And I thought I could be what? His friend?
Sel’s low voice dips and slurs as he talks, and I can’t tell if his words are for me or for himself. “How could I have risked so much for a lost little girl who probably needs as much therapy as I do?” He tilts his head, eyes going unfocused. “Well, that’s not possible.” 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.”
“Is that why you’re out here chucking trees over a cliff?” I snarl.
His head snaps up. “Why are you here again?”
“I have no idea,” I say, and turn to leave.
“I do.” Even intoxicated, he’s far faster than I am. He’s in front of me the second I turn. “Guilt.”
“Get out of the way.”
He leans back against a tree in my path and regards me under half-lidded eyes. “I bet you heard I was out here throwing a fit and that I’d been ‘monstrous, angry Sel’ all weekend. I bet Nicholas told you we fought again and that Lord Davis put me in my place yesterday. And now you feel bad because you still haven’t told Nicholas that you can generate aether, and you think if you had, maybe he’d realize my instincts were right, and I wouldn’t be out here crushing trees and feeling sorry for myself.”
I sputter, but I can’t deny the ring of truth in Sel’s words. Is that what brought me here through the woods to him? Guilt?
“Move.” I take a step, but he matches me again. His eyes gleam, mocking the thoughts he’d deduced from me like a demonic Sherlock Holmes.
“Well, don’t bother feeling guilty,” Sel purrs. “For our once and future king, the ends will never justify the means. He’s a good person like that. And further, Nicholas doesn’t care about what you can do, he only cares about you. A fact now fully impressed upon the recently disgraced Page Schaefer. As a matter of fact, how do you think he’d feel if he heard you sought me out in the woods while I was drunk on aether?” His gaze hits me all over—sharp pricks across my face, down my throat, and over my bare arms.
Face hot, I flounder for words. “I—I have no idea.”
He snorts. “Liar. Nicholas would draw and quarter me and you know it.”
“That’s a little dramatic.”
He unhitches himself from the tree and stands up, shaking his head. “Do you honestly not realize what he feels for you?”
He’s turning everything around so quickly. I feel a wave of confusing emotions: fury at him still for following me, pleasure at hearing about the strength of Nick’s feelings for me, guilt for being here against Nick’s wishes and our agreed-upon rule, and bewilderment that I’m having boy talk with Sel.
“You don’t.” Sel glares at me, and this close I can see the fine tremor in his mouth, his shoulders, all the way down to his fists. He steps closer, crowding me. “Not fully.”
I back away, but it’s a mistake. There’s only a foot between me, the edge of the ridge, and a steep drop down to the valley and the arena floor below. It’s much too much like our first meeting. And this time I know exactly who Sel is and what he’s capable of.
“Sel, stop it! I’m gonna fall!”
He shrugs. “Only if you move.”
“Let me pass.”
“No. You’re going to stand right here and listen to me explain something to you.”
I glance over my shoulder. He’s right; I’m safe—if I don’t move again. “Explain what?”
“Do you know why Merlins serve the Legendborn?”
That catches me off guard. “No.”
“Guess.”
His tone is so sharp, I speak slowly to avoid being cut. “To fight the Shadowborn?”
“Adorable.” He rolls his eyes. “The Shadowborn are evil, but don’t think for one second that every Merlin serves the Order wholly out of the goodness of their heart. You called me a crossroads child once, but you don’t fully understand what that means. You can’t.”
He takes another step forward, not enough to push me over but close enough that I can smell lingering spice from the Oath on his skin and feel the warmth rolling off him. A memory of his heated fingers that first night at the Lodge flashes through my mind, and I wonder, just briefly, if the rest of him runs just as hot.
“Merlin children are, for all intents and purposes, fully human at birth. But when we turn seven, the changes begin—the strength, the speed, the senses—and with those changes comes a type of… countdown. Every year after that we gain power and our connection to aether deepens, and every year we lose a bit more of our humanity. We call it ‘succumbing to the blood.’ ” Sel shudders, eyes focusing on me again. “When Merlin created the Legendborn spell for Arthur and his knights, he designed a similar spell for himself. One that would allow all of his descendants to inherit the unique mage abilities he’d honed over time—mesmer, constructs, an affinity for aether.” The tiny tips of his white canines gleam as he speaks. “But Merlin knew his own nature. He knew that demons only care for themselves and chaos, and powerful but uncontrollable part demons would never be compatible servants to the eternal Order he and Arthur envisioned. So, in his spell, Merlin folded in a bit of insurance.”
My chest is suddenly tight. “What kind of insurance?”
Bitterness turns his features sharp in the shadows. “Do you remember when I told you that the hellfox couldn’t dust with a part of you still inside it? That’s because the darkness of the underworld and the light of the living shouldn’t exist in one body. My blood is fighting itself every day. The older I get, the stronger the demon essence becomes, but my commitments to this Order and its members keep me from going over.”
I return his stare, horror and understanding washing over me in a wave. “The Oaths…”
“The Oaths.” His eyes are suddenly bright. Fierce. “They are Merlin’s insurance that his descendants would never abandon his mission. Performing them, fulfilling them, no matter how large or how small the task. It’s the Oaths that bind the two sides of a Merlin together. As long as we are in service, we are in control of our own souls. It’s why they Oath us early, before we’re old enough for our blood to gain a foothold.”
Cecilia’s voice comes back to me, and what she said about the infant in Pearl’s arms. Cast it away before it could grow large enough to do harm.
Sel’s not done yet. His eyes dart back and forth across my face, cataloging my responses to his words. “There. You understand now. 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. It’s a penalty so severe that it’s never been done before.”
The burning heat rolling off him and the poison in his eyes scare me more than his temper ever has.
“But we are two Called Scions away from Camlann. So, after Nicholas told his father what I did to you, Lord Davis threatened to replace me. Take my title, cast me out. Leave me to self-destruction.” He huffs. “Bullies, like I said.”