Legendborn

After classes, Bree opens the jewelry box and mage flame comes pouring out. When she touches the bracelet, she is transported to a memory of her first time at the annual state fair at seven years old. There, her mom tells Bree about their line of Rootcrafters; it’s a message that was implanted and hidden when she was a child.

In addition to Rootcraft, Bree’s mom (Faye) explains, they also have Bloodcraft, but its source is unknown. It only passes on to the daughter when her mom dies. Faye fought for innocent people, and she gives Bree her blessing if she wants to fight. Faye is proud of Bree and tells her to “move forward” (391).

Bree asks Patricia and Mariah to meet her in the cemetery. There, she apologizes and tells them about the memory her mom left for her in the charm bracelet. They agree to help her contact her ancestors; they have brought offerings. Again, they seek love reaching back through the generations. This time, Bree sees her emotional wall and has to deconstruct it.

After Bree unravels the pain in her chest, Mariah is able to contact Bree’s grandmother (Mrs. Charles). Her grandmother’s spirit comes into her, demonstrating that Bree is a Medium like Mariah. Her grandmother isn’t sure how to use all of Bree’s power and intends to coinhabit Bree’s body while she asks other ancestors for guidance. Weakened, Bree eats some of the offerings, which settles her grandma. Mariah gives Bree a ride home.

The next morning, Alice has already gone out for the day, and Bree can still feel her grandma’s spirit. Bree misses Nick and washes her hair. She asks Alice and Charlotte to come over to help with Gala preparations. Charlotte brings clothes and jewelry from girls around campus, and they find a gown that fits. Alice cries and says Bree looks like her mom.

When Bree shows up at the Carolina Club for the Gala, the doorman compliments her. The place is packed, and Bree feels out of place. Felicity and other Order members find her, and Bree feels Sel’s presence. Nick compliments her; she says he looks like a secret agent. They talk about Vaughn, who is across the room, and Bree notices the only other Black and brown people are the waitstaff.

The dinner is excellent, and after they eat, Nick asks Bree to dance. A Merlin named Issac, Davis’ Kingsmage, interrupts them.

Issac tells them Davis is looking for Nick, and Nick goes to meet him. After Nick leaves, Issac stares at Bree, and her grandma says she doesn’t like him. Sel leads Bree away from Issac and onto the dance floor. She tells Sel she’s come to say goodbye and asks about infusing objects with aether. The magic involved in Bree’s mom’s bracelet is beyond Sel’s powers or knowledge. He compliments her, and she admits she can smell magic.

Nick returns with Davis and is angry to see Bree and Sel dancing together. Davis has the outsiders ushered out and gives a speech about Camlann. After they recite the pledge, William picks Whitty to be his Squire. Pete picks Greer, and Nick announces he wants Bree to be his Squire, which causes an uproar.

After the room calms a little, Nick asks Bree if she accepts. She considers the risk of Abatement, thinks of her mom supporting her fighting for what she cares about; Sel says she must answer, and Bree accepts. The room is filled with yelling and fighting.

Davis tries to call for order, but people ignore him. Vaughn’s mom makes racist comments to Bree. Sel pulls Bree out of the racists’ hands, and Nick disappears. Once Sel gets her to another room, he goes back to retrieve Nick. Nick returns, closes the door on Sel (who sulks off), and kisses Bree. Someone comes looking for Nick, saying his dad needs him. Nick tells Bree he’ll have Sel Oath them as soon as Arthur calls and he leaves to find Davis. Isaac comes and uses his magic to cause Bree to pass out.

Bree wakes in Davis’s study and realizes she’s tied up. Davis says Isaac discovered her resistance to mesmer. He talks about a knight named Moriaen: son of a Moor and the Knight Lamorak, but Moriaen who didn’t make it to the Round Table like his father.

Davis wanted to be Awakened when he was young, but he is now trying to vicariously live through his son by “accelerating Camlann” (423). Bree learns he was the one who orchestrated opening the Gate on campus. However, it turned out that the Scions needed to be in mortal danger to accelerate the war, so he had to open other Gates.

Issac comes in with Alice, who seems to be sleepwalking. Isaac wakes her, she calls out to Bree, and Issac puts Alice back under and starts to erase her memories. Davis tells Bree to leave the Order—refuse to be Nick’s Squire—to save Alice’s memories. He also threatens other members of her family and, thinking of her dad, Bree agrees to leave.

Once Alice and Bree are back in their dorm, Alice remains asleep in bed. Bree’s grandma talks to her, and an ancestor named Jessie—a healer—takes over Bree’s hands, using them to heal Alice. The root Jessie draws from is Bree herself. Alice regains her memories, and Bree tells Alice everything she had been hiding about the Order and her powers.

They change clothes and talk about their plans. Bree thinks Davis is currently busy unleashing Shadowborn on Nick to Awaken him because Bree hasn’t heard from anyone. Alice says she’ll be Bree’s backup.

They go to the Lodge, and grandma goes back to sleep in Bree. Bree texts William, who meets them at the door. Alice is proof that Bree broke her Oath of Secrecy, which surprises William. He tells Bree that many people, including Sel, are demon-hunting.

Bree interrupts the strategizing session that’s happening in the Lodge and tells everyone they need to find Nick and Davis. Davis had told everyone Bree rejected Nick’s offer. Sar shows up with Tor, who is wounded from a hellcougar attack. As William and Whitty heal Tor, Bree tells everyone what happened. Vaughn arrives and offers to help.

Bree learns that Excalibur is in the middle of campus under the Bell Tower drawing demons. She believes that’s where Davis took Nick to Awaken him. William says he can close the recent Gates that Davis and Issac opened with Sel’s blood, and Alice can come with him. Bree goes to the Order’s weapons room with Russ, Felicity, and Vaughn. Vaughn encourages Bree to take a sword.

Bree learns that the Wall of Ages is a door to the Order’s underground tunnels. It requires blood from Felicity, William, and Ritz (three Legendborn bloodlines) to open.

Grandma interrupts in Bree’s mind, saying someone is on their way to give Bree answers about her ancestors. Tor—still injured—and Sar join the search for Nick over William’s protests. In the tunnels, there are several branches, so the group has to split up. Bree ends up with Fitz and Evan.

Bree, Fitz, and Evan walk through the dark tunnel and discover a deep ravine. They have to shimmy along the edge of it, in single file. While they are precariously balanced, imps (bat-like demons) attack. Inside Bree, grandma prays loudly. During their fight, an imp drops Fitz in the ravine. Bree kills the imp.

Bree and Evan press on, and Bree realizes the demons are stronger underground. After the imps are gone, in the quiet, she doesn’t hear Evan’s feet make sound as he walks. This tips her off that it’s a goruchel imitating Evan. Bree runs, twists her ankle, falls, and loses her flashlight.

The Evan-imitating demon named Rhaz talks to Bree about Evan in the darkness. As they fight, Rhaz also reveals he works for the Line of Morgaine and wants to use Bree to Awaken Arthur in Nick (ironically, he helps to Awaken Arthur in Bree). Grandma encourages Bree, and she kicks the demon into the ravine.

In the tunnel system’s central cave is Excalibur, embedded in stone. Surrounding it is a fight that Bree limps into and joins. The demon Rhaz kills Whitty, then grabs Bree, taunting Nick, who is resisting a Call (but it is Lancelot’s, not Arthur’s, Call). When Nick continues to resist, Rhaz kills Russ, and grabs Bree again.

An eagle owl flies in, following a dagger that pierces Rhaz’s throat. The owl shapeshifts to Sel. Sel fights Rhaz in his human form, and Rhaz knocks him out. At this point, Nick can’t resist the Call anymore, and tries to pull Excalibur out of the stone, but he can’t move it. As Sel tries to get to Nick, Bree’s grandma announces the ancestor they’ve been waiting for is here. Vera arrives in Bree. When Bree asks for the lost links in her family, Vera pulls her into a memory walk.

Vera’s memory walk is described in poetry. She is a slave on an ancestor of Nick’s plantation and sees her master’s wife go off with another man. Master Davis rapes her, and Vera runs away, using Rootcraft with a tree to facilitate her escape. She is pregnant and does a protection spell with her Blood; the price is that only one woman at a time in her family can possess power. Bree follows the matrilineal line down from Vera to her mom and sees the car accident. Also, Bree sees that Sel’s mom was involved with the mesmering that occurred the day her mom died.

Vera asks Bree if she still wants to fight now that she has answers about her mom and her ancestors. Bree says yes and is able to pull Excalibur from the stone.

Everyone learns Bree is the heir of Arthur. Deonn uses the pronoun “we” to indicate the multiple spirits in Bree’s body: Vera leaves but Arthur and grandma are still in Bree.

When Arthur takes over, he uses Bree’s body to talk to Davis, and everyone now learns Nick is Lancelot. When Rhaz comes back from his fall into the ravine, Arthur rallies the Knights to fight him. Bree doesn’t want anyone else to lose their life, so she throws up an aether barrier to protect the Order members. This magical act and her following combat skills come from combining Bloodcraft (Arthur’s legacy) and Rootcraft.

Sel helps Bree fight, and others eventually break through the barrier to join the battle. Bree impales Rhaz with Excalibur. After this, Arthur’s voice takes over and commands the knights to kneel. Against Bree’s wishes, they do. Arthur leaves, returning Bree’s voice and body. She puts the sword back in the stone and tells everyone to rise before she collapses.

When Bree wakes up, she finds notes from William that go over what happened when she was unconscious. Sel carried her back to the Lodge, and Alice became friends with William. Bree cries. Sel arrives and tells Bree Davis and Issac took Nick after Issac mesmered Sel. This kidnapping seems to be leverage for Davis: a way to keep the Round Table from being put back together without his input.

When Sel asks about Bree’s powers, she explains that a Scion of Arthur owned slaves and transferred the bloodline of Arthur through a rape. They research which member of the Davis family owned a plantation. They also talk about the Line of Lancelot; the Reynolds family are the heirs of Lancelot, and the slave owner’s wife (Nick’s ancestor) slept with a Scion of Lancelot, which is how Nick was Awakened by Lancelot. Bree questions her connection with Nick, wondering if it was a connection between the Knights possessing them.

Tor comes in, saying she called the Regents. Tor argues that Bree is a mistake and will not accept her as Arthur, their king. Alice defends Bree, Tor lunges at her, and it takes Sel and Sarah intervening to prevent a fight. Sel wants to look for Nick, but others want to plan for the arrival of the Regents. Bree worries about the Line of Morgaine’s alliance with the Shadowborn, and if they could get ahold of Nick.

When Bree goes out on a balcony to get some air, Sel joins her and apologizes. Bree tells him their moms were friends and that his mom never became fully demonic: She retained control even without an Oath. The myth that Merlins will succumb to their demonic blood was a lie the Order perpetuated. Sel says she’s his king and cariad and offers to be her Kingsmage. Bree reminds Sel that he’s Oathed to Nick but admits she does need a Kingsmage. Then, Bree asks Sel if they can get away from the Lodge.

Bree and Sel walk in a field near the quarry where students jumped into the water at the beginning of the term. She thinks about her love from Nick and the presence of Vera and takes off her shoes. Gathering strength from the ground, Bree jumps into the Quarry, leaving the story open to continue in subsequent books of the series (not yet published).