribute that means anything to them is something that makes you seem worth their while. Something as old as they are or close to it. Ancient artifacts made by human hands, with human pain laced into the object. A blade from the Crusades with bloodstains in the engraved hilt. A wine chalice used by a Roman magistrate who dictated whether a gladiator lived or died. The older and more pain-soaked the artifact, the more they can consume from it to hold them over between feedings.”

I nod. “Okay, and where do you get something like that?”

“The King keeps a collection.” Elijah moves like liquid, pushing to his feet and brushing gravel dust off from his hands. He jerks toward the red barn. “In there.”

Zoe’s jaw drops. “Excuse me? How do you know that?”

“I guess it could be something other than artifacts,” he says sullenly. “Whatever it is, he’s hiding something from us.”

I step back and eye the barn beyond the ward. “And all we have to do is get inside his collection and take one of those tributes, and Daeza will speak to us? Tell us who has the King’s crown?”

Elijah scoffs. “Sure, if you can snag a tribute savory enough for Daeza, then we might be able to waltz right into her lair without getting our heads cut off. But the King is right—she has incentive to keep the crown from him. So your idea is totally great, except for the fact that it’s impossible. This ward is impenetrable.”

I tilt my head at the ward now, tracking its shimmer shape. “Says you.”

“Says the Shadow King,” Zoe corrects.

Indignation is a ripple of heat beneath my skin. “I can bring it down.”

“Bullshit.” Elijah scoffs. “I can’t do it, and neither can Zoe. Even if you, by some miracle, had the raw power to do it, which I highly doubt, you’d have to push past the emotional bombardment. It’s an affective ward. Not just a barrier, but a form of psychological torture.”

I close my eyes, opening the furnace in my chest with a slow, steady inhale. It rises up in my throat, steam in my mouth. Yesterday’s session didn’t dampen its flames at all. Flames leak from my mouth—but only because I’ve called them to be ready.

When I speak, my voice is a low whisper. “I am aware.”

“You’re not hearing me,” Elijah says. “The affective layer is thick in this thing. It was laid by the king of demons himself. He’s been consuming human fear for centuries . He knows exactly how to break someone with it.”

“But does he know how to break me?” I say, and, with a deep breath—I thrust my palm into the Shadow King’s ward.

The blowback is immediate.

Just as before, the ward injects sensation into my body broad enough to feel like a physical impact, sharp enough to command all my attention, and specific enough to become words, become thought.

RunawayrunawayrunawaygogoleaveleaveLEAVEorelse—

I press against the ward, leaning my whole body weight against that single point of contact, stamping myself on the King’s barrier. An attack, in the exact shape of my hand. I curl my fingers against the heavy surface. The ward heaves against me, rolling like thick rubber under my palm.

LeaveleaveleaveNOWrunawayorelse—

It’s like it knows that I am here, boldly attempting to breach it, and it’s fighting back.

I bury its unspoken words down within me, fold them in, gather them. It is like swallowing glass. A thousand shining slivers injecting themselves into my lungs.

I raise both hands against it now, jaw set. “Come on…,” I mutter through gritted teeth. “Come on!”

The King’s ward flares at the contact, pressing back.

RunawayrunawayrunawayGONOWorelse—RUNSTOPFLEE—

The ward throws images into my mind—a single figure, then three, then five, then ten.

People I should know, but don’t.

The ward slices them down, their gray misty bodies falling in halves, then quarters.

“That would work,” I say with a mocking grin, “if I knew who they were.”

But the ward has given me an idea.

Words are powerful, but images are stronger. Words are effective, but they come to an end.

My power doesn’t end. My power is always.

I stop using commands, and think of images instead. What do I wish to become?

I inhale—and root erupts from my chest, flowing down my arms in a rush of scaled armor, covering my arms in glistening purple plates. The points of my fingertips become long, blood-purple claws, carving into the ward.

I laugh. This feels like stretching after a long season of smallness.

Growth after the stalemate of a forced winter.

Breathing after being told to hold my breath.

The ward is fully lit now, a visible dome of aether arcing and lashing into the air. It blows my loose curls up and back. Whips the strands at my cheeks.

Distantly, I hear the twins shouting to stop.

But I don’t want to. I don’t need to.

And I don’t have to.

Erebus may not like the idea of my attacking his ward, but he can’t complain about me becoming unstoppable on my own terms.

In the heat and smoke flowing from my nose and mouth, I am a steam engine, roaring.

A dragon, unfurling her wings.

Then, with a final shudder, the ward shatters.

Countless shards burst into the sky overhead, raining down onto my hair and skin in glittering silver-green specks.

What remains of the King’s ward floats down over my chest and arms. I flip my claw-tipped, root-armored fingers over to watch the construct’s dust settle in my palms.

When I turn, breathless, to face the twins, their eyes are everywhere—on the scaled armor gauntlets that extend up my shoulders, the starlike dust in my hair and on my face, and the sparkling air around me.

Elijah’s mouth works open and closed, his eyelids fluttering in disbelief. “How…?”

“It tried to break me,” I say quietly, my voice coming from far away. “But I broke it.”

“The ward showed you something, didn’t it?” Elijah says, gazing at me curiously. “What did you see?”

I take a deep breath, closing my root furnace for now. “It showed me the people I used to know, then it killed them.”

Zoe rears back. “That’s fucked .”

“Yes.” The purple scales break apart on my hands and arms, but rather than falling, the shining dust particles disappear beneath my skin. Returning to me. “But it didn’t work.”

“Why not?” Zoe asks.

“Because,” I murmur, “once you lose everyone… fear loses its advantage.”

Zoe looks at me strangely, with a flicker of apprehension.

“What?” I ask.

She averts her gaze. “You, uh… you sound like the old man.”

I hear it too. I do sound like the King, even though I still feel like myself. I will build you into a girl whom no one can destroy.

Elijah shakes his head. “You’re lying. You’ve got to have felt something. Fear, terror, something. ” He closes the distance between us in a single, long-legged stride and, before I can react, he grasps my elbows, inhaling deeply against my throat.

“Well?” I challenge.

He steps away with a furrowed brow while my skin prickles where he touched me. I’ve never seen Elijah take a deliberate sniff of the negative human emotions full demons crave, much less take one from me .

Zoe eyes her brother. “What did you smell?”

Elijah’s eyes flit to Zoe and back. After a beat, he says, “Power.”

I don’t know how to respond to that.

I jerk my head toward the closed doors of the unwarded barn. “Come on. Let’s go find something old and painful for Daeza.”