Perhaps I would find some glimpse of magicians in Derbyshire.
“Am I interrupting?” Blackwood’s voice was a shock in the stillness. I wheeled about to find him standing in the doorway.
Blackwood kept his hands behind his back, but I read the wariness in his eyes. Since he’d argued with the queen, we had kept to ourselves. Normally, we would have supper together in the evening, or sit in the library after coffee. There would be hushed talking and stolen kisses. These past few days, though, we’d been strangers. His absence was a pain in my chest.
“I was searching for a coven in the highlands. Perhaps the witches have been moving south.” I kept my voice uninterested. After all, I didn’t give a damn what he thought of me. I made to walk past him, but he touched my waist. His eyes shimmered with masked hurt.
“I’m sorry I chastised you before the queen.” He pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. “I can’t stand fighting with you.”
All my coldness melted. I wanted so badly to give in to his embrace, but remained firm. “You said you were the one giving the orders. You spoke to Her Majesty like a child.”
Blackwood took my hands, his thumb tracing a circle over my engagement ring.
“I cannot bring R’hlem to the last bastion of safety in this country. If Sorrow-Fell falls, who else will be able to stand up to him?”
“I’ve been looking for the witches and magicians,” I said, but I knew he had a point. The sorcerers had the best training, the strongest weapons. Though if my vision in the circle was true, all three races were needed to end this war.
“I would expect you to start in on a new plan.” He smiled, only a touch. “I’ve thought we could compromise.”
“The great Imperator Blackwood, compromise? Heavens, how droll.” I wrinkled my nose, and Blackwood gave a brief coughing laugh. Well, if I could still make him laugh, perhaps we were all right.
“I’ve returned to the stones and recorded the runes. If what you say about a witch, a magician, and a sorcerer all being needed is true…” He ghosted a kiss across my lips, which melted my resolve. “Perhaps you, Maria, and I could attempt it.”
“With me as the magician?” After all, I wasn’t truly a magician now. Alice was, but she still begged me to keep her cover secure. Even though Blackwood had said I could bring magicians to Sorrow-Fell, I wasn’t certain how safe she’d be among the other sorcerers, not without an army of magicians at her back.
I recalled my father bleeding on the runes. Perhaps it was blood, not magical ability, that was needed to open that portal. Perhaps the three of us would be enough.
At the very least, we could try.
“But what if the circle depends on the equinox? What if it’s too early?”
“We may not even attempt an opening. Let’s see how the act of carving the runes feels. Tonight, after dinner, we’ll take Maria and go to the outer reaches of the barrier, away from everyone else,” he said. “We’ll test it. You were a schoolteacher, after all. I know that if you love anything, it’s a test.”
“It’s wonderful, having a fiancé who knows you so well,” I teased, wrapping my arms about his waist. This was compromise, and something more. He was giving me the opportunity to share in this as an equal.
I brushed my lips against his, and he deepened the kiss. How I loved his every small reaction, and how I could make him react. His soft, delighted moan when I bit down lightly on his lip, his hushed intake of breath when we broke apart. Blackwood’s free hand roamed up my back. He kissed my jaw, right where my pulse fluttered. I closed my eyes and gasped as he kissed down my neck…and went farther.
My neckline wasn’t deep, but he pressed his lips over my heart. God, I was losing my senses. Thankfully, Blackwood brought his lips back to mine, but his fingers continued to toy with the lace at the very edge of my bodice. My skin grew wonderfully hot beneath his touch. He stopped when embers trailed from my hand.
“Sorry,” I murmured, but his mouth stopped my words. My entire body was heavy with want, tense with excitement. My heart hammered as Blackwood pushed me back against the wall with his body. I was trapped and welcomed it, as much as I welcomed his hand making a slow journey up my waist. Then, barely breathing, I felt his hand skim over the swell of my breast. We’d never gone that far before, and I gasped. He pulled back as though he’d been burned.
“Sorry,” he echoed me. His pupils were large and dark. He traced the tips of his fingers across my cheek.
“I wish…” Then I stopped, because I didn’t know how to finish that sentence without sounding immodest.
“I know,” he replied. His strained breathing indicated he wanted the same thing. Blackwood and I had kissed before, but never like that. Never as though we wanted to meld ourselves together. Never as though we were the only two people on earth.
“So.” I smoothed my hair. “After dinner, then?”
I sounded far too bright, even to my own ears. Blackwood laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. It was such a carefree, easy sound.
I loved it.
“Very well. After dinner.”
* * *
—
MARIA, BLACKWOOD, AND I ALL MADE our way to the edge of the barrier as the moon climbed into the sky. The night was cloudless and the snow so brilliant it glowed. Maria ran ahead of us, her peacock-blue cloak standing out sharply in the moonlight. She stopped in a clearing.
“This is it!”
With the moon overhead and my fire to warm us, we got to work at once. Consulting Blackwood’s paper, we wrote the runes into the snow, measuring the circle to make certain it was correctly proportioned. With every new rune, I felt something coming alive inside me. The runes were power itself.
Finally, there it lay in the snow: a perfect ring. Was it my imagination, or did it vibrate?
I wanted to quash the writing out of existence. But we had no other choice, not with the swarms of Familiars amassing all around us. For better or worse, these runes were probably the way to ending the war. We needed to test them.
“My father’s books all talked of blood sacrifice,” Blackwood said, checking for flaws. I felt his engagement ring beneath my glove, that pearl set in that silver band. We were together in this, as we always would be. Warding a blade on Porridge, I met Maria’s gaze.
“Not a lot of blood is needed,” Blackwood said, as though he was worried I’d lop off an arm in my enthusiasm. “Perhaps a little from the three of us?”
Maria took out her dagger, and Blackwood warded a blade of his own. As one, we lightly cut our fingers and let the dark droplets of blood fall onto the virgin snow. The drops scattered upon the runes, and the air crackled with energy. Blackwood and Maria each appeared to feel it as well. Blackwood took a quick step backward, one hand to his chest. Maria crouched in the snow, watching the runes as they began to glow and…bubble. Delight and horror mixed within me, a potent hybrid.
A shock of energy, like a physical shove, erupted from the ring and knocked me to the ground. Energy shot from the ring to ricochet off the barrier. I could sense it. Maria rolled about on the ground in a daze, while Blackwood got to his feet.
“Oh no. No.” He crushed one of the runes beneath his boot. The buzzing power dissipated at once.
“Nothing happened. It’s all right,” I gasped. But Blackwood ran past me.
“No!” Stave raised, he shot a blast of fire into the air, a warning shot. But to warn against what, exactly? The portal hadn’t opened, and…
And then I heard the gleeful, inhuman noises rushing toward us like a dark tide. The sound of multitudes of trampling feet came from the direction of the barrier.
The pulse hadn’t opened the portal; it had knocked down the barrier.
Sorrow-Fell was open to the monsters.
Maria and I chased Blackwood up the hill. I held Porridge, and Maria kept pace with her
ax. Ahead, the darkness moved like a wave. Horns sounded the alarm. As we approached the oncoming horde, I whispered, “Do you think tonight will be the night?”
“Perhaps.” She didn’t have to ask what I meant. Perhaps this was the moment to reveal her true nature as our chosen one. Something good might as well come out of what was about to happen, to make up for this idiotic blunder I’d led us all into. My eyes burned as I ran, the shame warming me better than any fire could. God, all I could think of was Lilly, and Eliza, and Magnus, and Valens’s wife and newborn daughter. The queen, by all heaven—hopefully the queen’s assigned guard was with her already.
Sorcerers flowed up the moonlit hill to follow Blackwood toward the barrier. If he could close it soon, we might stand a chance. Wolff and Dee raced ahead, the glow of a ward around them. They met two charging lice Familiars headlong—the wards brought down the spidery monstrosities, and the boys plunged blades through the creatures’ hearts.
“Howel!” Dee waved me over, his hooked arm shining in the moonlight. We arrived in a flurry of snow, which Wolff was using to construct a low, solid shield of ice. We joined him, Dee and I, weaving our magic quickly. Maria held back and vanished into the trees. “How the blazes did this happen?” Dee cried, sharing my fire to weave a fast net. We launched the blue flame over three swooping ravens, pinning them to the earth. The caws and screams as they sizzled turned my stomach, as did the smoking flesh and feathers.
“The Skinless Man’s trick, no doubt.” Wolff spoke through his teeth, consumed in the task at hand. God, how I wished that were true.
No time for regret. More Familiars swarmed with every second. Acting on instinct, we sorcerers divided into our assigned squadrons. Horn blasts signaled squadrons to their spots on the barrier. I stood with Wolff, while Dee fell in with Valens. Together, we all met the oncoming attack.
“Fire!” Valens called as the monsters approached.
The first wave of defense ran at the creatures.
The clash of armies was immediate and gruesome. One skinless Familiar brought its sword down in a stinging arc and lopped a sorcerer’s head from his shoulders. The body crumpled at my feet, blood spattering the ground and steaming in the air. With a cry, I thrust my stave forward, punching a hole through the Familiar’s chest with a stream of pure fire.
Our cries seemed to rattle the very trees around us.
We pushed into battle, pummeling the demons back. God in heaven, how many were there? Already, great quantities of blood had mixed with the snow. The ground was a soupy pink.
“Close it!” I shouted at Blackwood.
As he fought his way toward the barrier, a cadre of sorcerers kept a circle around him as protection—and some of the human men joined in as well. I hadn’t noticed them until now, but they were the people we’d rescued days before, fellows with pitchforks and clubs and kitchen knives. They all ran past the barrier, doing their best to shove the Familiars out into the forest.
Valens’s squadron joined them. I caught bright flashes of him and Dee as they shoved the monsters back. Dee especially was relentless; he built up a huge wall of ice and pushed it before him, crushing the creatures as they scrambled to escape. Flashes of fire, bitter swirls of ice, the rumble of the earth itself, we used them all. Still, there were so many Familiars. Always more.
Please, God, let Blackwood close the gate. Launching a fireball into a skinless man’s face, I hoped against hope.
If we couldn’t do this, a free England was a thing of the bloody past.
Mercifully, Blackwood made his way to the head of the barrier unharmed. I caught sight of Maria as she knelt behind a tree and unleashed a fierce blizzard that only slowed down the Familiars.
Blackwood arrived at the invisible dividing line. With a great cry, he waved his hand across the stones. We all gasped in relief as the protection came up around us again.
Though we’d closed the gate, by my count there were sixteen Familiars still among us, and that wasn’t counting what might have got in everywhere else. Organizing fast into groups of three and six, we launched into attack. Cut off from their army, the Familiars were more easily handled. They exploded or melted or froze before us, dropping like great, disgusting flies. My heart sang as we fought. It didn’t matter that my corset was digging into my side, or that I had a painful hitch in my leg. We were winning.
But then, as the carnage began to subside, we all heard those fearsome cries on the other side of the barrier. Horrified, I saw that one of the squadrons had been left on the wrong side of the line. Valens’s face was white with shock. The ordinary men who had come to fight with us were also there, armed with nothing but rusted pitchforks. Some pounded at the barrier, yelling to be let in.
And…Dee was among them. He stood beside Valens, staring across an unbridgeable gap.
“Let them in!” I shouted, and everyone around me took up the cry. But Blackwood could only look on with misery.
“Too many,” he gasped, and he was right.
Out of the dense forest, over the hill, swarms of Familiars rushed forward. We’d gotten a mere taste of what was coming. Valens and Dee blasted at the attackers, but it was a losing game. The rest of us watched, helpless as children at a pantomime.
A sharp whistle. Dee was rounding up the ordinary men to head deeper into the forest. Valens joined them and they ran. Some men fell and were set upon by monsters. Blood gushed over the snow.
By the time we’d finished slashing the beasts, our friends had disappeared into the woods. And judging by the slavering hordes pressed up against the barrier, searching for a way inside, we could not launch a rescue effort. Not tonight. Perhaps not tomorrow, either.
They’ll never be seen again.
The thought slashed through my mind, a blaze of red. No. I hurried to Blackwood, his image blurring as tears came upon me. “Please.”
“We can’t.” Blackwood held me tight. Not Dee. I remembered Dee treading on my feet as he taught me to dance. Dee blushing as he told me about his feelings for Lilly. Dee standing with us against Nemneris. Dee only a few days before, leading a squadron, wooing Lilly with a winter flower, doing all the things he’d never believed he could do.
“The perimeters were all down.” Hawthorne came up wiping blood and ichor from his face. “We must make certain every last one of those beasts that got through is dead.”
“We’ve a job to do,” Blackwood whispered. I could feel him trembling. Dee was lost, along with Valens and so many others. Innocent men lost in those woods, left to die.
All my bloody fault.
“Come on, then.” Maria touched my shoulder gently—no one had noticed her during the fight. Why hadn’t she seized the opportunity? Had she, when faced with all the death and chaos around her, become frozen with fear? I could ask her later. For now, I placed an arm around her waist, and she and I walked back toward the interior of the park. We had a long night of work ahead of us.
But one of us was not ready to leave.
“Dee!” Magnus pushed sorcerers aside and propelled himself against the barrier. He beat at it, a stream of curses flying from his lips. I went to pull him away. “How did it happen, Howel?”
He thought I was ignorant of the reality. His question was a plea against simple misfortune. He assumed there was no reason for it. But I knew better.
And I had to tell him yet another lie, on top of the countless others that had already eaten a hole in my heart. “I don’t know,” I said.
* * *
—
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, AFTER A NIGHT of hunting down every last miserable Familiar that had made it onto Sorrow-Fell lands, I staggered up the stairs to my room. Lighting a candle, I poured water for a wash. The basin turned cloudy at once, pink with blood. I gingerly took off my clothes and put on my nightgown.
There’d been so many bodies. So much death.
Maria and I had gone to tell Lilly as soon as we arrived home. She was a braver soul than I was, but she’d dissolved in tears when we told her about Dee. Maria had given her a drink and told her to sleep. Maria was the healer, not I.
The guilt ate at me. As I made for my bed, there was a knock at the door. Without awaiting my answer, Blackwood slipped inside. Closing the door, he slumped. His black hair stuck at odd angles all over his head. He still wore his muddy boots. The buttons on his jacket were undone, and a dark patch of drying blood decorated his forehead.
“What is it?” I wrapped my arms around my body. God, I was in only my nightdress.
Blackwood was crying.
I had never seen Blackwood cry before. There had been moments when he teetered on the brink of emotion. Once, when he had confessed his father’s secret to me in Agrippa’s library, I had seen him desperate and in pain. Now he looked as though the center had been punched out of him.
“All those people.” His breathing was ragged.
I went to him. He’d lost his coat somewhere in the last few hours. We were pressed up against each other now, and the hard contours of his body warmed against mine. I felt the wild thudding of his heart in his chest. We stood there, and my own tears wet the shoulder of his shirt.
“We did everything we could,” I murmured. “It’s…it’s my fault. I suggested the runes.” But he shook his head.
“Howel, I’m lost.”
I’d missed hearing my surname from his lips. That had been a signal, to me, that we were two sorcerers equal in each other’s company.
“You’re the youngest Imperator in history, after all.” I kissed his cheek. “You’re bound to feel lost, but I’m with you.”
“How could such a monster…” He paused, because we both knew he was talking about my father. He put a hand to my cheek, his fingers cold against the heat of my skin. “How could he have such a daughter?”
A Sorrow Fierce and Falling (Kingdom on Fire, Book Three) Page 7