Legendborn: Chapters 33–40

After the meeting with Patricia and Mariah, several hours ignoring their calls, and a fitful nap that left me more tired than rested, I arrive at the Lodge completely uninterested in sitting at a table and making small talk.

“We are here for the next five nights to oversee your preparation for the combat trial, and assist with skill acquisition as necessary.”

When Gillian takes a step forward, the weight on her left side lands differently: she wears a prosthesis. It’s possible she’s always used it, and equally possible she’d been injured in battle.

“Over the next three nights, we will begin the evening with a demonstration, modeling the bouts you will undertake on Thursday evening. These bouts will be Page against Page, and structured so that each of you has an opportunity to demonstrate your skill—or weakness—with each form of combat.”

To anyone else he looks like his normal broody, stoic self, but I can tell it’s just a front; his casting smells acrid and sharp in my nose.

Finally, one sharp crack to the head sends Owen to a knee. He raises a hand to concede, and the fight is finished.

Today her glasses are Carolina blue, and her shawl is cerulean and gold paisley.

“I think you are suffering from traumatic grief now, and if you continue as you are over time, you’ll likely develop a condition called Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder. Panic attacks, or something like them. Your anger, your distrust of new people, your obsession with the circumstances of her death, and your inability to truly live forward? These are all classic symptoms of PCBD.”

She turns then, eyes more somber than I’ve ever seen them. “I thought that I could help ease you through grief by connecting you to your mother and our community, but I made a mistake."

“There comes a time when even passive support turns to endorsement, and I won’t endorse what you’re doing with the Order. I can’t.”

We call Bloodcraft a curse because power taken and not returned incurs a debt, and the universe and the dead will always come to collect, one way or another.

“Obstinate creature,” he huffs under his breath.

He looks skeptical, but some of the strain leaves his shoulders.

He watches the others file out while I try to find some semblance of reason.

His arm and weapon rain down again and again, each crack echoing in my ears like a thunderclap. Every block sends a teeth-jarring reverberation into my elbows.

Can’t help but notice his eyes meandering up my body, starting at my legs and lingering over my hips and chest.

I parry, catching the broad side of his sword against the hardest part of my own—the forte—and leap back.

Clean, oblique fracture to the r. clavicle.

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.”

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

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.

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...

“Can you please put a shirt on so we can have a serious conversation?”
He looks at me between his fingers. “Don’t tell me you’re prudish?”

“Shut up.”
“Churlish.”

“Because I don’t trust Lord Davis to speak the truth,” he says simply. Nothing in his tone holds rancor or spite. It’s a simple statement of fact.

After his wife departed, Davis doted on his son in every way possible. Gave in to his tantrums and fantasies.

'Documentation and affidavits about a spate of demon attacks on campus.'

The trip back to the Lodge goes just as quickly, but this time I’m on Sel's back as he leaps up to the second-floor trellis, then yanks on a ledge to propel us the rest of the way to his open window.

I reach for the top stack of papers with a shaking hand, but Sel has already found what we need: a slightly yellowed affidavit, three pages long and handwritten in a formal script.

I will begin this affidavit without equivocation of any kind.

All families have been paid a settlement from Order coffers via the University legal department.

The mixture of horror and shock contorting his face, marring his beautiful, precise features, sends a cold blade into my heart.

It was discovered that our Merlin and Kingsmage, Natasia Kane, opened the Gates herself using an arcane ritual and Cysgodanedig blood she procured specifically because of its strength and ability to open Gates of that size.

It was discovered that our Merlin and Kingsmage, Natasia Kane, opened the Gates herself using an arcane ritual and Cysgodanedig blood she procured specifically because of its strength and ability to open Gates of that size.

But we were swayed by her gifts and did not expect her corruption to manifest so early.

The Regents have advised that all records of Natasia Kane be expunged.

Addendum I: 5 years from incident
Natasia Kane has exhibited several years of stability. She will be released under probation and monitoring.

He turns, and his red-rimmed eyes sweep across my features. After a moment, a shadow crosses his face, and his mouth folds into a small, rueful smile, like he wants to admonish me and call me a liar.

And, it seems, I inherited her penchant for paranoia, so perhaps there is no mole at all and never was.

He looks between me and Sel's stoic expression, directs the blade of his anger at his Kingsmage.