Oathbound (The Legendborn Cycle #3)

Chapter 27

27

FOUR MONTHS

AFTER SELWYN KANE APPEARED

Natasia

WHEN I RETURN to the cabin from Daeza’s club, I walk straight to Selwyn’s room. “Well, that was an almighty failure.”

He is sitting cross-legged on his bed behind the ward, eyes closed in what I can only guess to be meditation. Something I taught him long ago, when he was young. A way to focus his energies, contain his turmoil, and find his calm between battles—not just within them.

The current ward is a multilayered wall of two-inch-wide bars of pure crystalline aether, crafted so densely that it will burn through skin. Before I left for Daeza’s, I wryly suggested to my son that he consider using an aether weapon to break this ward down if he felt so inclined to run away today, rather than his bare fist. I am pleased to see that he decided to stay put.

“Selwyn?” I call.

One red eye peeks open, and his silent, annoyed response is as clear as if he’d spoken it aloud. I heard you. His eye closes.

I take a seat on the other side of today’s ward creation. “Back to not speaking to me?” I ask. Sel had inquired about the ward as I cast it this morning, and his curiosity about my methods of barrier construction had given me a small morsel of hope that we might be on the way to repair.

He responds to my question by, well, not speaking. Both eyes remain shut.

It seems that our healing, like many processes, will not be linear. Time for a new strategy.

“You are an impertinent piece of work, Selwyn Emrys,” I say, half-exasperated and half-amused. I let sarcasm crawl into my voice. “I’m sure your friends enjoy that trait of yours so very much.”

The edge of his mouth kicks up in a manner that tells me his friends do not , in fact, enjoy this aspect of his personality.

“Unless they have grown accustomed to it,” I muse aloud, “and give you back as good as you give.”

Both eyes open at that, narrowed and cutting. Caustic indignation rolls off him.

“So there is someone in your life who doesn’t put up with your more pleasant qualities?” I say, smirking. “Excellent. That person must irritate you greatly; I adore them already.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Is it Nicholas Davis, I wonder?”

He frowns. Huffs.

“No, I don’t think so,” I say. “You and Nicholas may bicker and fight, test each other’s boundaries and the limits of the Kingsmage Oath, as I did with Martin. But our bonds tie us to our bonded as if they were the opposite sides of our coins. We may dislike them, but before my descent, Martin was a part of me. Acrimony like that has deep roots, but rarely grows new shoots. Your current irritation feels bright and fresh, so it must belong to someone else, not Nick.” I pause. “This new Scion of Arthur, perhaps?”

My ears are sharp, so I hear it: an increase in his heart rate. And my eyes are sharp, so I see it: his pupils blowing wide. His body responding even if his voice does not, as if he can’t help himself.

I make my tone as casual as possible: “Could it be that the mere thought of this new Scion of Arthur sparks such frustration in you? Such dissatisfaction? Do they bring about feelings in you that you wish they could not? Feelings you can’t control?”

Selwyn’s face grows still. Expressionless. Emotionless. The way that a goruchel can sometimes void their features of any humanity on purpose, to chill their prey. It is my son’s way of telling me to stop my continued inquiries about this new and unexpected Scion of Arthur. And it is a clue that I am close to unlocking that which he has kept guarded.

I soften my approach. “You have not told me any more about this new wielder of Caledfwlch. I cannot imagine the conflicting feelings you must have about a Crown Scion to whom you are not bonded… whom you cannot protect as you were trained to protect.”

His fingers twitch on his knees, the silver rings flickering in agitation. Bingo.

Now it’s time for a more direct approach.

“I may be the only person on the planet who can understand what you’re going through, Selwyn. I know what it means to be betrayed by what we were taught and even by the Kingsmage Oath itself and what it stands for. I know what it feels like to be held by an Oath that you can no longer serve. Please,” I say, lowering my head to catch his eyes, “tell me what has been happening in your life and with this new Scion. I want—I wish to help you.”

While his face does not change, his eyelids flutter infinitesimally. He turns his head away, any softening in him hardening with the movement.

I sit there for a moment, hoping for an acknowledgment that I am not owed. It does not come. Nonlinear healing it is, then. I sigh.

“In other news, I visited a rather… unsavory demon today. She could not help me.” As I adjust my seat, crossing one booted foot over my knee, the AC clicks on overhead, blowing my hair forward—

Then Sel is at the ward, a low growl rising in his throat. “Where is she?”

I did not even see him move. “Sel, what—”

When he inhales deeply, I realize that he has scented something. I sniff the air myself and cannot detect anything but Daeza’s club on my skin, my clothes, my hair. Then I look up—and realize that it was the AC turning on that carried my scent to him. That he is picking up on some fragrance, or catching some tiny hint of aether, that even I cannot detect.

“I smell her on you.” His voice has shifted into a guttural rasp that I’ve never heard from him before.

Does he mean Daeza? That is the only aether I can detect. “The demon I met is not a typical demon—”

He ignores me, pressing his face into the glowing bars—and letting them burn his skin. “I feel her on you.”

The descent of his voice into a lower register—and the scent of his singeing flesh—stun me so wholly that my reaction is delayed. Then I am on my feet, heart racing. “Step back from the ward, Sel—”

“Where. Is. She.”

“Do you mean the demon?” I ask. “Sel, she’s not safe—”

Selwyn shuts his eyes, inhaling again. I watch in horror as my son presses harder into the ward, pursuing the scent I’ve carried with me. As he lets the densely cast bars burn deeper into his cheekbones, inviting my magic to sear through his muscles, to hit bone. Like a wild animal willing to sacrifice his flesh to get free.

My hands are already moving, pulling the ward down in frantic swipes. “Stop!” I’ve never seen my son like this, not once in these four months under the same roof. Is this the Selwyn that I have been tracking in the woods? The one that leaves trails of blood in his wake?

“What is this?” He murmurs against the bars as if drunk, as if he can’t feel the pain at all. “If scent can be sound, if sound can be feeling, if feelings can become instinct… then that is what I am experiencing. And I want more… more…” Eyes still closed, he drags a clawed hand down the remaining ward, slicing through it like a hot knife through butter as he mumbles, “I want to chase it all down. Fold myself into it. Dig in—and never let go.”

“Let me take down the ward!” I shake my head, panic cracking my voice. I groan and pull at the air with both hands, finally dropping the entire thing. I screech at him where he stands, eyes blinking open, face striped bright red and glistening raw. “What the hell are you thinking?”

Sel steps across the sparkling remnants of the barrier, unhearing. “Where is she, Mother?”

“Who?”

His eyes fasten to mine. The open muscle beneath them is already stitching itself back together.

“Where is Bree?”

I blink, his words settling in beneath my shock. “How—how do you know Bree?”

Selwyn chuckles darkly. As he speaks, green flames rise along his shoulders, lifting his hair. “She is my Scion of Arthur.”

“Your—” I stumble backward, shaking my head. “No, that’s… Bree can’t be.”

“Oh, but she is.” Sel prowls toward me. “Briana is mine . My Scion. My sovereign. My king,” Selwyn utters, lip curling. “Just as her mother was yours.”

Faye.

My vision clouds with memories, colliding behind my eyes. Faye’s wide smile. Her big laugh. Her dignity. Her integrity. The power I’d never seen before, never thought possible—

“No.” I shake my head again. “Faye was…”

“A Scion of Arthur,” Selwyn says. “The true Scion you should have been bonded to. Just as Briana is who should have been bonded to me.”

“Faye…” It seems all I can do is speak my friend’s name.

And remember.

The way Faye drifted toward the Bell Tower without thinking when she walked idly across campus. Her tendency to settle there, studying beneath its tall shadow—unknowingly drawn to the exact place on campus that sits above Excalibur’s resting place in the ogof below.

The way Faye charged into the fray to protect innocents, risking her own secrets.

The bright bloodred burn of her power, uncontrolled and beautiful.

The way she led, both by example and by word.

I remember it all.

And in my bones, in my heart, I know that what my son says is true.

“Faye Matthews didn’t know, of course.” Selwyn answers my question before I ask it. “She died without knowing. It was her daughter Bree’s fate to uncover that truth. Bree’s fate to wield the blade. Bree’s fate to meet the cycle… and to bring the Regents to their knees.”

“Bree is a child ,” I insist. “She wasn’t raised for this war.”

“No. She wasn’t,” he says, eyes turned inward and savoring. “But you truly haven’t lived until you’ve seen her fight it.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, alarmed.

“She is Bloodcrafted,” Selwyn says. “Like her mother before her.”

Faye’s red root blazes behind my eyes. “No, Bree didn’t inherit it,” I say, stammering. “Faye checked; she made sure—”

But then I remember the hidden memory she’d asked me to implant into her child’s mind. An insurance policy. A “just in case.”

I think of Bree, who looks so very much like her mother. Bree, who should have been at home with her father tonight, not at a Nightshade’s club accompanied by balanced cambions. Bree shouldn’t have remembered me, given that the last time I encountered her I mesmered both her and her father, but her uncertainty and hesitation when prompted by the cambion girl worries me still.

And now I know that whatever has happened to Bree, she has been tampered with by a force beyond my own understanding.

A force who likely knows that Bree Matthews, like her mother, wields a furnace of unending, world-changing, Bloodcrafted power.

Knowing both what has come to pass and what is yet to come, I look upon my son and see him with new eyes—the demon glow of his irises, the elongated fangs, and the tipped ears beneath his hair. The black veins lining his pale forearms and the black-tipped claws at his fingertips. The hunger that could never, ever seem to be sated and only grew.

“It was Bree’s power, wasn’t it?” I whisper. “You consumed it, and it tipped you over into demonia. Devouring Bree’s power is what made you like this.”

Sel grins. “Ding-ding-ding. You win a prize.”

Horror makes my heart race. Not for myself and, for the first time in months, not for my son—but for Bree. Bree is an unwitting, untrained Scion of Arthur without a Kingsmage—and my son wants to be with her. Or feed from her. Or both. And she has no idea that the path he’s on seems resistant to my interventions.

“Tell me where she is,” Selwyn says, fingers flexing at his sides.

There is an agony in seeing him like this, knowing that I cannot help him pursue what he wants, but it is even more painful knowing that what he wants is Bree—and that I can’t let him have her.

“No.” I shake my head slowly. “You aren’t in a state to go to her.”

Sel tilts his head, drawing another deep breath as he steps closer. “Her scent is not… right. What have you done?”

I raise both hands, backing away. “I didn’t do anything to her. I only saw her by accident, pure accident—”

He growls again. “Something is wrong with her.”

“I know. But you can’t fix it, and neither can I.”

He blinks, clarity returning to his gaze briefly before he shakes it away, his long hair falling over his eyes. He bears down on me again. “Where—”

“I don’t know how to find her, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Selwyn.… You’re not yourself in full.”

“And how would you know what I’m like?” he sneers. “You haven’t exactly been around to find out who I am, have you?”

His words knife through me, but I breathe them away. Set them aside for now.

“I’m very much myself, Mother.” He bares his teeth. “Maybe I’m finally myself.”

“No—”

“I’ve allowed you to keep me here, but no longer.” His right palm falls open, aether gathering in a tiny ball. “I need to capture a king.”

I stiffen, every hair on the back of my neck standing.

My son is calling aether against me in my own home. “ Please don’t make me do this. Let me help you—”

“Tell me where Bree was and then tell me where she is now. You must know. After all, you kept such good tabs on her and her mother” —his smile turns cruel—“Faye.”

My vision turns black and red, the room fogging up with my own grief, as sharp as ever. It is the taunt in Selwyn’s voice that clears my mind. The thought of Faye Matthews—the brilliant, beautiful girl who should have been my Scion of Arthur and king—that finally, finally turns my palm open.

I hear my own voice, low and quiet. “Be very careful what you say next.”

“What I say next? About your Scion of Arthur?” His aether extends into a long blue-silver staff. “The one who died on your watch?”

Shame nearly arrests me, but I do not let it.

“Do not speak about Faye Matthews.” I call and forge my own aether staff to match his and make a silent promise that I will never forge a weapon against him that he does not forge first. Never call on enough aether to do harm, only enough to match his. “This is about Bree. She needs help, Selwyn. Help that you and I cannot give. You crave her, which means you cannot be the one to heal her.”

Hesitation flickers across his face, then dies. “I do not care.”

“You are not what Bree needs right now,” I state. “She needs refuge . You will only make things worse.”

“I do not care!” he roars.

“Yes, you do; you’ve just forgotten. Your care is buried ,” I answer, raising my staff as he raises his. “You need to care again, or I can’t let you pass.”

“I don’t need to do anything!” he snarls, stepping forward. “I only need her .”

When we clash, staffs sparking against each other, I barely feel it.

All I can think is that I was meant to be Faye’s Kingsmage. Her protector. Her guardian.

In the end, I failed to save her, but I will not fail to save her daughter.

I was a Kingsmage then, and I will be a Kingsmage now.

I will protect the Scion of Arthur against all threats—even if that threat is my son.