Legendborn

by Tracy Deonn

  As if compelled by a force out of my control, I follow the sounds of Sel’s anger, through the curve where I first met Lord Davis, down the rocking bridge that Nick guided me over, and past the hint of silver on the forest floor that marks the ceremony site.

  I end up climbing a slope. The deep cracking sounds are further and further apart now, but each time they come, they’re loud enough to set my teeth on edge and send adrenaline spiking. I pause to catch my breath against a tree trunk and get my bearings. I’ve walked half a mile or so, some of it uphill. The Lodge’s balcony lights are barely visible through the dense trees, and beyond that is the misty haze of light marking the tops of campus buildings, the nearby hospital, and the rest of downtown. I direct my flashlight up the hill again and gasp.

  Starting about twenty feet away are half a dozen broken tree trunks. Jagged, pale yellow spikes and splinters the size of my forearm stretch up from raw stumps about the height of my knee. They look like fresh wounds. Beside them are long fallen trunks, laid out like Lincoln Logs on the forest floor.

  Right on cue, I hear another tree being torn apart. I follow the sound.

  This close I can catch all the details of Sel’s efforts: the initial popping sound of a wide trunk protesting against his muscles; the ripping sound of bark tearing away; a slow, deep whine and a final crack when the trunk is severed from its base.

  Just as I reach the ridge, I see him about fifty feet away, hefting a long pine trunk between his hands. He inhales deep and heaves it over the side. There’s a second where all I can hear are his panting breaths amidst silence, and then a mighty boom shakes the ground as the tree splits into pieces on the earth below. In the waning moonlight, I can make out a dozen trees just like it, spread out across the grass like broken chopsticks as tall as a house.

  I realize where I am—this is the ridge above the arena from the first trial. This is where the Legendborn watched us fight Sel’s boars and where Nick was taken out from under Sel’s nose by a hellsnake.

  “What are you doing here?”

  My head jerks around at Sel’s voice. In the second I’d taken to peer down into the arena, he’d turned to face me. His gaze feels like sparks, but they’re scattered. Unfocused.

  The last time we spoke, he’d made a joke about his lineage. Taught me how to follow through on a lunge.

  Now it feels like he wants to burn me to ash.

  I stumble on a response but stop when I see his expression. Sarah was right, he’s aether-drunk, and it’s worse than before. Even though he’s on his feet, he’s swaying gently, his normally stern eyes blurry and red-rimmed. He glances down at my injured arm, briefly.

  “Well?”

  “Why are you so angry?”

  His laugh is a hollow, dry bark. “Learn that shit from your therapist?”

  I swear I see red. “What did you just say to me?”

  He smirks. “I saw your little outdoor therapy session with that campus doctor.”

  “You spied on me?” Which session? How much did he hear?

  Sel rolls his eyes to the sky. “Of course I spied on you. The day after the Oath, I followed you from your dorm to the gardens, listened in while you and she had a heart-to-heart about your abilities.” He bends down and picks up a rock, then chucks it across the arena so hard it makes a loud pop! against a tree on the other side.

  “How dare you—that was private!” I shout.

  He scoffs. “Put your self-righteousness away, mystery girl. I followed you that day to see if you were meeting an uchel coconspirator, and I thought you two were speaking in code about your demon lineage. Looking back, I’d given you far too much credit. I don’t care about your family drama, and I sure as fuck don’t care about someone whose dead mother used aether to grow prettier flowers—”

  “Don’t talk about my mother,” I growl.

  “All of that effort”—he shakes his head and gives a mirthless laugh—“and look where it got me. What a waste of time.”

  Fury and panic are rushing through my blood, and I don’t know which one to act on. I’m still reeling from the revelation that Sel followed me, my mind searching through that first conversation with Patricia to remember what he could have learned.

  “God, look at you!” Sel chuckles incredulously. “You’re trying to remember what I overheard that day and how much I know about your boring, basic Onceborn life.”

  He prowls toward me on slightly unsteady legs, his glowing eyes tracing my features. A tiny memory from the back of my mind reminds me that running from a predator only invites them to chase you, so I freeze where I am.

  And I thought I could be what? His friend?

  Sel’s low voice dips and slurs as he talks, and I can’t tell if his words are for me or for himself. “How could I have risked so much for a lost little girl who probably needs as much therapy as I do?” He tilts his head, eyes going unfocused. “Well, that’s not possible.” He laughs again, but this time it’s so self-deprecating it feels like my anger has nowhere else to go. “No one needs as much therapy as I do.”

  “Is that why you’re out here chucking trees over a cliff?” I snarl.

  His head snaps up. “Why are you here again?”

  “I have no idea,” I say, and turn to leave.

  “I do.” Even intoxicated, he’s far faster than I am. He’s in front of me the second I turn. “Guilt.”

  “Get out of the way.”

  He leans back against a tree in my path and regards me under half-lidded eyes. “I bet you heard I was out here throwing a fit and that I’d been ‘monstrous, angry Sel’ all weekend. I bet Nicholas told you we fought again and that Lord Davis put me in my place yesterday. And now you feel bad because you still haven’t told Nicholas that you can generate aether, and you think if you had, maybe he’d realize my instincts were right, and I wouldn’t be out here crushing trees and feeling sorry for myself.”

  I sputter, but I can’t deny the ring of truth in Sel’s words. Is that what brought me here through the woods to him? Guilt?

  “Move.” I take a step, but he matches me again. His eyes gleam, mocking the thoughts he’d deduced from me like a demonic Sherlock Holmes.

  “Well, don’t bother feeling guilty,” Sel purrs. “For our once and future king, the ends will never justify the means. He’s a good person like that. And further, Nicholas doesn’t care about what you can do, he only cares about you. A fact now fully impressed upon the recently disgraced Page Schaefer. As a matter of fact, how do you think he’d feel if he heard you sought me out in the woods while I was drunk on aether?” His gaze hits me all over—sharp pricks across my face, down my throat, and over my bare arms.

  Face hot, I flounder for words. “I—I have no idea.”

  He snorts. “Liar. Nicholas would draw and quarter me and you know it.”

  “That’s a little dramatic.”

  He unhitches himself from the tree and stands up, shaking his head. “Do you honestly not realize what he feels for you?”

  He’s turning everything around so quickly. I feel a wave of confusing emotions: fury at him still for following me, pleasure at hearing about the strength of Nick’s feelings for me, guilt for being here against Nick’s wishes and our agreed-upon rule, and bewilderment that I’m having boy talk with Sel.

  “You don’t.” Sel glares at me, and this close I can see the fine tremor in his mouth, his shoulders, all the way down to his fists. He steps closer, crowding me. “Not fully.”

  I back away, but it’s a mistake. There’s only a foot between me, the edge of the ridge, and a steep drop down to the valley and the arena floor below. It’s much too much like our first meeting. And this time I know exactly who Sel is and what he’s capable of.

  “Sel, stop it! I’m gonna fall!”

  He shrugs. “Only if you move.”

  “Let me pass.”

  “No. You’re going to stand right here and listen to me explain something to you.”

  I glance over my shoulder. He’s right; I
’m safe—if I don’t move again. “Explain what?”

  “Do you know why Merlins serve the Legendborn?”

  That catches me off guard. “No.”

  “Guess.”

  His tone is so sharp, I speak slowly to avoid being cut. “To fight the Shadowborn?”

  “Adorable.” He rolls his eyes. “The Shadowborn are evil, but don’t think for one second that every Merlin serves the Order wholly out of the goodness of their heart. You called me a crossroads child once, but you don’t fully understand what that means. You can’t.”

  He takes another step forward, not enough to push me over but close enough that I can smell lingering spice from the Oath on his skin and feel the warmth rolling off him. A memory of his heated fingers that first night at the Lodge flashes through my mind, and I wonder, just briefly, if the rest of him runs just as hot.

  “Merlin children are, for all intents and purposes, fully human at birth. But when we turn seven, the changes begin—the strength, the speed, the senses—and with those changes comes a type of… countdown. Every year after that we gain power and our connection to aether deepens, and every year we lose a bit more of our humanity. We call it ‘succumbing to the blood.’ ” Sel shudders, eyes focusing on me again. “When Merlin created the Legendborn spell for Arthur and his knights, he designed a similar spell for himself. One that would allow all of his descendants to inherit the unique mage abilities he’d honed over time—mesmer, constructs, an affinity for aether.” The tiny tips of his white canines gleam as he speaks. “But Merlin knew his own nature. He knew that demons only care for themselves and chaos, and powerful but uncontrollable part demons would never be compatible servants to the eternal Order he and Arthur envisioned. So, in his spell, Merlin folded in a bit of insurance.”

  My chest is suddenly tight. “What kind of insurance?”

  Bitterness turns his features sharp in the shadows. “Do you remember when I told you that the hellfox couldn’t dust with a part of you still inside it? That’s because the darkness of the underworld and the light of the living shouldn’t exist in one body. My blood is fighting itself every day. The older I get, the stronger the demon essence becomes, but my commitments to this Order and its members keep me from going over.”

  I return his stare, horror and understanding washing over me in a wave. “The Oaths…”

  “The Oaths.” His eyes are suddenly bright. Fierce. “They are Merlin’s insurance that his descendants would never abandon his mission. Performing them, fulfilling them, no matter how large or how small the task. It’s the Oaths that bind the two sides of a Merlin together. As long as we are in service, we are in control of our own souls. It’s why they Oath us early, before we’re old enough for our blood to gain a foothold.”

  Cecilia’s voice comes back to me, and what she said about the infant in Pearl’s arms. Cast it away before it could grow large enough to do harm.

  Sel’s not done yet. His eyes dart back and forth across my face, cataloging my responses to his words. “There. You understand now. You can see how, for any Merlin—even a weak one—raised as a human among humans, the greatest punishment would be to cast us out of the Order’s service. Force us to witness our own regression. To strip a Merlin powerful enough to earn the title of Kingsmage of that same title would mean taking them away from their charge. Cutting them off from the immense connective power of that Oath. It’s a penalty so severe that it’s never been done before.”

  The burning heat rolling off him and the poison in his eyes scare me more than his temper ever has.

  “But we are two Called Scions away from Camlann. So, after Nicholas told his father what I did to you, Lord Davis threatened to replace me. Take my title, cast me out. Leave me to self-destruction.” He huffs. “Bullies, like I said.”

  Air leaves my lungs in a rush, like I’ve been tossed over the cliff myself. “No, that… that sounds like torture. Nick wouldn’t let that happen—”

  “Oh, it is torture. But if the Order thinks I’m growing unstable, that is exactly what Nicholas will be forced to do.” His face turns sour. “These are the choices kings make, mystery girl.”

  “I’ll talk to him. I’ll tell him—”

  I don’t get to finish my sentence, because Sel spins me in a blur of speed, pushing me to the path. “Too late. Go away.”

  “Sel—” I smell the crackle of Sel’s casting and turn to see him standing at the edge of the cliff, his hair swaying gently in the early stages of mage flame, his eyes shining like stoked coals.

  “Nicholas thinks I’m losing my humanity. Maybe I am. But I have not lost my dignity,” he sneers. “I don’t need your help.”

  Before I can say another word, he steps over the cliff and drops out of sight, landing without a sound far below.

  37

  THE MOON LIGHTS my sprint to the Lodge, but by the time I reach the back lawn, clouds have folded in, solid and thick like a sheet cake.

  I slip in the side door. There are a few night-owl members still awake in the great room. I climb the stairs to avoid their attention. When I finally reach Nick’s room and slip inside, the adrenaline that carried me through the woods slips out of my body, and I collapse in a heap on his bed, turning Sel’s words over and over in my mind.

  I did this, I think. Just by being here.

  I’ve gone from being hunted by Sel to being the reason his title, his humanity, his very soul, is at risk. And what’s worse, the hot fury I’d grown used to seeing in him has turned into something darker. The desolation in his eyes, the self-hatred…

  I pull out my phone, but there’s a reason to skip every one of my recent contacts. I texted Alice earlier to say I wouldn’t be home tonight, and what could I say to her anyway? Where would I have to start and stop? I’d been texting my father with updates that “everything is going well with Patricia,” so how do I tell him that she let me go? He’ll find out soon enough when she calls him, and I don’t have the energy to think that far ahead. Nick is driving to pick up his father, and I’d have to wait until he gets home to tell him about the red flames I can’t control.

  In the end, every conversation would require an explanation first, because no one in my life knows all of the threads that have led me here.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, but the tears come anyway, dropping onto the cheery blue-and-white comforter until there’s an ugly stain.

  * * *

  I must have fallen asleep on Nick’s bed, because a loud slam jerks me awake. I rub at the damp skin of my cheek where the wrinkled fabric of the comforter has pressed it into misshapen creases. A moment later, there’s another loud slam, this time overhead.

  Sel.

  Sarah said that when he was done, he came home and slammed doors, then shut himself in his room. I imagine him there, drained from destroying half the forest, maybe still recovering from aether’s effects. I check the clock.

  It’ll be hours still before Nick comes back. I already know I’ll tell him everything that’s happened. I’ll even break Patricia’s trust and tell him about Rootcraft. But I know that Sel is right; it won’t change how Nick feels about his Kingsmage, the boy he’s been bonded to most of his life.

  The Wall of Ages stretches up in my memory. Their names, carved side by side for years. Nicholas Martin Davis. Selwyn Emrys Kane.

  If Lord Davis takes Sel’s title, will he remove his name from the Wall? Sand the silver until it’s smooth, like Sel was never there? Dig his ceremonial marble out, replace it with another—

  I sit straight up on the bed, a realization striking me like lightning.

  * * *

  The tower rooms are at the far end of the top floor’s residence halls. The dim hallway ends in a T shape, with a nameplate that points left for the north wing and right for the south. Faint music, slow and bass-heavy, reaches me through a door on my right.

  I stop in front of a plain wooden door with a brass plate bearing the initials S.K.

  Half a second after I knock, I remind myself t
hat it’s useless to listen for his footsteps. Half a second after that, I’m struck thoughtless—because Sel flings the door open wearing nothing but a deeply annoyed expression and a pair of low-slung jeans.

  I can’t help but follow the path of banded muscles from his abdomen to his chest. Intricate black and gray tattoos encircle his arms, cover his shoulders, and connect in a Celtic knot on his breastbone. I should look away, but instead I notice the droplets of water that fall from his thick black hair and the tiny transparent beads still clinging to his lashes.

  His eyes widen before he trains his features into an annoyed glare. “I told you to go away.”

  I raise my chin. “I need to talk to you. Can I come in?”

  I take a step forward, but he shoots a toned arm out across the doorway to block my path. “ ‘Go away’ is a complete sentence.”

  “What you said earlier about the Order never stripping a Kingsmage of their title? It’s not true.”

  I’ve never seen Sel look so shocked, or confused. As still as a painting. He’s so stunned by my words that I’m able to duck under his arm before he can stop me.

  His room is circular, following the cylindrical shape of the tower itself, with windows curving along the exterior wall. A bed extends into the center of the room from a curved wall; on one side is a desk piled high with books, some modern, some old, and a laptop. On the other there’s a small rug and what looks like an altar of candles. Fragrant, clean-smelling steam drifts out of a door left ajar, leading to an en suite. He’s just taken a shower.

  The door closes behind me, and Sel leans against it, annoyed glare restored. “Nicholas will be home in a couple of hours, and if he knows you’re here, he’ll either punch me again or take my title, or both, so if you have something to share, do it now and quickly.” He wipes a hand down his face. To my dismay, it does extremely distracting things to his stomach muscles. Things I don’t want to notice.

  I look away, a spike of guilt making my throat tight. “Can you please put a shirt on so we can have a serious conversation?”