Bloodmarked

This chapter is from Bree’s point of view as she wakes up in a memory at the original Round Table. Usually she’s in Arthur’s body, but this time she’s in her own, and the knights can’t see her. She realizes she’s in Arthur’s dreams of an “imagined Camelot,” the same place Arthur was between Awakenings (501).

A lightning bolt cracks the Round Table. More bolts kill every knight and chase Bree through a door. On the other side, Morgaine tries to compel Arthur to follow her somewhere. When Bree tries to tell Arthur it’s a dream, the lightning starts again. She realizes that if she doesn’t pretend the dreams are real, they’ll turn into nightmares. She follows Arthur and Morgaine.

Back in Arthur’s point of view, he confronts the Shadow King. Arthur has inherited Bree’s passive abilities to feel and smell magic but cannot purposefully call her root. The Shadow King knows the Round Table is in “disarray.” Arthur attacks him; the Shadow King will only defend, calling Bree his “investment.” He reveals her bloodmark but won’t tell Arthur why he marked the Line of Vera. He vanishes.

Erebus manages to pin Arthur’s arms. More Mageguard arrive, including Lark. Mariah, Lucille, and Patricia tell Erebus only they know how to exorcize Arthur. Cestra tries to put void handcuffs on Bree; Patricia and Lucille forbid her from putting chains on Bree in the place where their ancestors died. Cestra orders Lark to fetch Sel and Alice; he hesitates before going to talk to Will. Erebus also hesitates at Cestra’s order to cuff Bree.

The moment the cuffs close, Volition’s barrier sends a wave of power. Erebus won’t latch the second cuff. When Cestra does, fissures in the ground open and begin to swallow Order-owned SUVs. Erebus flees with Cestra and Bree’s body. They try to get Lark, but he’s fleeing to safety with William and the Rootcrafters.

When Arthur wakes, Cestra says the Legendborn have all gathered at the Northern Chapter to vote about whether they should oust the Regents; there are rumors about what the Regents have done to Bree. Cestra now hopes to use Bree and Arthur as a bargaining chip.

When they arrive at the Northern Chapter, Arthur recognizes Southern Chapter members from Bree’s memories. The Southern Chapter wants answers; it becomes clear Tor has betrayed them and spied for the Regents. As the Regents and Legendborn argue, a small group of people Arthur doesn’t recognize trap the Regents and Seneschals in a magical barrier. They’re led by a young woman named Ava, who Arthur recognizes as a descendant of Morgaine.

Greer says the Morgaines came to them with knowledge about what the Regents were doing to Bree and her friends. The Seneschals break the magical prison. They fight the Morgaines and Legendborn while the Regents flee. Arthur picks up the broken remains of his sword, which Aldrich had dropped before fleeing, and uses it to break his cuffs. Power renewed, Arthur faces off against Ava, who says that for the cycle to die, Arthur must die.

In Arthur’s dream, Bree follows Arthur and Morgaine to the Shadow King’s crown in its aether box. She thinks that the crown is an aether-object tied to its user. Bree touches the crown; it lights up her bloodmark, empowers her root, and makes her visible to Morgaine. Merlin comes to defend Morgaine and Arthur.

Bree realizes the Hunter, Great Devourer, and Shadow King are all the same. She runs from Merlin, who is joined by Lancelot. They believe she is a demon. Bree has better control over her root. She summons it into protective dragon scales that cover her body. She makes wings and soars the skies. Below, Lancelot and Merlin call for her to come down.

It’s Nick and Sel, though Bree fights back, not believing they’re real. Sel inhales Bree’s root power to save her; Nick doesn’t want him to, but there’s no other way. This brings Bree back to reality, though they’re still in the dream realm. Sel’s eyes are entirely red and his fingers end in black claws. Saving her has brought him to the precipice of demonia.

Bree didn’t take her Oath during the Rite; now, she gets the idea to outright reject her Oaths. She wakes up in her own body. Nick and Sel bloodwalked to find her; Nick is awake, but Sel is unconscious. They’re surrounded by Scions, Squires, Lieges, and Morgaines—some Bree knows and some she doesn’t.

Bree visits Alice, who’s in a coma. William used aether to save her, but aether has strange effects on Onceborn. The aether isn’t fading from her system, and he doesn’t know what will happen to her. William leaves when Sel begins to wake; they aren’t sure how human he will be.

Bree speaks to Alice about what led to her return to her body. Nick felt Sel’s emotions and called Gill, who picked him up and united with the people at Volition. They joined the fight at the Northern Chapter. Nick convinced Ava to let him and Sel rescue Bree.

The next morning, Bree bloodwalks to the ancestral plane using Excalibur. Bree uses root to burn all the streams. She tells the spirit of Vera that she finally stopped trying to do things other people’s way and chose herself. Vera warns that “chaos favors imbalance” and she’ll regret it (546).

When she leaves the bloodwalk, she still has her root power, but it is no longer tied to her “ancestors’ instructions.” She re-forges Excalibur, sends out a pulse of root, and waits for the Hunter. He morphs through the shapes he appeared to her ancestors in, then the one he appeared to her in: Erebus. Seeing the Shadow King’s crown made her realize who he was.

He’d been waiting to make a deal with a Scion of Arthur; it happened to be Vera. He senses their root when they’re in danger; he hasn’t been trying to kill them, but to protect them. He’d hoped one day a daughter would be Awakened; when that daughter died, she’d release enough power to help him reclaim his crown.

She makes a deal with him: She’ll travel with him if he teaches her to control and grow her power. He warns her that he’ll kill her when she’s at peak strength. In exchange, she wants him to take Sel to Natasia, who’s the only person who might be able to save him.

Erebus agrees and brings Sel to Natasia. From a distance, Nick and William see Bree with Erebus. She takes Erebus’s hand and disappears.

Deonn’s author’s note has four parts. The first, “Grief and Trauma,” describes how “all expensive grief can be” (555), especially for Black women who both want to honor their ancestors’ lives and yet cannot be their “every wish.” The second, “On Black Excellence and Being the ‘First,’” describes the unfair expectations that come with being the “first” Black person to do something, and how concepts like Black excellence “come with high costs” (556). The third, “King Arthur,” describes Deonn’s deviations from medieval and credit her Welsh translator. The fourth, “Rootcraft and Volition,” describes the nature of the Rootcrafting community and how Volition “crystallize[s] the specific tensions Bree is navigating” (557).