Oathbound (Legendborn, #3)

by Tracy Deonn

“I burned it. Scorched it with my root. Cut myself off from Arthur, from Vera, from… everyone. Even my mother.” Mariah sucks in a breath. “How could you?” She stumbles back, distancing herself from me. “Bree, how could you?” And suddenly, there it is. The afterimage feeling, the deep gut echo, the single resonant emotion that my mind has assigned to Mariah: shame.

Deep, world-stopping, blanketing shame. Shame that slices. That makes one feel impossibly small and permanently suspended, in space, in time, in life. That makes me wonder if I’m worth other people’s worry. Shame so consuming, it paralyzes my heart, my voice, my mouth. It takes a few attempts to start talking again, for thoughts to become words, for words to become sound. “After the revival at Volition, I felt so… so abandoned. My mom was gone, and my ancestors couldn’t help me, and I—” My eyes

“She made a desperate decision during an impossible time, Bree,” Mariah cries. “If she hadn’t made the choices she did, you wouldn’t exist. You owe her respect.” “I don’t blame her for her choices.” “Then how could you—” She shakes her head. “You were their chosen one!”

“I never asked to be chosen! Being open to everyone meant being vulnerable to Arthur!” I say, pulling on the silver curl at my temple. “You were the most powerful Medium I’d ever met!” Mariah says. “You were the culmination of it all. The answer. The plan.” My heart crumples inside my chest. “But I’m just one person, Mariah. I can’t be everyone’s answer. I can’t be everyone’s plan.” She shakes her head again, like my story isn’t enough. And maybe it isn’t, but it’s what I have and I know it’s true.

The girl shakes her head, wiping at her eyes before she answers. “Yes, you did. They told us a Rootcrafter girl sent them to find us, and I wondered if it was you.” She squeezes my hands in hers. “You didn’t forget me.” I don’t have an answer for that. How could I have forgotten her? With every person who has gone missing in my own mind, with parts of myself going missing too, holding on to her felt easy… because it was right.

Valec crosses his arms, smirking. “See, I wasn’t gonna say anything.” “Why not?” Zoe asks. “Somebody has to keep Bree on her toes.” “You’re right,” Valec agrees solemnly. “I lied. I was gonna say something.” “See?” Zoe says to Valec. “You should have seen them at Penumbra—” “No.” I point between the two of them. “You two getting along is a cursed combination. Make it stop.”

Valec snickers. “Nah.” He regards Zoe, who looks up at him with wide, hesitant eyes. “Besides, I have a feeling we have a lot we could talk about, huh, kid?” Zoe wrinkles her nose but nods. “Yeah, I guess.” “When you’re ready,” Valec adds. She shrugs and looks away. “Yeah.” Valec turns back to me. “After we’re done giving the powerhouse here a hard time about her white boys, that is,” he says—and they both collapse with laughter. I roll my eyes, but don’t fight the amused smile curling my lips. “Cursed. Combination.”

The flood of emotions that rushes into me when I meet my father’s gaze makes me burst into tears on the porch—near-violent, shoulder-wracking sobs that probably startle everyone with their abrupt appearance. Then, I feel warm arms around me, smell a comforting, sharp cologne, and I’m being guided back into Hazel’s house and onto her couch. I don’t know how long I sob against my father’s chest. I come back to the room slowly, to his arms rocking me, the sound of his low hum against my ear, and little rhythmic squeezes of my shoulder that remind me that I am loved.