While Legendborn drew inspiration from my personal, acute grief journey, Bloodmarked pushes that journey forward to look at how expansive grief can be. How it can transform into new desires and missions, how it travels between generations, and how it can become the type of burden that masks itself as “duty.” When Bree hears Vera’s declaration that the generations of women between them “ran so that you would not have to,” and that she is “the tip of our spear,” she internalizes those words as an all-consuming responsibility, and applies it broadly to her own life because she cares and their lives mattered. This process is familiar to many Black women that I know, and yet it can be the source of damage. While I believe Black women are magic, we are also human. Though we cannot be our ancestors’ every wish, we often feel compelled to try. This, too, is a manifestation of intergenerational trauma and grief. In the Legendborn Cycle, I explore how these processes can play out in families, between Black women, and within Black girls.

ON BLACK EXCELLENCE AND BEING THE “FIRST”

This book is dedicated to “every Black girl who was ‘the first’ ” because there are burdens that come with breaking barriers. We are in a landscape where micro and macro “firsts” are still being achieved by BIPOC. We live, work, and learn in institutions that find ways to shift their structures and rules in order to stop certain populations from becoming powerful, that move goalposts and redefine excellence just as equity can be reached. I was raised by a Black woman who was “the first” in areas of her educational and professional life. I myself have been a “first.” Bree is “the first” in many ways—and often “the only.” She must grapple with external expectations from a judgmental world as well as the confusion of her own internal desires, all while doing right by her family. I sometimes see this struggle portrayed as if forced resilience is “strength” and harrowing solitude is “empowerment,” but these images come with high costs. I don’t want Bree to be seen as “strong” to the point of not being cherished. She is allowed to be a teenaged girl. She is worthy of being protected—regardless of what she can do for others.

As I wrote Bloodmarked, a friend observed that Bree’s arc echoed elements of Simone Biles’s journey before and during the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. To Simone, thank you for your choice. It means a lot to me.

KING ARTHUR