Legendborn (Legendborn, #1)

by Tracy Deonn

They are past-tensing my heart—my whole beating, bleeding, torn heart—right in front of me. It is a violation.

I don’t know if there’s a single Black person in this country who can say with 100 percent confidence that they feel safe with the police.

Growing up Black in the South, it’s pretty common to find yourself in old places that just… weren’t made for you.

My dorm is an antebellum building. Not built for people that looked like me, but definitely built by them. And the Lodge…?

so these climbers will do anything to curry favor with their assigned bloodline in hopes that their child will get tapped,” he’d scoffed. “But those Vassals don’t want to help people, they want the status. And they put their kid in harm’s way to get it.”

“Fifteen hundred years is a long time to operate. The Order was never above the world’s brutality. It still isn’t.”

“It’s not the broken bones or the bruises, the black eyes or the concussions, that keep me up at night.

For the first time in a long while, I let myself enjoy a moment of warmth and safety without wondering if it’s real.

“Lots of Black folks in the States don’t know their people more than four, five generations back, don’t

“Never forget. Be angry. And channel it.”

My agony has a hunger, I’ve discovered. It doesn’t want the truth. Not really. It just wants to feed itself sorrow until no other emotion is left.

reaches across the table to take both of my hands in his. “Don’t make your life about the loss. Make it about the love.”

I’m not some chosen one. I am the product of violence, and

Unspeakable evil gave me Arthur, Vera’s resistance gave me power, but I earned my will.