The Legendborn Cycle, #1
Legendborn
by Tracy Deonn
Contents
Chapter 26
Overview
Patricia’s Rootcraft lesson becomes a dangerous ancestral memory walk that shows Bree the origins, limits, and moral stakes of Rootcraft and Bloodcraft. Bree witnesses Mary healing Abby after racial violence, learns the Order’s magic is understood by Rootcrafters as stolen ancestral power, and is pulled into further memories of a demon-born crossroads child and a Shadowborn Gate opening at Carolina.
The chapter reframes Carolina as a landscape of buried Black suffering and magical history, tying Bree’s investigation to older violences and to an attack that occurred when Faye may have been on campus. Bree emerges with new urgency, anger, and a stronger sense of belonging to the forgotten bloodlines beneath the school.
Summary
Patricia takes Bree on a memory walk through Louisa’s ancestral memory, transporting them from the cemetery to a cabin in June 1865. There, Bree watches Louisa and Mary tend to Abby, a young Black woman brutally whipped by Carr after being accused of disrespecting a white woman. Patricia explains that this suffering and the need to survive strengthened the alliance between living Rootcrafters and their ancestors.
Mary uses Wildcraft to heal Abby, drawing golden root into her hands while herbs wither beside her. Bree recognizes the glow as mage flame and says so, startling Patricia, who realizes Bree can see root. When Bree admits she learned those terms from the Order, Patricia calls the Legendborn Bloodcrafters and condemns their magic as stolen ancestral power and colonizer magic.
The memory breaks its own rules when Louisa sees Bree and pulls her into another ancestral memory, leaving Patricia behind. In 1815, Bree witnesses Pearl giving birth to a baby with glowing amber eyes. Cecilia, Louisa’s grandmother, identifies the infant as a crossroads child, born of a demon-like crossroads man, and says Pearl’s community forced Pearl to cast the child away before it could grow dangerous.
Cecilia then drags Bree into a more recent memory at Carolina, where Patricia’s sister Ruth is a student. Near the Bell Tower, Ruth secretly watches a hooded figure chant, coat a gloved hand in blood, and draw green mage flame into a veil-like opening. Through that gate, Bree sees hellhounds entering the world, revealing that someone opened a Shadowborn Gate on campus about twenty-five years earlier.
Bree wakes beside Patricia shaken by the memories. Patricia confirms Ruth attended Carolina about twenty-five years ago, making Bree think of Faye’s own time on campus and fear that the ancestors showed her these scenes for a reason. Bree leaves abruptly, tries to call Nick, and runs toward the Lodge, but first stops at Carr’s monument.
At the statue, Bree sees Carr’s honored image differently after witnessing Abby’s suffering. Bree maps Carolina’s hidden histories of violence, stolen blood, and forgotten Black lives, claiming those buried lineages as part of herself. Bree presses both palms against Carr’s statue and pushes, not moving it but feeling stronger, rooted, and ready to act.
Who Appears
- Bree MatthewsExperiences ancestral memories, learns hard truths about magic, and claims Carolina’s buried Black histories.
- PatriciaGuides Bree into Louisa’s memory and explains Rootcraft, Wildcraft, and Bloodcraft’s stolen power.
- LouisaPatricia’s ancestor; tends Abby, then sees Bree and pulls her into another memory.
- MaryA Wildcrafter who uses ancestral root and herbs to save Abby from lethal wounds.
- AbbyYoung Black woman brutally whipped by Carr and partially healed by Mary’s Wildcraft.
- CeciliaLouisa’s grandmother; shows Bree Pearl’s child and Ruth’s memory of the gate.
- PearlYoung mother whose newborn is revealed as a demon-born crossroads child.
- RuthPatricia’s late sister; as a student, witnesses a hooded figure opening a gate.
- Hooded figureUnknown blood user who opens a green flaming gate near Carolina’s Bell Tower.
- CarrWhite attacker who whipped Abby; later honored by a campus statue Bree confronts.