SPOILER WARNING. THIS BLOG SERIES IS INTENDED FOR READERS WHO HAVE FINISHED OATHBOUND AND WANT TO EXPLORE ITS DETAILS IN DEPTH.

In Oathbound, Deonn reveals a third magical weapon: the Heart of the Grand Dame

Prior to Oathbound, Tracy Deonn introduced us to the lore of Excalibur and the Shadow King’s crown. In Oathbound, she gives us a new magical object (and weapon) to marvel at: the Heart of the Grand Dame.

Lore wise, the Heart is a lot like Excalibur and the Shadow King’s crown. It’s singular and unique. It’s powerful. It’s old. It gets passed down through time within families.

Plot wise, the Heart also has a lot in common with Excalibur and the crown. Namely, in the changing of hands. By the end of Oathbound, all three weapons belong to a new, young heir.👇🏻

• Excalibur belongs to Bree.
• The crown belongs to Sel.
• The Heart belongs to Mariah¹

One of my book 4 hopes is that Bree, Sel, and Mariah develop expertise with their new weapons. Watching them figure out their weapons could be a very cool way to learn more about the magic systems and magical communities they belong to.

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Annotate or review the lore of the Grand Dame’s Heart in Oathbound

I annotated key details about the Heart on my recent reread of Oathbound. I did this because

1. I wanted to explore (and confirm) the talisman’s similarities to Excalibur and the King’s crown.
2. I wanted to prepare for Book 4. When the next book comes out, I will have clearly tabbed information about the Heart in Oathbound, perfect for quickly refreshing my knowledge of this magical object.

Here’s an overview of what I tabbed.

Note: Don’t forget to make a tab key and, for further annotating, the headers for each section below would make a good margin note!

1. A long-ago ancestor forged the Heart, and only a rightful heir can wield it today —

[same with Excalibur and the crown]

Aunt Lu’s Heart is a large stone set in a dark gold disc about three inches in diameter. Every Dame talisman has a stone for protection and strength, two pillars of Rootcrafter practices everywhere. But lots of stones and herbs and materials can represent those pillars. It’s the center stone the reminds us of what the ancestor who set the piece had in their heart at the time of the setting. In this case, Lu’s Heart is a smooth brown onyx—for grounding, regeneration, and, most importantly, intuition.

Oathbound, Chapter 10, page 148

“If I put it on, my Aunt Lu will still be the Grand Dame of our territory, but given that I’m related to her, it should work on me, too.”

Oathbound, Chapter 23, page 275

2. Time and the unique abilities of each wielder make the the Heart more powerful in each successive generation –

[same with Excalibur and the crown]²

The reality is, the amplifier of a Grand Dame doesn’t come with a manual. It’s charmed and recharmed and soaked in soil at plantation sites like Volition overnight, when the moon is full and round in the sky. It’s a shortcut for a Dame to wear when she can’t make an offering for root, and it’s passed down from one Dame to another. It usually stays in families that have held it the most, but like anything, it can hop to a descendant the ancestors decide is worthy.

Oathbound, Chapter 23, page 275

3. The Heart is eerily sentient and responsive, like a living thing—

[same with Excalibur and the crown]

For a stone and bits of metal, it feels much heavier than it should be, but perhaps that’s just my guilt weighing me down. Like the stone knows that I’m not supposed to put it on.

Like the Heart itself knows that this big, bold idea was a mistake.

Oathbound, Chapter 23, page 274

I can feel the Heart pulsing near my ribs. […] The stone is warm tonight, like it knows we’re using it. “Aunt Lu never said this thing was like wearing a hot piece o’ coal around your neck. Never burns, but feels like it could.” […] At my chest, the Heart burns. […] At my chest, the Heart pulses, beating in counterpoint to my own.

Oathbound, Chapter 26, page 296-299

4. The Heart is an extension of its bearer’s powers –

[same with Excalibur and the crown]

She pulls her necklace out from beneath her shirt collar, holding the black stone in front of us. “This is the Heart of a Grand Dame. It enhances the wearer’s natural branch of root. In my case, it enhances my Medium abilities. And I can see that your connection to the dead is broken.”

Oathbound, Chapter 43, page 646

5. The Heart is a magical weapon that can turn the tides of a battle-

[same with Excalibur and the crown]

“You didn’t see her at Penumbra,” I say. “With the Heart on she can take a cambion or a demon out if she has to, without getting hurt. I want her with me.”

Oathbound, Chapter 58, page 602

Tangential (but relevant) Bree/Sel magical object observation:

When Bree touches the crown in Bloodmarked, it looks a lot when Sel touches the crown in Oathbound. Here’s when Bree touches it:

…my hand outstretched before I can stop it. I don’t know why this ugly, gnarled, evil crown calls to me, but it is the only thing of this world that is unabashedly real. Maybe that’s why I can’t help but reach for it. […]

….The instant my fingertips touch the tallest point of the Shadow King’s crown, a black wave of power pulses from its center, right up my arm, and across my chest.

Bloodmarked, Chapter 58, page 528

When Sel touches the crown in Oathbound, the power climbs over his body similarly:

“shadows explode beneath Sel’s hand. They race up his wrist, ravenous for his skin.”

“writhing, grasping streams of ink‘

Oathbound, Chapter 61, page 640

Final Thoughts: What will happen if Bree touches the Heart? Could this be a plot point in Book 4?

First context. Why am I’m asking this question? Well, the curious thing about Bree, Excalibur, and the Crown is that Bree (a) can safely touch both; (b) she can amplify her power from touching either weapon; and (c) she is magnetically drawn to both.

For Excalibur, this is easy to explain and observe:

• She has pulled it twice from its stone in the ogof (once in Legendborn, once in Bloodmarked) and wielded it in battles. Bree also reforged Excalibur anew, after the Regents broke it in two.³

For the crown, it’s a little tougher. Bree’s ability to touch it, be amplified by it, and feel a connection to it is a quieter fact, a devil to spot in the details.

• She touched the crown directly while trapped in Arthur’s dream world in Bloodmarked. Bree’s brief contact with the crown unleashed her Root and she was able to attempt escape by forging dragon-scale armor and wings.⁴ In Oathbound, Bree feels an odd affinity to the crown, the wording of which unnerved me a lot to be honest…

“Suddenly I feel an unexpected kinship with the ancient artifact—and wonder what we might both become after this moment of claiming.“

(Oathbound, Chapter 60, page 627)

So, all this leads me to ask what happens if Bree touches the Heart?

Could the Heart play a role in the restoration of Bree’s ancestral streams? The Heart, after all, amplifies powers. It is what helped Mariah see that Bree had lost her connection to her ancestors. (This moment is in Chapter 43 of Oathbound.) I just wonder: if The Heart can reveal lost connections, can it restore them too?

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Thank you for reading the sixth installment of my series, Deonn’s Pencraft, where I plan to explore details I annotated in Oathbound by Tracy Deonn. I finished my second read of the book and have dozens of deep dives on its themes, humor, and imagery. I’ll also be sharing several annotation projects that you can do yourself!

Check out the whole series here.

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1. She still wears at the end, suggesting Lu has passed it on to her. ↩︎
2. Morgaine explains this in Arthur’s dream:
   “She preens at his attention. “I think that this crown is not unlike your Caledfwlch.” Morgaine draws closer, inspecting the crown as she speaks. “Caledfwlch absorbs your power, but it’s also tied to you. Connected. That’s why no one else can wield it in battle but you. When it is away from you, it grows dim, too.”
   A line appears between Arthur’s brows. “An aether weapon?”
   Morgaine nods eagerly. “Yes. And since it is the Shadow King’s aether weapon, then he was not just bereft of his crown, but he has lost his ability to lead and fight. That is why he became weak and why he perished. Isn’t that wonderful?”
   – Bloodmarked, Chapter 58, page 527 ↩︎
3. “I take a deep breath, hold my hands out over the blade, and command aether and root both to layer themselves over and over again, up and down the blade. It is a weapon, cast and forged for my bloodline—and I will cast and forge it again.“
   – Bloodmarked, Chapter 60, page 546 ↩︎
4. Bloodmarked, Chapter 58, page 528 ↩︎