Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 23

23

THREE MONTHS

AFTER brIANA MATTHEWS DISAPPEARED

Mariah

“OKAY, RIAH,” VALECHAZ says, backing away with both hands up. “When you’re ready…”

I swallow and look at the leather satchel in my palm that holds the Heart. For a stone and bits of metal, it feels much heavier than it should be, but perhaps that’s just my guilt weighing me down. Like the stone knows that I’m not supposed to put it on.

Like the Heart itself knows that this big, bold idea was a mistake.

“We can always give it back,” Valec says.

I shoot him a frown and a glare. “Too late for that. We already swiped it.”

I look up at the balcony around the empty Crossroads Lounge. Valec cleared the place out, not just for customers and potential clients but staff too. There are printed signs outside the door that say CLOSED FOR HEALTH INSPECTION in Valec’s scrawled handwriting; it’s sort of adorable, but also very necessary.

Whatever happens when I put on my Aunt Lu’s necklace is not something that should be witnessed.

“Okay,” Valec says, then repeats it for good measure. “Okay.”

The stage lights are on overhead, the heat of them already generating a bit of sweat on my upper lip. I gesture at him with my empty hand, shooing him farther away—and brushing back my fear. Be the answer, be the plan.

I remember Alice fighting her own death, and take a deep breath. “Step back more. Just in case.”

Valec puts his hands on his hips. “Mariah Rochelle. There ain’t nothing you can do that’s gonna hurt me. You haven’t even put the damn necklace on yet.”

I groan. “We don’t know what it’s gonna do, is my point! You ever see a Medium wear the Heart of a Grand Dame?”

He scratches at his chin, eyes narrowed. “Well, no. But it’s an amplifier. What’s the worst it can do to you?” He waggles his fingers. “Ooooh, spooky. You see ghosts. Now, you see more ghosts.”

I roll my eyes but smile. I know he’s just trying to calm my nerves. Calm both our nerves.

The reality is, the amplifier of a Grand Dame doesn’t come with a manual. It’s charmed and recharmed and soaked in soil at plantation sites like Volition overnight, when the moon is full and round in the sky. It’s a shortcut for a Dame to wear when she can’t make an offering for root, and it’s passed down from one Dame to another. It usually stays in families that have held it the most, but like anything, it can hop to a descendant the ancestors decide is worthy.

If I put it on, my Aunt Lu will still be the Grand Dame of our territory, but given that I’m related to her, it should work on me, too.

“Should” being the critical word.

“You gonna put it on, or…?” Valec prompts.

I scowl at him and pour the necklace out of its pouch into my palm. Again, I am hit by an overwhelming sense of age and weight. I smell Hazel’s kitchen and gardens all over the thing—and Valec must too, because he wrinkles his nose as he stares at the obsidian under the yellow stage lights.

I toss the pouch to him, and he catches it easily, snatching it out of the air and tucking it in his back pocket.

In my palm, the stone is cool and black and still. I untangle the soft leather cord and unclasp it, taking a deep breath before drawing it up over my braids and clasping it closed again. After I pull my braids through and feel the stone settle over my shirt… I wait.

“Is that it?” Valec calls.

I frown. “You tell me. Is it supposed to do something right away?”

Valec tilts his head. “Technically, this gets transitioned to a new Dame with a full ceremony. Maybe we’re lucky and it’ll lie dormant the whole time we’re there?”

“Maybe.” It’s possible that’s what’ll happen, but we don’t know. We decided that the Shade we’re meeting at their monthly appeal won’t know the full nature of a Dame’s Heart. Valec guesses that just the appearance of a Dame at their lair will be enough for them to hear us out. That, plus some sorta gift Valec is securing.

I allow myself a tentative smile. “Listen,” I say, clapping my hands together, “I’m not mad—” A beat after my hands meet, the world turns bright gold. I hear Valec shout and my knees hit the stage. Then, darkness.

“Mariah!” A hot hand gently taps my cheek. “Mariah, come on, baby cousin.…” Another tap.

I bat the hand away. “Stahh—”

“Oh, thank everything holy and unholy,” Valec breathes. I hear a long huff and crack my eye open to see him resting back on his heels. “Phew. You scared me.”

I am lying on my back on the Crossroads stage. That thought alone—all the things that happen on this stage on a regular business night—sends me shuddering up to a seated position.

Bad idea. The world blurs.

“Whoa, whoa.” Valec rushes over to steady my shoulder. “Don’t sit up quick like that!”

“I’m fine.” I bat his hand away again, but this time, I look at it closely—and see a faint gray-black… shadow beneath his brown skin. Or, it’s like a shadow, but it’s also like a light? Like something that glows but… dark? I grab at his hand, and he yelps in surprise.

“What’re you—”

“Hold still.” I turn his hand over in my palm, see the light there beneath his fingers, turn it back, and see it again. Use my fingers to trace up the veins of his brown arm to his exposed forearm and elbow. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Valec says, peering down at me. “What do you see?”

“I’m not… not sure,” I say. But it’s a lie.

And Valec can hear it in my voice. “Spit it out, Riah. You can’t scare me.”

I drop his hand and look up at his face, seeing the light there, too. “I…”

He raises a brow. “What? I can handle it.”

“Well,” I say, voice cracking, “I’m not sure I can.”

“Mariah.”

I squint, then breathe out a slow breath. “You know how you joked about me seeing dead people?”

“Uh-huh…” Valec shifts back onto his heels, leaning slightly away from me. “I’m not dead.”

“No, but you’re sort of… half undead,” I say cautiously, “aren’t you?”

Valec blinks. “Oh, shit.”