Oathbound (Legendborn, #3)

by Tracy Deonn

Six months ago, my mother was still alive and I didn’t know what death looked like. Now I know what it sounds like.

“This is what leaders do, child. Find each other and wring out what only their equal can provide.

“Strength, power, and control are what you wish to possess, girl!” the King shouts, coming to a stop. “Not what you wish to become.”

Vera’s voice returns to me: You are the one who decides now how to keep our Line alive, Briana Matthews. But Vera doesn’t understand that this world has curdled her amazing gift into a curse. After eight generations of fear and soul-tearing grief, of our mothers dying when we needed them most, of losing the knowledge that could have connected us to one another and to Vera herself… the old violence hasn’t died; it has simply found new life. Our bodies break down like clockwork, our mothers die early, our daughters die young, then it begins anew. Our cycle is death and confusion—and I have not learned enough to break it. But I will.

Sometimes you need another voice to press itself into you and remind you that you’re right to say the scary thing, even if that scary thing is absolutely true.

I feel like a container of leftovers in the fridge. A mystery of unknown and undesirable origin. Something they know they need to discard.

Cowardice and bigotry don’t have to have faces. Their actions speak loudly enough.

The world is here, around and between us, and we’re allowed to live in it. We’re allowed to figure out what we want from our time on the planet—and who. Or at least, we should be.

I want to chase myself through his lips. Climb into the knowledge of us that I’m suddenly, inexplicably certain he possesses. I want to burrow into his memories of me. Map my history using the heat of his hands against my skin. I fall and fall. I’m kissing a strange thief in a strange elevator, and I have no idea why except I have every idea why. Because he tastes like comfort and safety. Like fresh laundry from the dryer. A soft couch before a fireplace. A knowing type of exposure that feels like falling, falling.

“Wealthy people don’t think anyone else deserves to get paid for their labor. They’re the worst tippers in the world.”