A Sorrow Fierce and Falling (Kingdom on Fire, Book Three)

by Jessica Cluess

  But at the moment, I needed to do my job.

  “Are you in too much pain for work?” Blackwood stroked my cheek.

  “I’m fine.” I tried not to be cross. He meant well, but I’d told him several times that doing nothing worsened the pain. When we’d first come to Sorrow-Fell, he’d wanted to see me resting round the clock. What he didn’t understand was that rest exacerbated the whisperings in my head. Only work quieted the voices.

  I sorted the wounded and brought the worst of them in a wagon down the hill to the infirmary. Then I pointed the rest of the arrivals to the front entrance of the great house. As we all walked together, someone came up beside me and tugged at my elbow.

  “H’lo. Didn’t think to see you again.” The girl sounded cheerful, and a bit amazed. She was unfamiliar, with nondescript brown hair and a round face. No, I’d never seen this girl before in my life.

  “I’m so sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met?” I smiled, masking my confusion. She appeared offended. Then her expression cleared.

  “My fault. Forgot I was wearin’ this.” She pointed to her nose. Odd. Then her face changed. Yes, her nose shrank, her blue eyes changed color on the spot. What the devil?

  When she’d finished her transformation, my mouth dropped open. Because she was correct: I did know her. Shock and delight warmed me in equal measure.

  It was the magician girl from London, Alice Chen.

  Alice and I sat in a corner of the great dining hall, usually reserved for visiting dignitaries and aristocrats. The Gothic arch of the stone ceiling and the elegant mullioned windows indicated a grand cathedral, while the long table of ebony gleamed from fresh polish. Normally, this was where bone china would be laid, so thin one could see the light through it, and where hushed conversation would happen over crystal glasses of the finest wine in the cellar. It was strange now to see this room brimming with so many ragged people, grateful for a mere helping of soup and bread. Strange, but I liked it.

  We huddled by one of the windows, watching as snow flurried in the yard. The sky above was slate gray, and I shivered as I pulled my cloak closed at the throat. Alice seemed to feel the cold less, or perhaps she simply felt hunger more. She drained her soup bowl and wiped her mouth.

  “Me and my brother, Gordo, was always the most gifted in the family. Mum said it were special, face changin’. Gordo can turn to near any animal, but me? I can do folks as well. Humans, I mean. Saved our lives a few times.” She looked out into the yard, a thoughtful expression on her face. She wore fingerless gloves, and her nails had been bitten down to the nub.

  “Where’s Gordo now?”

  “Still alive, I hope. After London fell, we all sort of broke apart. Tried fighting together at first, but when you’re twelve or twenty against a giant blob monster, all them big ideas ’bout brotherhood and standin’ together sort of fall away. Plus, we learned that Hargrove were actually Mickelmas. That made him quite unpopular for a bit.”

  I winced. “When did you find out his real name?”

  “Right after London fell. He gathered those of us he could find together and told us. Told us to spread the word, too. Said he’d had enough of lyin’ to everyone and wanted a fresh go.”

  Very noble of him. “What happened after that?”

  “Half of us got bloody furious and left. A few tried to beat him with clubs. The rest of us made peace with it, but the army were so small at that point.” She pulled a brilliantly colored handkerchief from her coat pocket and fidgeted with it. “Despite what he done, Mickelmas is the only person can bring us all together. And, well, he won’t be doin’ that anytime soon.”

  My skin prickled at her words. “What do you mean?”

  Alice turned her eyes to the floor, regret dancing in her expression. “I mean R’hlem’s army captured him, last I heard.”

  My hands went up in flame. I extinguished myself fast, but people around the hall stared at us with shock.

  “Are you sure?” I croaked. She nodded.

  “Peg Bottleshanks was with ’im and managed to get away.”

  “When?” My throat went dry.

  “ ’Bout a month after the city collapsed. He’s likely dead now.” She looked at me with sympathy. “I’m sorry.” Alice tried patting my shoulder, which sent pain spiking through my body.

  Mickelmas, captured by R’hlem and killed? I knew that R’hlem wouldn’t respond kindly to his former friend. Mickelmas was partly responsible for my father being pushed into the Ancients’ world to begin with. And in that final battle in London, R’hlem had begun flaying Mickelmas alive right before my eyes. Now he’d had plenty of time since capturing the magician to finish the job.

  I put my gloved hand to my mouth. What if R’hlem hadn’t killed Mickelmas?

  Perhaps he wouldn’t waste the opportunity to torture his old “friend” the way he himself had been tortured in the Ancients’ world. He might casually peel Mickelmas like an orange. God, he might feed the magician to Molochoron, or crisp him alive with Zem’s fiery breath.

  What if he decided he could use Mickelmas?

  No, surely that was a foolish idea. R’hlem was a master of magic, after all. He wouldn’t need Mickelmas to teach him any tricks.

  But my father, say what you would about him, was a practical man. And keeping his enemy alive, even if he despised him, would be worth it if he could receive a great deal of information from a man who knew too much. Hadn’t I spent hours reading through the contents of Mickelmas’s magic trunk? The man was a library of magical knowledge. With such power under his control, R’hlem could discover new ways of tormenting us.

  New ways of winning.

  “You all right?” Alice sucked a bit of soup from her thumb.

  Murmuring apologies, I went upstairs to change into warmer clothes. My head pounded as I stripped myself of the ruined wedding gown, as I buttoned my warm wool dress and tied on my cloak again.

  I wished the magician had come with us to Sorrow-Fell. I wished it more than anything.

  As I headed downstairs, a wave of dizziness nearly toppled me. The pain at my shoulder burned with brighter intensity. My sight warped, the stairwell before me lengthening and contracting at once. I slid down, falling away into utter blackness. And then…light.

  “Come on, then!” a little boy calls over his shoulder, running full tilt down a hillside. He cannot be more than eight years old and takes great, whooping leaps toward a river that sparkles in the distance.

  Without pausing, the child races into the river. He is barefoot and rolls his trousers up to the knee as he wades into the crystal stream, squealing at how frigid it is. He examines his own image in the water, bright blue eyes and flaxen hair like dandelion fluff. His smile is unafraid. Turning, he sticks out his tongue as two other boys arrive. They look like older copies of the child in the river, both of them flushed with exertion.

  “Oi! Stephen!” the taller one says, edging into the water. “Mum wants you home. They say the monsters are prowlin’.”

  Stephen only laughs and dances out farther into the stream. Cursing softly, the older boy tromps in after him.

  “Stephen Poole! You stupid…c’mere!” The older boy grabs his younger brother and lifts him up while a wriggling Stephen laughs.

  And then, with the swift transition of a nightmare, a roaring black cloud rises up behind them. The brothers are snatched away into the darkness, dead in one heartbeat. Stephen screams as massive tentacles wrap around him, burning his skin.

  The vision melted away, returning me to the hall. I pressed my feverish cheek against the cold stone of the wall.

  This was not the first time such images had overtaken me with a sheer power that I could not resist. Sometimes they would display nonsense images of another world. Sometimes I would see this same young boy, this Stephen.

  I would have recognized that child�
��s face anywhere. I was seeing Rook, before his scars and the loss of his family. Back when he still had a name, and brothers, and an unblemished soul.

  I got up from the floor, straightened my skirts, and walked on with heaviness in my heart. Every time I saw another of these visions, I would promise over and over again to find Rook. To save him from the shadows. To bring him back.

  I would do this, or die trying.

  * * *

  —

  “WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ABRASION and a cut?” Eliza asked cheerily when I arrived at the stables. She was winding up bandages. “I thought they were the same thing, but Maria seems convinced otherwise.”

  “I’m not the most expert healer,” I said, barely paying attention. I’d looked for Blackwood in the great hall and been told he’d come here. Now that I was here, someone had said he was in the great hall. Blast, I needed to speak with him about what Alice had said.

  Eliza kept pace with me, wearing only a simple gray gown with an apron beneath her cloak. When I’d first met her in London, all those months ago, she’d seemed a regular fashion plate. I’d been unable to imagine her doing anything but attending parties and laughing at clever jokes that other people made.

  She’d proved how ungenerous I’d been in my opinion of her, and indeed, of women in her circle. When Maria had asked for help tending the wounded, Eliza had paled but offered her assistance. Since then she’d become an astute learner.

  The stables at Sorrow-Fell were grand enough to count as housing in their own right. The gabled roofs sported wooden beams that had been carved to depict tableaux of round-bellied satyrs bothering water nymphs. The images of the white stag, most elegant of all the light Fae’s creatures, were embroidered upon tapestries and other wall hangings.

  The injured had been stationed in the groom’s lodge, a small but rather luxurious cabin directly adjacent to the stalls. Straw pallets and cots created something of a labyrinth, which the nurses navigated with care.

  Maria was examining an older man’s leg. A massive bruise purpled the side of his face, and Eliza got straight to assisting her.

  “Can you help?” Maria asked upon seeing me. She pointed toward a cluster of people near the door. “They’re needing more fires in the stalls outside. I want to sort out who needs a bed here and who can go in the main house.”

  Well, if Blackwood wasn’t here, I might as well do something useful. People made appreciative noises as I summoned flame and lit the kindling. Lilly appeared at my elbow, ferrying hot drinks on a tray. Her strawberry-blond hair hung in a messy chignon, with flyaway wisps landing in her eyes.

  “How are you, miss?” she asked as we walked back to the cabin. Blackwood had wanted to retain Lilly’s services as my maid once we arrived at Sorrow-Fell, but I’d refused. I didn’t want a personal servant when every scrap of help was needed for the war. So I didn’t dress so grandly any longer, or wear my hair in elaborate styles. After all, I’d had years of practice looking after myself.

  Lilly seemed perfectly fine as well. Her cheeks were rosy and her normally spotless hands and apron smudged. In London, she’d been all sweetness. She’d seemed so fragile, really. But now, as we entered the lodge, she whipped off her scarf and turned an attentive eye to each cot before snapping her fingers.

  “Oi, bring that bucket here. Asked for it two minutes ago,” Lilly called, briskly waving a boy over. He hurried, looking rather sheepish. She took the bucket before sending him flying off with another order. Placing the bucket beside a rather green-faced man, she skirted around one bed to the next, checking eyes and pulses and organizing who was ready to make the march to the main house.

  Lilly had taken to these tasks as a duck to water. And as she stood with her small hands on her hips, it occurred to me that healing had brought out something of the general in her as well. I invited her back to the stalls, to see to the next round. She happily agreed.

  As we turned into the yard, I stopped. Magnus stood before me with his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat. Snow dusted his hair. His cheeks had been whipped raw by the cold. This time, when his eyes met mine, he smiled.

  “How the devil did you manage it?” He nodded at the stables. “It looks a proper hospital.”

  “We’re a capable group,” Lilly said. Magnus laughed, though it wasn’t the same as before. He used to throw back his head and bellow, a rich and easy sound that came from the core of him. His laughter was not so easy now.

  Not since the night his mother had died.

  Lilly excused herself and hurried for the stables. I noticed she snuck a glance at us over her shoulder as she went.

  “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say a proper hello, Howel.” Magnus took my hand and kissed it. Once, it would have been a charming or boyish gesture, but not now. He was all business now. “Thank you for getting Blacky to let the barrier down.”

  “He’d have done it anyway,” I said.

  Magnus raised an eyebrow. “But would he have shut it before I managed to get inside? I wonder.”

  I frowned at that. “You still act as though he’s some sort of devious maniac,” I said.

  Magnus shrugged, acknowledging the possibility. “I confess I was surprised to find out this was your wedding day. All these months later, and you’re only getting round to marriage now?” He searched my face, as if looking for some specific reaction. “ ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.’ John Donne said that.”

  “Robert Herrick, actually.” The look of shock on Magnus’s face was delicious. “ ‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’ was a particular favorite of Mr. Colegrind’s.”

  “I stand corrected. Truly, it sounds like a poem any unseemly old man would love.” Magnus cleared his throat. “Do you want to wait on a spring wedding? Perhaps have Callax serve as a bridesmaid? I’m sure he’d look heavenly in pink.”

  “No, I think we’re done waiting,” I said.

  “That’s good.” Magnus kicked at the snow. His boots were worn now—in fact, his toe was close to coming out the tip of his left boot. There was a gash down his arm that I hadn’t noticed before.

  “You should see Maria.” I drew closer to look at it. He let me, though I felt him watching me.

  “It doesn’t matter. The people here have all sustained much worse,” he said. We watched another group move toward the main house. Magnus squared his jaw. “At first I didn’t have a thought beyond annihilation. After Mother’s death, I couldn’t see anything ahead for me.” His voice was distant. “Now I’ve seen how the people lived in all the years we were under the ward.” His gray eyes blazed with murderous intensity. “We should be ashamed.”

  This was the most un-Magnus-like thing I’d yet heard him say.

  “What else have you seen out there?” I asked. He passed a hand over his eyes. All of his jovial energy evaporated.

  “Liverpool’s gone. It was a city of smoke when we got there.” He looked to the sky, as if finding solace in the blanket of dull gray. “The Shadow and Fog was at the head of the enemy’s army.”

  Rook. I started at that. Magnus looked at me with something like sympathy.

  “I’m sorry.” He examined the cuts and scrapes along his knuckles. “Howel, just so there’s no misunderstanding between us.” He stared into my eyes once more. “The next time Rook and I meet, one of us will die.”

  It was a punch to my gut, even though Magnus had more reason for vengeance than anyone. After all, Rook had sunk his fangs into Fanny Magnus’s throat and ripped her apart like a wild animal.

  “What if I could save him?” I blurted it out. “If I could separate him from the monster?”

  Magnus sighed. “Well. I believe you can do anything, Howel.” He winked, a glimmer of his former self. But I knew he was humoring me. Only I believed Rook could be rescued.

  “With that vote of confidence, I’ll be wel
l armed,” I drawled.

  Magnus snorted with laughter. Momentarily, it felt like being transported back to Master Agrippa’s house. But then my shoulder ached, and the haunted look returned to his eyes. No, we were no longer that boy and girl.

  “I should check on the men. Remind them what a picture of health and vigor I am. Give them something to aspire to.” Magnus turned back for the main house. Eliza materialized next to me, her eyes tracking Magnus as he strode away.

  “I’ve got to fetch some more hot water and linen.” She raced off to catch up with him.

  Magnus had surprised the entirety of sorcerer society at Eliza’s debut ball, declaring her his fiancée to spare her from marrying a man she did not love. It had been kind of him and bold and it had made Blackwood dislike him more ferociously than ever before. I doubted Magnus enjoyed staying on Blackwood’s estate and being in his power.

  I turned to go back to the stables, but another wave of dizziness washed over me.

  An endless expanse of darkness, teeth and eyes on every side of me, shadows covering my body like another skin, the starless stretch of night

  The vision appeared and vanished between one heartbeat and the next. Coughing, I tried to keep my feet as I lurched out of Rook’s visions. The world spotted about me. Perhaps I really should go and lie down quietly for a few minutes.

  I made excuses to Lilly and Maria, then turned back toward the house.

  As I tromped up to the entrance, I caught movement out the corner of my eye. Curious, I walked around to the side of the house and stopped.

  Eliza stood on tiptoe with her arms flung around Magnus’s neck, kissing him passionately.

  I was about to turn away with embarrassment when Magnus broke off the kiss. He held Eliza at arm’s length. And I found, degenerate that I was, that I could not move.