Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 24

24

FOUR MONTHS

AFTER SELWYN KANE APPEARED

Natasia

AUDIO LOG—ENTRY #126

Nothing is going as I have hoped, but at least Selwyn no longer wishes to escape. Or, at the very least, he has stopped attempting to escape. The way he prowls behind the dense ward enclosure I have cast and the calculating clarity I occasionally glimpse in his eyes make me wonder if he is simply waiting. Waiting until the day I don’t come after him. Waiting until he has enough information. Waiting until my ward lapses and he doesn’t have to make any effort to escape.

I’m not even completely sure how he’s escaping the wards in the first place.

It is the clarity that I find most distressing. He should be succumbing to his cravings in such a way that he cannot hold on to reason. I remember the hunger for humanity that my mind didn’t need and the craving for aether that my body did not require. I was a cambion driven by the appetites of demonia, not necessity.

But I did not care.

Faye’s Wildcrafted tonics were the only way I finally found my path back from the hungers. But they aren’t working on my son. And if they don’t work, then I can’t ask—or expect—him to be able to face himself and make the choice to rise from his so-called descent.

I am at a loss. I may need to tap networks I would rather not use. Ones I do not especially care to expose myself to—

The sound of another barrier breaking interrupts my thoughts. I am on my feet, my logbook cast aside, blurring back into the spare bedroom to find Selwyn standing behind my mostly intact ward.

Selwyn’s red eyes stand out against the electric-blue grid of the barrier, a pair of glowing irises above a fang-tipped smile. The ward has a single fist-shaped hole in it.

I glance down. He is holding his right hand in his left, the long black claws cradling smoking knuckles.

The ward is already repairing itself. “Are you hurt?”

Selwyn tips his head to the left, watching me curiously. “Are you hurt?” I repeat, stepping closer.

He raises his right hand, palm facing in, to eye level. What were likely third-degree burns have already healed to second. Dark black edges disappear before my eyes to be replaced with deep red and purple wounds with bright, shiny pink centers. As I watch, even those begin to heal smooth. I release a breath.

“Good,” I say. He drops his hand and shoots me a sardonic glare, as if mocking my concern.

“Yes, I know you heal quickly—maybe even more quickly now than before—but I am your mother, and I get to be concerned when you’re wounded.”

He lifts a dark brow, casting his eyes over the glowing gridded ward, to where it penetrates even through the ceiling and—to our eyes, if not to a human’s—extends overhead to surround the room in a bright cube. When my gaze rests back on my son’s face, the message I find there is clear without a single word: What kind of mother traps her son in a cage?

I flinch, nodding. “I know how it looks. How it feels, even. But I can’t risk you getting taken down by a Merlin or a goruchel in the state you’re in.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Are you going to tell me whose blood I keep finding in the woods? And why the trails lead to you, when you’re feral and wild?”

His mouth quirks, as if “feral” and “wild” are compliments.

“Selwyn.” I make an attempt at a stern, motherly voice.

His frown and short, soundless laugh make it clear how unsuccessful that was. He shakes his head, humor fully at my expense, eyes brightening.

Nice try, Mother .

I find I don’t care if his humor is at my expense. It warms my heart to see my son laughing at anything. “You used to do that with me, remember?”

His chin tips up. Do what?

“Laugh.”

He paces up the cage and back, dragging his nails along the bars, ignoring me.

“I’m keeping you here because I just got you back in my life,” I call. “I’m not going to let yours be taken away because you aren’t your… normal delightful self.”

He sighs and blurs to his bed. On the other side of the ward, there is a small fridge for food and supplies, a door to a bathroom and shower, a television set, books. The best I could do without knowing exactly what my son likes to do. Guilt takes a hold of my stomach, twisting it.

I don’t know what my son likes to do.

I wrap my sweater around my shoulders and sigh. “I thought I could help you in a week or two. I’ve done everything I can, gone through all the old journals I have here. Everything I used for myself I’ve now tried on you, Selwyn, and—” My eyes burn. I rub the heels of my palms over them and groan. “And I’m out of ideas.”

He leans back on the bed with both elbows behind him, body loose in a half lounge. He tosses up one hand as if to say, Oh well.

“You aren’t the only stubborn one in this house,” I bite back, “so don’t give up on me. I’m not giving up on you.”

He makes a very rude gesture.

“That’s… that’s fair,” I mutter. “I wasn’t there when you needed me to be. Believe me, I would have been if I thought I’d be able to see you and get out alive.”

He sits up then, elbows on his knees, giving me his full attention. Lifts a hand again. So you didn’t even try?

“After I escaped, I tried so, so many times,” I murmur. “Martin—” I look away, down, feel an old rage clawing its way up my throat at the very mention of Martin Davis. I rub at my chest, at the memory of the searing pain I’d felt the day Martin died, grateful that the bond had not flared fresh and bright for me as it must have done for Isaac Sorenson. While a single Kingsmage cannot be bonded to two people, one Scion can be bonded to two Kingsmages. “The last time I tried to see you, I got close to the house in Chapel Hill, and it happened to be a day when Isaac was visiting.”

Selwyn’s expression doesn’t change, but the lines around his eyes tighten. He knew Isaac. Knew what the Master Merlin was capable of, because he was Selwyn’s teacher.

“Isaac caught my scent. Found me quick. Nearly tore me apart while Martin watched,” I whisper. “My left shoulder was hanging on by… well… ‘threads’ would be a generous word.”

Selwyn’s mouth purses into a line. His eyes darken, and his fist clenches.

“They, of all people, kept the secret that I had escaped. I suppose Erebus kept it too. Maybe the three of them knew that I’d never do anything to endanger you, and so let me go.” I pause. “They were right, in the end. But I… overcorrected.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Sel, you were so small. Only eleven years old,” I explain. “They told me the next time I tried to see you, it’d be your turn to lose an arm—this time in front of me.”

Selwyn’s lips curl back in a snarl, black-tipped fangs glinting. I feel my own mouth opening, an answering snarl leaking from my lips. Then I cover my mouth, flushing. Like mother like son, I suppose. I cough once and nod.

“Yes. Agreed. They were both… true monsters.” I fix him with a gaze. “More monstrous than you or I could ever be. I’m so, so sorry they let you think anything otherwise.”

His gaze flows away from me to the ground, to the wall, to the ceiling. He leans back with a deep sigh. A half-raised shoulder. It is what it is.

“Please be patient with me,” I say, stepping close to the ward. “Let me keep trying, Sel.”

His eyes return to mine. He watches me for a long moment. After a beat, he shrugs. Fine. You can keep trying.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

Then, while still holding my gaze, he taps twice on his wrist.

But the clock is ticking.