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

by Jessica Cluess

  Magnus had Eliza by the waist and wrestled her away from a louse Familiar. Now that the others were safely through, Magnus tried to help guide Eliza back to close the barrier. But they were beaten away by Familiars—the fiends clearly understood what Eliza’s touch meant. The rest of us charged up the hill to find Dee at the head of the lost squadron, striking into the heart of the encroaching dark army. But even all of us together could not contain the monsters.

  They were prepared this time. And there were so many of them.

  One of the Familiars ripped into a sorcerer’s back, slicing his glistening spinal column free with a meaty tear. The sorcerer—a boy, really—coughed a bright bubble of blood before falling facedown into the snow. I shot flame at the monster, at all the monsters. But there were so damn many of them.

  Blackwood outpaced all of us. With his sorcerer guard around him, he managed to touch the barrier and close it. The wall went up not a moment too soon. Dozens of the monsters threw themselves against the dividing line, howling. Eliza had rescued a good many lives, but she had allowed at least thirty Familiars inside. As one of the ravens rose up into the air, its ragged wings fluttering, I unleashed a massive corkscrew of flame. My blood was up, and the threads of shadow thickened, turning my fire more black than blue. Two, three monsters fell to sizzle in the snow. I gritted my teeth and shoved one over with the toe of my boot. Its face was baked black, the stench like rotten meat.

  I wrenched the crown of snow-sorrows from my head and threw it to the earth. Feet crushed the blue flowers. Throwing my stave to the ground, I summoned a sheet of stinging ice and sent it rushing ahead to cover my enemies. I could see Magnus guarding Eliza as they made for his horse. Unfortunately, the poor beast was so terrified it galloped for the security of the stables.

  A raven swooped out of the sky, aiming for me. I fell backward, dodging it as I struggled to get over to Magnus, to help with Eliza. I was running, getting closer, when one of R’hlem’s skinless warriors lunged out from its hiding place behind a tree. Magnus parried the creature but lost his footing and fell. The monster prepared a killing blow with its sword while I threw out my hands with a scream, fire igniting at my fingertips. I was going to stop the beast; I had to.

  Eliza didn’t hesitate. She flung herself in front of Magnus. The skinless warrior ran her through with his blade in one seamless motion.

  I fell to my knees. Around me, the world seemed to stop.

  She crumpled on top of Magnus, trapping him momentarily. Before the beast could finish them off, I flung out my hands and let loose. My fire charred the creature to ash and barbecued fat.

  Blackwood and I were beside them in a minute. One word repeated itself in my mind: No. No, no, no. We turned Eliza over, to see the damage.

  Blood stained our hands. The thing had got her in the side. Her normally pale face was whiter now, flecked with rich crimson. Her stockings had been torn. One of her gold ear baubles had fallen loose in the fight. I noticed the strangest things in the most horrible times. Blackwood held Eliza close, as if hugging her could mend this. The stoic earl dissolved into a terrified brother.

  “George. It’s all right,” Eliza whispered. Then she fainted.

  * * *

  —

  “GET THE DOCTOR!” BLACKWOOD ROARED AS Magnus carried Eliza into the house and I followed close behind. I searched the hall in a panic, desperate for Maria. As I’d been running out after Blackwood, I’d begged her to remain behind. If the monsters got through, she’d be one last defense for the people in the house. The Blackwood family’s personal surgeon appeared, fiddling with his glasses. Eliza looked waxen now, and her blood dripped onto the tiled floor as the men rushed her upstairs to her room.

  She wouldn’t last much longer. Where the devil was Maria?

  I hurried for the stables, feeling as though my legs did not exist and that I was a head being carried from one room to the next. The faces and furnishings around me blended. Time dripped away, as surely as blood. Eliza’s blood.

  Through the chaos, I glimpsed Lilly and Dee standing by the entrance. He had her lifted up in his one good arm while she sobbed against his neck. Despite the horror around them, Dee looked as if he’d been ushered into paradise itself.

  “Where’s Maria?” I gasped as I came up beside them. Lilly dropped back to the ground.

  “What is it?” Dee asked.

  “Eliza.” That was all I needed to say. Lilly raced past us at once, heading for the stairs.

  Dee gripped my shoulder. “I saw Maria head upstairs when you were all coming down the hill.”

  If Maria was already with Eliza, then we had a chance. I followed Lilly, praying to every god in existence as I went.

  In Eliza’s bedroom, I found the doctor and Maria toe to toe.

  “I will not take orders from some chit of a girl!” the surgeon bellowed, the veins in his neck popping. He whipped off his glasses to make his point. Maria eyed the man with pure dislike.

  “So you’d bleed her, then? Has she not yet been drained enough for you?”

  Eliza lay on her bed, the mattress grown slippery with blood. They’d got her dress and corset off, and she was in only a stained shift. Blackwood looked between the doctor and Maria like he did not know which way to turn.

  “My lord, you decide,” the doctor spit.

  Blackwood gripped his sister’s hand. She was fading fast.

  “Let her do it,” I said to Blackwood. The doctor muttered something about women while Blackwood held up a hand.

  “Maria. Proceed.” He sounded ill.

  The doctor stormed out of the room as Maria pulled up Eliza’s shift to study the wound. She began firing off orders.

  “I’ll need hot water. Lots of it. Cloth bandages, needles, thread, and the kit from my room. There’s yarrow on my shelves, along with agrimony, rose, and lemon peel. Get them all. They’ll help with clotting. Go now.” She barked these orders at one of the servants, who fled the room. Maria’s hand remained on Eliza’s wound, keeping in the blood. Magnus entered, and his eyes trained on the bed at once. He made a noise as though he’d been hit.

  “We should wait outside,” I told him. “Come on. George!” But Blackwood wouldn’t leave his sister. I pushed Magnus out the door to wait in the hall. His gaze appeared unfocused.

  “Eliza won’t die,” I whispered, trying to convince us both. Magnus slumped against the wall. He was chilled from the outdoors, melting on the spot. He smelled of the pine woods, of sweat and blood.

  His eyes found mine. “I should have protected her better.”

  “Right now, we may only wait,” I said. And we did, waiting as the servant hurried past us with Maria’s things. Waited and prayed until Blackwood gave a great cry. Heart in my throat, I pulled open the door.

  The mattress and sheets were ruined with gore. Maria wiped dried blood from Eliza’s face. Blackwood had his back to the wall, hand before his mouth. Eliza was pale as death.

  God, no.

  But then her lashes fluttered. She opened her eyes and breathed. Maria wrung out another cloth in a basin of hot water.

  “She’ll be all right.” She winked at me. “I’d best get something to bolster her.” With that, she exited.

  The three of us crowded Eliza at once. She tutted, weakly waving one hand.

  “George. Honestly. You’ll kill me for want of air,” she whispered. Her brother kissed her hand several times.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “Sorry for everything. Foxglove. All of it.”

  “You wanted to protect me.” She gave a short laugh. “Considering I’ve been speared through the side, you may have had a point.”

  Blackwood tried to laugh but remained on the verge of tears. “I’d this horrible feeling that you would go, and everything would go with you.” It sounded now as though he were talking nonsense.

  Alr
eady, some color was returning to Eliza’s cheeks. With one of Maria’s brews she’d be strong in no time. Maria returned, stirring a steaming potion in a wooden cup.

  “All right. Drink this down.” She seated herself beside her patient.

  Eliza drained the cup while Blackwood came to my side. We both looked at my stained wedding dress.

  “Perhaps we might find a new gown,” I said lightly. He laughed while Magnus went to sit and speak with Maria and Eliza. The now-empty cup went to the bedside table while Blackwood and I headed into the hall for a moment of peace.

  “That’s twice you’ve brought me to the altar,” he said, taking my hand in his. His flesh was cold, but so was mine. “We never manage to go all the way.” Lord, was he joking?

  Good. We needed some humor.

  “I hear that magic often comes in groups of three. The third time will come out right. Tomorrow?” I asked.

  “This time, we’ll finish the vows even if R’hlem burns the place down.” He kissed me. “It will be worth it, my love.”

  I couldn’t help thinking of the others belowstairs, the wives and children of the men who had been lost. At least we’d rescued another few from R’hlem’s sacrificial maw.

  I kissed him back.

  And then the screams began.

  The bedroom door flung open to reveal an ashen-faced Magnus. “Call the doctor back!” He raced down the carpeted hall.

  Blackwood and I rushed inside the room to find Maria standing next to Eliza, a look of horror etched on her face.

  “I don’t understand!” she cried over and over again. Eliza bucked and thrashed, tearing at the bloodstained sheets.

  She was foaming at the mouth, her eyes bulging from their sockets. Her head snapped back, her spine bending at an unnatural angle. I grabbed a wooden comb and jammed it between her teeth, and Blackwood helped turn her on her side. He was shouting her name. Eliza gripped at the sheets, her fists tightening and jerking spastically. She made a terrified sound, much like a wounded dog.

  Maria, for the first time, looked as if she did not know what to do.

  “Stand back!” The doctor pushed us aside and grabbed Eliza by the shoulders. “Breathe!” Eliza vomited a foaming torrent of blood. She collapsed against the pillow and went horribly still. Her face slackened. A thin whisper of noise escaped her throat.

  Blackwood screamed his sister’s name while the doctor felt at Eliza’s wrist and neck. Finally, he looked up at us, his glasses glinting owlishly in the candlelight.

  “She’s dead,” he announced.

  Silence reigned, save for Maria’s harried breathing. She held her hands before her face, and I noticed, numbly, that her left hand balled itself into a fist.

  Blackwood would not let go of Eliza. He touched her face, a look of dawning horror spreading over his own.

  Eliza couldn’t be dead. Not like this, and in such agony.

  “We couldn’t save her,” Blackwood said.

  The doctor spied Maria’s wooden cup. He took it up and sniffed the dregs. “Who gave her this?”

  “Why?” I drew nearer.

  “A wound doesn’t have that effect upon a person. Poison does.” He dipped his handkerchief in the remains of the drink and sniffed again. His entire face contorted. “My God. It’s pure belladonna.”

  Nightshade. Maria had…poisoned Eliza?

  “It was a mistake,” I said automatically. No. No, I wasn’t going to allow these thoughts. But Maria was beginning to cry.

  “This drink is pure poison. There was no mistake.” The doctor threw the cup to the floor.

  No. Maria was our chosen one, our savior. She did not go about murdering young women. But Blackwood had roused himself from his stupor and turned to Maria with a hellish light in his eyes.

  “Get her out of here,” he said.

  We’d already lost Eliza. I couldn’t bear any more.

  “We don’t know what happened!” I cried, blocking the doorway. Magnus, who had returned, merely knelt beside Eliza’s body. Men knocked into me from behind, swarming around Maria. She didn’t fight. She did nothing but weep as she beheld Eliza’s corpse and the men dragged her from the room.

  “Stop this!” I shouted, fire rippling over my hands. My vision swam. It seemed that the light in the room had begun to dim, that the shadows crept across the carpet to me.

  I was using Rook’s shadow powers. Stunned, I felt my fire extinguish, and the room returned to normal.

  “Put her away.” Maria wept so hard, her words were almost unintelligible. “Chain her up. Quickly.”

  The men knocked me against the wall as they passed. Blackwood followed at their heels.

  “Put her in the old dungeons, on the Faerie grounds! Bind her in iron! Don’t let her out!” he bellowed. Then he was gone, his shouts mingling with Maria’s sobs. The doctor tilted Eliza’s chin this way and that, a look on his face pitched between genuine sadness and smug condescension.

  “If you’d kept me here, she’d still be alive,” he said.

  “She would have died of her wounds instead,” I snapped. He raised an eyebrow.

  “Would that have been less painful?”

  Magnus grabbed the man by his vest. The doctor whimpered as Magnus brought them nose to nose.

  “Why don’t you walk me through exactly what happened?” Magnus growled.

  I went to the bed. The squelch of blood beneath my shoes didn’t stop me. Eliza’s green eyes were glassy. I thought back to the first day we’d met, in Madame Voltiana’s shop. She’d made me laugh. She’d been the bubbling life of any room. Now…

  Her hand was cold and waxen. My whole body shook, and I fled the room. I couldn’t stand to look any longer, and Blackwood needed help. Someone would have to tell his mother. And Maria…I had to understand what had happened. Because I knew, beyond any doubt, that it had been an accident. She had rushed. She had grabbed the wrong vial. Something trivial had led to something catastrophic. Beyond anything, I knew she had not meant to do it.

  Downstairs, the place was in an uproar. Head spinning, I asked to be directed to Blackwood. Soon I found him in the smaller parlor, the one nearest the divide between the west wing and the ancient Faerie estate. This room functioned as a second library, and a painted wooden globe stood by the window. I closed the door behind me, muting the voices in the hall. Blackwood sat in a chair before the fire, face in his hands. He cast a warped shadow over the carpet.

  Above the fire hung the great portrait of Charles Blackwood. It gazed down upon us with a look of unruffled calm. But with all I knew of him, I could only see a smug and callous expression. Dark mirth glinted in his eyes.

  The sight of that wicked bastard gazing down on his grief-wracked son made me want to set the damn thing on fire.

  Blackwood didn’t move as I approached.

  “I’m sorry.” My tongue felt clumsy in my mouth. There were no words for what he was facing. He stayed still, his long, pale fingers hiding his face.

  “She was…,” he said, and stopped. He didn’t appear to notice me as he stood and walked to the fire. His shadow danced erratically as he placed one hand on the wall. “After the war came, she was the only source of light.”

  He bent over, an invisible weight pressing between his shoulder blades.

  “I imagined I put all my fine qualities into her, like a memory box. She was everything about me that was right. Everything that was good.” He couldn’t speak the final word. He mouthed it, like it had been snatched from his lips. “What am I now? A hollow man with a title.”

  His voice was brittle. When I held him, he collapsed against me like a puppet with its strings cut.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered again and again.

  He shoved me away, and I tumbled backward into a chair.

  Blackwood’s eyes gleamed with a cruel light. �
��You forced me to bring that witch with us.”

  “What?” I couldn’t have understood him. “Maria is the chosen one.”

  “I took your word on it.” He paced back and forth, a wild cat edging its way toward a kill. “You seduced me into believing it.”

  Seduced him? I stiffened. “Lashing out isn’t going to bring her back.”

  He kicked over a table, sending the objects set upon it to smash on the floor. A porcelain clock lay in pieces. Blackwood stalked toward me.

  “How do I know you haven’t been working for R’hlem all this time? Such an obedient daughter,” he spit. Dear God, he was losing his mind.

  “You know I’m not working with him,” I snapped. He kept coming, though. My body tensed as the flames murmured under my skin. “Eliza wouldn’t want this.”

  “Don’t say her name!” he howled, a sound of pure suffering. “You…slut!”

  My whole body lit on fire, blasting him to the floor. That word latched its claws into my back, but I couldn’t feel the pain yet. He looked up, grief and hatred in his face.

  “If you ever speak that way to me again, I will kill you.” I extinguished and left the room.

  It wasn’t until I was halfway up the stairs that the wind rushed out of me and I slid down onto a stair. I burst into tears, my skirts a tangled mess on the staircase. Blood still spattered my gown. Eliza’s blood.

  That would send me over the edge all over again.

  Think calmly. Think. That cold, practical voice that had led me this far whispered in my mind, and I took sucking breaths of air.

  Blackwood was wrong about Maria. She could have unleashed the full force of her powers on us. She could have evaded capture as easily as a cat can hop onto a ledge, but she’d let herself be taken away. She’d wanted them to take her.

  Chain her up. Those had been her words. Not Chain me up or I’m to blame. She’d said her. But who the devil was her?

  I had to find Maria. I had to set this right somehow. Though I knew, even as I made my way back down the stairs, that it could never be right again. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…