The Legendborn Cycle, #3
Oathbound
by Tracy Deonn
Contents
Chapter II
Overview
The Shadow King takes Briana to the murdered Merlin Erebus’s home, where Briana learns he has wards: the cambion twins Zoelle and Elijah. Their attempt to feed on Briana’s unsealed power becomes proof that Briana is dangerously visible to magical predators.
Erebus turns the attack into Briana’s first lesson, forcing her to run while the twins hunt her by sensing her power. The chapter shifts Briana from bargaining for training to actively enduring the Shadow King’s brutal methods, with survival and control becoming immediate stakes.
Summary
Briana Matthews and the Shadow King travel again through shadows, each leap physically painful, until they arrive in a tidy brick-floored foyer in an unfamiliar home. The Shadow King shifts back into Erebus’s form and reveals the house belonged to the real Erebus, whom the demon murdered. Briana questions how long the demon has been impersonating the Merlin and how much of Erebus’s life and training he stole, but the Shadow King only tells her to wait and vanishes.
Left alone, Briana studies the ordinary, well-kept house and wonders whether her choice to leave with the Shadow King has trapped her in a worse fate. When Briana senses a demon watching, she prepares to defend herself and confronts Zoelle, a Black girl who appears human until her eyes flash red. Briana identifies Zoelle as a balanced cambion and realizes Zoelle is attracted to the power Briana cannot hide.
Zoelle attacks playfully but dangerously, and Briana counters with root flame and an iron fireplace poker. Another cambion, Elijah, appears and blocks Briana’s escape. The twins reveal themselves as siblings and try to corner Briana for a “taste” of her power, but Briana uses her training and Arthur’s strength to flip Elijah through a glass coffee table, exposing that the cambions are strong but not as disciplined as Merlins.
Erebus returns and immediately forces Zoelle and Elijah to kneel. The twins explain that they thought Briana was tribute, and Erebus rebukes them because any tribute’s power would belong to him, not them. He identifies Zoelle and Elijah as his wards, then turns the confrontation into Briana’s first lesson: calling power is not enough; Briana must learn to seal it so demons and cambions cannot sense and hunt her.
Erebus sends Briana into the woods with a ten-minute head start while Zoelle and Elijah prepare to track her using only aether sense. Although Zoelle asks whether they can eat Briana if they catch her, Erebus only says he will consider it. Briana runs, accepting that survival requires mastering every lesson the Shadow King gives her so she can become strong enough that no human, demon, cambion, spirit, Morgaine, or Regent can hurt her again.
Who Appears
- Briana MatthewsChooses survival through training, fights cambion twins, and begins learning to seal her power.
- Erebus / the Shadow KingDemon king impersonating the murdered Merlin; controls his wards and starts Briana’s harsh training.
- ZoelleBalanced cambion ward of Erebus; attacks Briana after sensing her tempting power.
- ElijahZoelle’s twin and Erebus’s ward; helps corner Briana but is thrown through a table.