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

by Jessica Cluess

  “Eliza, no,” he said quietly.

  “But there’s no reason not to.” She leaned in closer. “Don’t you like me at all?” She sounded hurt.

  “No man could help liking you. You’re everything a man desires.”

  Eliza blushed prettily. “Why not—”

  “Because I’m the wrong man for you.”

  Her eyes flashed at those words. “Oh, of course. Tell me what’s good for me, just like George.”

  “That’s not it.” He clasped her hands. “If you’d offered this a year ago, I’d have had us in a church in thirty-five minutes flat. Perhaps twenty-nine, if I could get Dee to serve as a witness. But now…”

  “You’re in love with someone else.” Eliza did not make it a question. My entire body froze, but Magnus sighed.

  “I don’t see a future for me, Eliza. I throw myself into every battle as if it were my last. There’s a part of me that prays it will be. You deserve someone who looks forward to life with you. Such a man would be painfully easy to find.”

  She cast her eyes down, and it was clear she hovered on the verge of tears. Magnus touched her shoulder.

  “Think about it,” he said. “Do you even love me?”

  The tears vanished; she seemed to be thinking it through. “I mean, you’re terribly handsome.” He laughed at that, which made her smile. “Lord, I don’t know. I’m not sure what love is, I suppose.”

  “And think of this: Did Blackwood ever believe for one second that you could look on blood and broken bones and never flinch?”

  “No.” She smiled. “He thought I’d give up after the first day.”

  “He loves you, but he doesn’t understand you. You deserve to be understood.”

  Eliza was silent. Finally, she gave a smile.

  “Very well.” She took his arm. “But will you play the doting fiancé in front of George? It’ll be sure to drive him mad.”

  “How could I resist such an invitation? Shall I recite poetry on bended knee?”

  “If you could write a song in praise of my beauty and sing it at dinner, that would be best.” She giggled. “Can you play the lute?”

  Magnus scoffed. “What self-respecting bear of a man can’t play a lute?” They made to enter the house. I hurried away and tucked myself into a shadowy alcove, praying they didn’t see me as they passed.

  Once they’d gone I stared at the darkening sky above. What the devil was I doing?

  When the dizziness of Rook’s memories swept over me again, I nearly welcomed it with relief. They usually traveled in threes, these “flutters.” This time, there was a flashing image of Rook mucking out a stall at Brimthorn, the charity school where we’d spent our childhood. Nothing more to be gained, merely a bubble of memory. When I came to again, there was no headache. Sighing, I trudged toward the house…and I stopped.

  The visions before my eyes, from Rook; the visions I’d had in the circle, from touching those runes. I realized that I’d been so bloody stupid not to think of it. A witch, a sorcerer, and a magician…I was a sorcerer, Maria a witch, and with Alice here, I had the third.

  Surely we could examine the circle together. Before I showed it to Blackwood, it might help to have a better idea of what, precisely, the thing even was. But we would also need someone whose experience with visions and psychic abilities was greater than mine.

  We needed a Speaker, and I’d the perfect candidate in mind.

  * * *

  —

  “HOLD UP. MY LEG’S A BIT sore from all the runnin’,” Alice hissed early that evening as she followed Maria and me across the snow-packed ground toward the Speakers’ chapel. With this much excitement thrumming through me, I didn’t even feel my injured shoulder.

  Sorrow-Fell housed two “chapels” on its property. The wedding chapel—the “proper” chapel as Blackwood called it—was on the western side of the estate, designed by Christopher Wren himself. It was an elegant building that housed stained-glass windows designed to let colored light fall upon pews filled with sedate, ordinary worshippers. The Speakers’ chapel on the eastern end, however, was an old Fae construction.

  An ancient stone mound, the crumbling walls were held together primarily by moss and sheer cussedness. The windows were stained glass, much like the other chapel, but these windows did not show religious figures. Rather, they displayed startling images of a man with a green face and a curling beard of ivy, of trees whose branches were ripe with many eyes, of horned men holding nubile young women in their arms. A stone altar resided at the center of the building; the ancient stains that decorated it suggested that more than wine had been spilled here in the past.

  Blackwood did not think anyone in their right mind would choose to stay in such a place. He’d insisted the Speakers enter the main house, but they’d replied that being around so many ordinary minds, cluttered with so many ordinary thoughts, would cloud their own.

  A bit insulting, but perhaps accurate.

  Maria and I pulled open the great creaking doors and entered, Alice close at our heels. So many bodies lay upon cots, or even on the floor, that we needed to step over them. A burnt-sugar perfume hung heavy in the air. My eyes watered, and I sneezed. Maria had drawn her cloak up to her face.

  “It’s the Etheria flower,” she whispered. “Makes you light-headed.”

  That was a mild explanation. Shadows warped in the corner of the room, and I jumped a bit in horror. Maria pulled me along.

  Someone was sitting on the stone steps of the altar, a blanket flung over his shoulders. Lambe looked up at me, his pale eyes a hazy glow. The rising moonlight streamed through the window at the back of the chapel. Shimmering squares of red and blue and yellow light dotted Lambe’s face.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he whispered.

  Lambe sipped his Etheria tea as I explained what I’d seen in the vision. The steam of his drink smelled foul, like boiled laundry. His eyelids drooped, and I half feared he’d fall asleep. His fingertips were stained purple, presumably from grinding the Etheria flowers. Looms dwelt in the corners of the chapel, one of them half finished with another prophecy tapestry. It appeared to display the image of a large man swallowing a smaller one while a goat watched them. Maria stared at the thing, looking rather wary. Indeed, her chosen one’s “fate” had been woven upon one of these looms.

  Cots creaked as Speakers moved in their restless slumber. They were abed all hours; some of them could go days at a time without rising, due to the effects of the Etheria flower. Alice stood over one of the sleepers, looking quite disgusted. One man got out of his bed and shuffled up the chapel’s walk toward us, which made me jump. But he stared over all our heads, into a dream world.

  Lambe seemed the most aware of any of the people here. That was rather terrifying.

  “So you need to understand the full purpose of these stones,” Lambe said into his teacup.

  “Yes, I want to tell Blackwood exactly what they can do, and what we should do.”

  “Then we must go.” Lambe swallowed the dregs of his tea, set the cup down, and let the blanket slide from his shoulders. “I must see this circle.”

  “Have we any more pomegranates?” I asked Maria as I helped Lambe into his coat and we four slipped out into the winter night. God, the cold bit me down to my bones. Why couldn’t I have found this circle in the summer?

  “The estate recognizes you now as its lady.” Lambe chased the short length of his shadow across the moonlit ground. “The land claims you.”

  Well. I wished that felt comforting.

  “The lady in the wood, though, lies in wait. Keep her out of the fire,” he said as he staggered into the forest.

  My gut twisted at his words. Months ago, he had mentioned this half-baked prophecy of a lady in a wood. If this meant some ghastly apparition was waiting behind the nearest tree to crack open our bo
nes and eat the marrow, I was going to haunt him in the afterlife for not warning us properly.

  “Cor, you aristocratic folk really go in for atmosphere, don’t you?” Alice muttered as we followed Lambe. She shivered. “Haunted woods, prophets, stone circles. The rich are different.”

  “It’s true.” Maria nodded. “They also keep great hearths to lean upon dramatically. Sure every time I come into a room, Lord Blackwood is slouched against some carved marble mantel, gazing into the flames with a dead serious look on his face.”

  Alice slapped Maria on the shoulder with glee.

  “He’s not always doing that,” I said. Maria squeezed my hand with a humoring sweetness.

  “Love blinds us all in different ways.” She giggled as I sent a shower of embers upon her.

  We made our way deeper into the forest’s black center. The air shimmered in the moonlight. Ahead, I could swear I heard the lilting of pipes and flutes. Flashes of blue light swirled in the corner of my eye, then disappeared behind a gnarled trunk. I unsheathed Porridge and noticed Maria had her ax in hand, surveying the forest’s paths with caution.

  “Used to see the light court on their parades through the highlands,” she told us. “They’ve a ghostly look about them, as if you could see through their bodies. Bit like an onion skin.”

  “Most faeries wouldn’t like being compared to an onion,” I replied. Then again, Fenswick had regarded the gift of an onion as the highest compliment, so perhaps I was mistaken. I winced to think of Fenswick. The little hobgoblin had betrayed us, it was true, but he’d also rescued us from Queen Mab. During our rescue, he’d fought a bog creature to aid our escape. I’d no idea what had happened to him on those Faerie roads, though I had my sad suspicions.

  “Still think Mab was worse, though,” Maria murmured. “The taste she had for memories? That was a terror.”

  The recollection made me shiver. Mab had forced a cherished memory from Magnus as a “toll” for using her Faerie roads. To this day, Magnus couldn’t remember what she’d stolen. In times like these, one more happy remembrance could keep a person fighting. In war, good memories were few and far between.

  Ahead of us, the moonlight began to grow brighter and stronger. My head throbbed, but we all pressed onward. Maria grabbed my elbow, and Alice held on to a corner of my cloak. Our destination should lie just ahead….

  We emerged out of the night and into the druid lands. Lambe, Alice, and Maria gaped at the sudden change. It was night here as well, but the stars above were bright. The wind was ripe with the scents of summer grass and fruit. Maria moaned and collapsed to the earth.

  “Who would ever choose to leave?” She rolled onto her back. Alice plopped alongside her, head lolling back to gaze at the sky.

  “I’ll be stayin’ on. Don’t care if it’s haunted.”

  “You two enjoy a rest.” I rolled my eyes. Ahead, the stones waited. Lambe went round the circle once, twice, puzzling over it. He and I examined each stone in turn. I felt power bubbling in my blood; the pull to the runes felt stronger with Lambe and the others here. Lambe closed his eyes.

  “You can hear them,” he whispered.

  “Hear who?” Maria called.

  He put out his hand and touched a stone.

  It seemed that a voice barked at us from the sky in an unknown language. Maria and Alice leaped to their feet, backs together and faces raised to the heavens. From the stars in the sky to the tips of the grass, from the smooth, ancient stones to the earth beneath our feet, there came a white-hot surge of images.

  It is a blindingly bright day. An old man wrapped in roughspun cloth and animal pelts jabbers as he goes from stone to stone, tracing the runes with the tip of a finger. The stones each sport one large, jagged rune. The man, with wild white hair that streams behind him, a grizzled chin, and gleaming beetle-colored eyes, dances about the center of the circle. Above him, the sun hits its zenith, and the stone shadows disappear utterly. Then, biting into his wrist, the man flings droplets of blood onto the stones.

  One by one, the blood sizzles as it strikes its targets. Above the man, the bright blue air warps. The sky rips open, and as the man falls, giant purple tentacles, resembling those of some undersea monstrosity, wriggle out of the rip.

  And then, like a pricked bubble, the images vanished. Lambe had fallen to his knees, his hand no longer on the stone. I wandered to the one nearest me but did not touch it. I could feel it even now, the distant tremor of power.

  “That was Wild Mordecai, the last English mystic.” Lambe wavered and fell backward. Maria caught him and laid his head in her lap. “He was the first to open this circle.”

  “He invented the runes?” I asked. Because now I knew, all of us knew, that this circle was the beginning of magic in England.

  “No. The runes must have already been here. Perhaps the Fae.” Lambe swallowed. Maria laid him in the grass, came to the stone beside me, and placed her hand upon it. She hissed but did not pull away. A hum buzzed around us as Alice went to another stone and touched it. Finally, steeling myself, I laid my hand upon a stone as well. A sorcerer, magician, and witch were all in contact.

  The circle vibrated, and a pulse of energy exploded skyward in a great, glowing ring. My whole body felt white-hot for one second, and then the feeling disappeared. We all took our hands away; I was mildly surprised to find my handprint had not been burned into the rock.

  “You see now?” Lambe propped himself up on his elbows.

  We had awoken the circle. I felt it.

  “It’s like bein’ struck by lightnin’.” Alice studied her hands. “Only without the dyin’ bit.”

  The power in this circle was unfathomable. These were the first summoning runes. The first to send a creature back, as well as to bring it forward.

  “There was something special about the time of day.” Maria spoke as if in a trance. “The man waited until the sun was at its height.”

  “The solstice.” I recalled the memory Mickelmas had shown me of himself, Lord Blackwood, and my father. They had waited until noon on a summer solstice to open that portal. “The timing has to be perfect.”

  Lambe’s silence told me I was correct. In order to end this war, the circle would have to open on one of the solstices or equinoxes, a moment of transition from winter to spring or spring to summer. To finish this once and for all, we would have to come out of hiding. In fact, we would have to welcome our guests with open arms and borders.

  R’hlem and his armies had to come to Sorrow-Fell.

  * * *

  —

  WE FOUND OUR WAY BACK TO the house as dawn lightened the sky. God, we’d spent a whole night out at the stone circle. As we deposited Lambe before the chapel, the door flung open. Wolff strode out, his sleeves rolled and his hair mussed. The poor fellow hadn’t slept.

  “Clarence. Where the devil were you?” He caught Lambe up in a tight embrace.

  “Having an interesting walk. You should tell Blackwood,” Lambe said as Wolff helped him into the chapel. He needed rest badly, and so did I. Telling Blackwood might have to wait a few hours.

  When I stole back to my room, I drew the curtains and barely had the strength to remove my gown and corset before tumbling headlong into bed.

  Several hours later, I awoke to a ringing in my head and a knock at the door. I sat up as Lilly entered with a tray. She kicked the door shut behind her, and it felt so like Agrippa’s house that for a minute I believed these past few months had all been a mad dream. That I’d woken to another day of practice sessions with the boys.

  “Lord Blackwood sent this.” She deposited the tray in my lap. Smoked ham and tea, along with some brown bread and raspberry jam. My stomach rippled at the sight; I was starving.

  “You don’t have to bring me breakfast,” I said, sheepish.

  Lilly sat beside me. “It’s no bother. After y
ou eat, His Lordship asks you to come down to the library.” She frowned. “Where were you last night?”

  Ah, so my absence had been noted. I took a bite of the bread.

  “I’ll tell you. I promise,” I said as I washed it down with a sip of tea. I’d have to eat fast and dress faster. Blackwood wanted an explanation? He would certainly have it.

  * * *

  —

  I NEVER MINDED HAVING A REASON to go to the Blackwood library. I had always loved the happy sight of books lining a shelf. Even the smell of books was the most wonderful perfume, that musty-sweet blend of ink and paper. Any library was a good library, but Sorrow-Fell’s was truly exceptional.

  Say what you would about Charles Blackwood—he was a cruel scoundrel and a liar, it was true. But he had also been a scholar, and he had built a library to match his curiosity. The library was more of a palace than a room, with bookcases that stretched fifteen feet high. Every subject under the sun was collected here, from alchemy to zoology, from the wisdom of ancient Greece to the bold questions of the Enlightenment.

  Long tables were stationed throughout the cavernous room, illuminated by a chandelier shaped like a sun, a candle held in each of its golden rays. The size of the place demanded a crowd. Indeed, Charles Blackwood had envisioned magical scholars from all over the world coming to his estate to study and debate with one another.

  Perhaps the only decent thing he’d ever imagined. Granted, it was likely he’d had one goal in mind: the accumulation of more magical power for himself. Tucked inside these shelves, between volumes by Aristotle or Herodotus or Voltaire, one might stumble across a book of dark and unspeakable magic.

  Charles Blackwood had kept books that detailed how to sacrifice an infant to attain greater knowledge, or how to read the secrets of the universe in a virgin’s entrails. Sometimes, I would find Blackwood in this library, tucked into a corner and reading over one of those unholy scripts. The sight of them—often bound in a diseased-looking leather—made me shudder. He would remind me that he was searching for theories, not anything practical. And I believed him, because he was not his father.