by Tracy Deonn
The car approaches.
The accident.
Just an accident.
No one’s fault.
My mother wraps her hand around mine and squeezes.
“It comes for each of us, honey.”
Just before the car strikes, she presses her love against my heart, and fades.
I am myself, sitting in the hospital. The light in my chest is small,
a flame only just lit.
I revisit my own memory with my ancestor’s eyes.
Through her, I see my power, still new, simmering in my chest.
The police officer’s body shimmers
like air over hot summer asphalt.
The police officer and nurse brought me and my father into
a tiny, mint-green room.
The mesmered memory returns in full.
I see his badge, his shoulders wide as a door,
the stubble on his chin.
Bushy eyebrows, blue eyes.
I blink, and the shimmer dissipates. The glamour drops.
I see her old sweater, her narrow shoulders,
the tears streaming down her chin.
Black hair like a raven, black brows, face too beautiful to be real.
Features both young and old.
Two golden eyes like Sel’s, filled deep with sorrow.
Not like Sel’s…
They are Sel’s.
Sel’s mother’s lower lip trembles. She speaks through the pain.
“You won’t remember this,
but I want you to know
that she was my friend.”
55
BLACKNESS.
Vera stands before me, bathed in blood and flame,
hair stretching wide and loose like a live oak.
“Answers, but not an ending. Now that you have them,
do you still want to fight?”
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Then there is one final truth. A legacy forced, not given.
A burden I did not carry.”
A question in her eyes. A choice.
“I’m ready.”
She considers this. Nods.
“Then I will release him. And grant him voice.”
In the distance, a presence rises.
From the threshold between worlds, he calls my name.
All at once, I become we.
We are in the cave again.
We take one step and we are already at the stone.
We grasp the ancient hilt, warm under our fingers.
We pull Excalibur free.
56
THE MOMENT I raise Excalibur, the sword sings in my hand, hungry for war.
The blade’s aether rockets up my arm and slices through my consciousness, pulling me back to myself.
In the center of the diamond in its pommel, red root rises and bleeds until the stone shines like heartblood.
Engraved letters glint on both sides of the silver: Take Me Up. Cast Me Away.
Flames of blue and red ignite and swirl around my body, and Arthur’s armor builds in stripes and layers until it gleams like metal on my shoulders. In Excalibur’s reflection, my eyes burn crimson.
Vera passes a hand over my brow. Ghostly lips kiss my forehead before she bids me farewell.
“Stop her!” Lord Davis screams. Enraged, he points a trembling finger and calls the Legendborn to action. “Now!”
On the far end of the cave, Greer, Vaughn, Felicity, Tor, and Sar startle at Davis’s command. But they do not comply. Their eyes follow the sword in my hand.
Sel locks eyes with me from where he stands in the water below, an impossible mixture of emotions on his face.
Inside me, Arthur is the only presence. And his possession is nothing like Vera’s or my grandmother’s.
He jerks my arm up, leveling Excalibur at Davis. The words burst from my mouth—in both my voice and Arthur’s booming baritone. “Traitor! You levy war against the crown, lure our enemies to innocent blood, and now you dare rally my knights against me!”
“No, no—” Davis stammers, shaking his head over and over again. Murmuring denials, he stumbles and plummets backward into the water with a splash. He scrambles up like a rat and runs toward one of the tunnels.
Arthur takes me to the edge of the island, full of righteous fury and royal rage as Davis escapes. “You will not go unpunished!”
“Bree?”
Nick’s voice cuts through us both. Arthur turns my body until I face Nick where he stands with a hand half-raised to shield his eyes from my light. Our eyes meet across flames of red and blue.
I want to cry. I want to scream. But Arthur is in control of my voice and body, and even though he uses my eyes, he doesn’t see Nick at all.
“My brother Lancelot. My right hand. Camlann has come.”
Nick’s eyes go round.
We’d all seen Nick collapse, heard the ancient knight proclaim his presence and Awaken his Scion. Nick had been Called. Just not by Arthur.
Because I am Arthur’s Scion.
A screeching, grating laugh echoes back from the cavern ceiling. All of us turn, reminded of the immediate threat.
Rhaz and his army of demons, prowling on the banks. A hellbear, imps, foxes, and hounds, waiting for his command.
“Abomination!” Rhaz cries, his face split in a wicked grin. “But an Arthur just the same!” The demons yowl and yip, roar and scream—a war cry from the underworld. “Kill her!” he roars.
The beasts surge forward. Arthur raises Excalibur high. In our dual voice, he shouts, “To me, my knights!”
And then I’m sprinting off the island, vaulting in the air over the moat. The Legendborn are running with weapons raised—
I scream mid-leap, my will overpowering Arthur’s. “No!” I swing my free hand in a wide arc, fingers splayed. A twenty-foot wall of red flames erupts in front of the Legendborn. A barrier between them and the demons. Arthur’s confusion fills me as I land on the bank. “No more deaths!” I say, and switch the sword back to my right hand.
He doesn’t argue. Instead, he calls on aether to create a heavy, solid shield strapped to my left forearm, and we go to work.
The beasts converge on us. Arthur thrusts Excalibur down deep into the earth at my feet, sending a hot pulse of swirling aether out wide in a shining circle. The wave hits them all, knocking them back against the cave walls.
The imps recover first and dive at me in one howling flock.
There are three. Too fast and nimble for a single attack. Too far away for a sword.
Root crackles in my ears, alive and ready.
I open the furnace in my chest—and scream. Flame pours out of my mouth in a rolling ball, exploding into the first imp’s face. It shrieks, burns, bursts. Smoke everywhere. The second imp pulls up and away. The other is close enough. Got you. I use Arthur’s strength to jump, spearing it through its scaly belly. It dusts over me in a shower of green aether and smoke that blocks my vision.
A roar in the mist. A paw like concrete strikes me in the face, knocking me back. Crushes my nose and jaw. Pressing me down. Suffocating me. I flail with the sword, reaching for an impossible angle around the bear. I can’t breathe! I can’t—
‘Drop the sword.’
I do.
Arthur pushes my left shoulder back, then heaves the shield edge first into bone and muscle. The bear rears back with an angry yowl. Arthur sends me surging up with it, following the embedded shield until the bear hits the earth. Now we are on top. Arm out of the shield’s straps. Both hands now, digging the metal in farther. The bear roars in pain. The metal hits bone. Arthur’s strength, more than I could have imagined. The hellbear swipes, slashing my right shoulder—the skin opens up—and I scream.
The hounds howl at the scent and thunder toward us.
Foxes suck the floating aether away, and the smoke clears with it.
“Sword now?”
Arthur yanks me back off the bear. Flips me stomach-down on the ground to grab Excalibur.
<
br /> I roll back just in time to whip the flat of the blade up between a hound’s jaws. My arm shakes. I can’t hold the hound back. Saliva sizzles on the blade, on my cheek—
A crystalline spear shoots straight through its head. I crane my neck back, searching for the source upside down.
Sel stands on the island with the stone, another spear at the ready. He launches it. Impales the second hound. And leaps from the rock to the bank beside my head, eyes on the foxes, a ball of aether already blooming in each palm. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
Before I can respond, a high-pitched whizz streaks by my ear. Tor’s arrow, striking a fox in the throat. The other Legendborn stream forward, weapons raised against the four foxes. Nick’s in the air, bringing an aether sword down across a hound’s back as he lands. My root barrier is gone. I don’t know how.
I spring to my feet, but my right arm can no longer take the weight of Excalibur. I can’t—
‘Switch to sinister!’ Arthur yells.
“What?”
Sel’s head jerks in my direction. “What?”
‘LEFT HAND!’
“I’m not left-handed!”
‘You are now!’
I toss Excalibur to my left and feel the familiarity there. The surety.
The bear pounds toward me, gone berserk with pain. Sel meets it first, two daggers extended.
Movement to my left. Rhaz springs for me—the bear was a distraction, a setup. The demon’s fast—but my Bloodcraft roars to life, and for a second, I’m just as fast.
I spear Rhaz through his broken ribs, and Arthur’s strength helps me push the blade forward and in. Rhaz claws at Excalibur, but the blade bites into his hands. I lift the demon up, just like he did to Whitty. I watch him writhe and twist on his own death, and laugh—a joyous sound that crashes around the room. A sound that soars over the cries of his dying brethren and makes Sel and the Legendborn turn to watch us.
“What are you?!” Rhaz croaks.
Three voices answer him in a booming chorus. “I am a Medium, born from the earth. I am Bloodcrafted, born from resilience. I am Arthur, Awakened!”
“My death means nothing. Killing me won’t stop what’s coming. There are others of us in your midst,” he rasps, stilling on the sword. “The Line of Morgaine is rising.”
“Let her Line rise. We will rise against it.”
Rhaz growls deep in his throat, and his eyes roll back. He collapses inward, melting around the sword until all that’s left is a slimy stream.
I stand there, sword still raised, chest heaving and blood thundering through my veins. Every eye turns to me. Nick. Sel. Greer. Bloodied and panting, ichor covering their faces and torn clothes. Piles of isel dust around them.
I lower Excalibur, exhaustion overtaking me. All of that power—Vera’s, Arthur’s, my own. It’s too much. My vision blurs, and the cave spins. Nick steps toward me; so does Sel. To catch me, I think, before I fall.
Now that it’s over, maybe I’ll let them.
But Arthur is not done. To him, it’s not over.
Without warning, he seizes me up like a puppet, turning me to the Legendborn in the cave and roars, “Has it been so long? Do you not kneel for your king?”
I gasp in the silence after my own words. That’s not what this battle was. That’s not what this is. That’s not who I am.
I had to destroy these monsters, I yell at him. And we did. But this is not about demons. This is about you!
I fight against Arthur’s will, but he will not yield—not on this. He demands obeisance. Homage. And deference. Especially after Davis’s public betrayal.
Thankfully, no one moves.
Then, someone does.
“No,” I whisper, because I don’t want to hear it. But when Sel speaks, his voice is strong and clear.
“Y llinach yw’r ddeddf.”
The Line is Law.
He drops to one knee, and bows his head deep.
A second passes. Another voice rises. Sarah’s.
“The Line is Law.”
One by one, she and the others bend, kneeling to their king. Kneeling to me.
Tor stands still, shock and fury shaking her frame, locking her legs in place. Arthur roars at her insubordination, but I don’t care.
I turn to Nick, pleading, but there’s nothing he can do. His ocean eyes are kaleidoscopes of emotion, turning so fast I can’t read them.
“No…”
“Y llinach yw’r ddeddf.” On the final word, his voice cracks—and despair slashes across his features like lightning. Then, a smile. Small, worried, sad.
“No.”
His weight shifts. “It’s okay—”
“Please, don’t—”
But Nick falls to one knee anyway and bows until I can no longer see his face.
This isn’t what I wanted! I scream at Arthur. I don’t want this!
“A fo ben bid bont.” Arthur speaks through my voice, so that his answer is both for me and every Legendborn present. “They that would be a leader, let them be a bridge.”
The king’s spirit subsides until I am myself again. Bereft, empty, and buzzing with power. I plunge Excalibur back into its stone as if to seal Arthur there.
I know it’s no use. He’s part of me now.
Realization dawns through my dizzy, floating brain: the Legendborn remain bowed, because I am the one who must release them.
“Rise,” I whisper, then collapse.
57
I WAKE TO the sun shining through the curtains. Everything, and I mean everything, hurts. I’m so weak that it takes three attempts to turn over on my side in bed. When I do, two sticky notes fall from my forehead.
You collapsed in the ogof, but not
before driving Excalibur back into
the stone. Sel carried you back
through the tunnels.
It was all very dramatic, or so
I’ve heard. I hooked you up to
an IV for fluids, (cont’d)
but I expect you’ll wake up
famished. Alice told me to put
cheesy grits on the stove.
(I like her.) Lots to talk about.
Come down to the great room
when you’re ready.
—W
I smile, grateful that Alice knows me so well. Then the memories flow back and take my breath away until my chest feels like it could collapse.
I bury my face in the pillow and cry. For Vera. For my ancestors. For my family. For my mother. For all of my people. For the thread of death and violence forcibly woven into our blood, and the resistance we had to grow to survive it.
I cry for the deaths I witnessed—and couldn’t stop—for Fitz and Whitty and Russ.
I cry for me.
I’m not Nick. I’m not some chosen one. I am the product of violence, and I am the Scion of Arthur, and I don’t want to be either. I just want to be my mother’s daughter. And my father’s. I just want to be me.
But I know it will never be that simple again. I will never be that simple again.
My lineages are bound together in inextricable, horrible truths, and there’s no untangling them from my destiny, whether I’m ready to face it or not.
Sel bursts through the doors, and I shoot upright. “Where is he?” His hair is sticking up in every direction, his yellow eyes wild, and his clothes are covered with dirt and leaves.
“Where’s who?” I croak. I finally take a hard look at my surroundings and realize I’m in Nick’s empty room.
As Sel blurs from one end of the room to the other, opening the bathroom doors and the closet, a heavy, cold feeling settles in my stomach. “Sel?” When he stops in front of me, he roars in frustration. “Sel—”
His eyes find mine, and they are wide, lost. “They took him. They took Nick.”
* * *
I pace the room calling his phone without success for half an hour before Sarah stops me and pushes me to the couch. She disappears into the kitchen mumbling som
ething about caffeine. Panic and tension have set every Legendborn on edge.
“Has anyone else tried calling him?” Tor asks for the fifth time.
“Kidnappers don’t tend to let their hostages call home, Victoria!” Sel bites out. He shifts beside me in the chair, and I feel the heat of aether radiating from his skin.
“How do you know it was Lord Davis and Isaac?” I ask around the catch that has formed in my throat. I’m trying to push fear for Nick out of my immediate consciousness, but the efforts are no good.
“Because,” Sel says, shoving himself to his feet, exasperated to be repeating his story for a third time, “Isaac mesmered me. I was up late in the kitchen after we returned from the cave because I couldn’t sleep. Isaac slipped into the house, I turned around, and he was just there—taking over my vision, eyes locked, full mesmer. Then I woke up thirty minutes ago in the woods two miles from here. He got me out of the picture so he could grab Nick.”
“And Nick’s not in danger?” Tor demands.
“No. I would feel if his life was being threatened.” Sel shakes his head. “Doesn’t mean he’s safe, though.”
“But Nick and Bree were in the same room,” Felicity says in a wavering voice. She looks horrible. Her hands won’t stop shaking. My heart hurts just looking at her, trying to be strong when Russ is… gone. “Why didn’t Isaac take her? Control the Scion of Arthur?”
Sel’s already considered this. “Because an Awakened Scion of Arthur he can’t control with powers he doesn’t understand is too risky. Dangerous, even for a Master.”
“Speaking of powers he doesn’t understand…” William enters the room with more records. “A Medium, you said? And…?”
Sel watches me respond as he paces. “I—yes. A Medium and… a Bloodcrafter. I can generate my own aether.”
William whistles. “Handy. The Medium bit explains why Arthur can possess you the way he did. We sometimes inherit personality traits but… what he—and you—did is nothing I’ve ever heard of—the Pendragon speaking directly through his Scion—”
“You’ve never heard of it before because it’s never happened before.” Sel drags both hands through his hair. “William, this isn’t the time—”
“This is the time, Selwyn!” William shouts. “You yourself said you could feel if Nick is in harm’s way. He’s not. We need to arm ourselves with information. About Bree, about Nick, about how this all happened.”