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

by Jessica Cluess

“Come, Emperor!” R’hlem shouted. “Come and claim this world.”

  The wind picked up. Thanks to R’hlem’s preoccupation with the Emperor’s arrival, his control over my muscles diminished. I slowly stood and took one, two, four steps before I felt myself being inexorably sucked into the vortex. Crying out, I threw myself to the ground and dug my fingers into the earth.

  Blackwood shouted something I couldn’t understand. I got to my feet again and moved carefully. Blood was the hinge of the door. If I could bleed on the runes, perhaps I could close the circle.

  If that wasn’t a large enough sacrifice, well, then I didn’t know what to do.

  R’hlem was paying me no mind. He delighted in watching the fabric of the world unravel. I kept a grip on the rope tied about my waist. At least I had that ready, should I need it.

  I prepared to cut my hand, but the current of wind in the circle expanded outward and knocked me off my feet. Between one heartbeat and the next I was sucked up into the air, dangling in the wind, the rope around me digging painfully into my waist. I gasped, trying to get my bearings as I was tossed about. But I was all right. I was fine…

  Until I felt the knot at my waist give way, unable to take the terrible strain.

  I was untethered.

  Gasping, I grabbed at the rope as it slid through my hand, burning me. By some miracle I managed to cling to the end of it at the last possible second. I hung there, my grip weakening. I couldn’t let go of the stave. If it went through the vortex—that would mean suicide of my soul. But I was losing my grip on the rope.

  R’hlem shouted my name in shock, but he could not enter the circle without being drawn into that void as well. Willoughby would do nothing. Mickelmas was too injured to help.

  Blackwood—who had shaken off R’hlem’s spell, rounded the circle, and found his way to my rope—was my last chance. He alone could pull me in.

  He held his stave. I could see the warded edge of it glowing dimly.

  “Blackwood, the portal! You can’t!” Mickelmas shouted. And then I realized how it was. History had come full circle. Years ago, Mickelmas, Lord Blackwood, and William Howel had all played with the most dangerous object known to man. It had ended with Lord Blackwood cutting the rope that held my father, sending him into a hellish exile. Now here I was, dangling at the end of a rope at the edge of that same hell world, and Blackwood regarded me with a blade in his hand. He could cut it so easily, and no one could stop him. I looked in his eyes and saw fathomless rage there. Rage at me for disappointing him, rage at his family for burdening him, rage at the world for snatching away the things that he loved one at a time.

  I was the perfect vessel for his revenge.

  “Please,” I gasped.

  He locked eyes with me and grabbed the rope…and then put his stave away.

  “Hold on.” Blackwood tugged. I gripped so tight that my hand cramped. If I could only sheathe Porridge, I could climb down the rope myself. Instead I had to pray his strength would hold. I was nearly there….

  Blackwood’s foot slipped on the grass. He fell forward and released the rope. I flew back out and almost let go. I could feel my fingers slipping.

  I closed my eyes, recalling the memory Mickelmas had shown me. When my father went into the portal, it had shrunk back to a manageable size.

  If this portal stayed open much longer, the Emperor would come. At least I could spare the world that fate.

  I breathed…and let go.

  Opening my eyes, I found Blackwood’s face frozen in horror. The world around me was blue and sunlit and brilliant. I’d take that with me into the darkness, to whatever horrors lay ahead. I allowed myself to fall upward.

  Someone caught me by the wrist, suspending me in midair. He dragged me forward, out of the vortex’s pull. I was back on the ground, Blackwood on his knees beside me. But he hadn’t been the one to rescue me.

  R’hlem was untying a rope around his waist.

  “Are you all right?” His one eye was huge with fear.

  I bolted from him on instinct, colliding with Blackwood, who moved in front of me, his stave ready.

  “Don’t touch her,” he snarled.

  R’hlem watched as I pressed close to Blackwood. He shook his head in disbelief, staring at the young earl. “You look so like him,” he said to Blackwood.

  Gently, Mickelmas sat down alongside us. “Charles is dead, William.” Mickelmas looked more somber—and more pitying—than I had ever known him. “Please. George is not his father.”

  Blackwood kept an arm out to protect me. I pressed my cheek close to his, holding out my stave as well. I was ready for an attack. We were united.

  “You went to save her.” R’hlem sounded weary. I knew then that he had seen what I had—the same scenario that had once condemned him, only this time with a vastly different outcome. R’hlem looked at the vortex. He ran a hand over his face.

  “Father.” I tested that word once more. He didn’t look at me. “How do we close it?”

  “It’s too late,” he said as the pull of the vortex eased. At first I thought it a good thing, but I realized the suction had ceased because something large was coming through.

  Something very large.

  We would all witness the Kindly Emperor’s smile.

  Witness his smile. Those were the warnings I had read, written in blood or carved into walls.

  But as the Kindly Emperor emerged into our world, I saw that there was no smile, only a gash in the universe. I felt inconsequential in its presence, as small as if I were gazing up at the black and infinite night sky.

  I imagined the whole of humanity stretched out like a carpet of crumbs before this beast.

  Its face resembled a Carnevale mask, with jagged teeth and blue triangles beneath the eyes. The emerging body appeared gelatinous, like a slug’s. But the form did not matter: there was only that smile, that tear in the fabric of reality. Within that mouth, I glimpsed endless night, the rot of everything good and human. I had never faced anything like this. The Ancients were monstrosities, but merely that. Physical horrors.

  The Kindly Emperor’s smile ripped away the comfortable reality that had always enveloped me. In that mouth, I saw the truth. There was a universe beyond ours, and it was chaos. There was no reason, or light: only blood, and dead stars dwindling like dying embers in the endless void. The Kindly Emperor’s smile was not from hell; it was hell itself, come to swallow this world.

  The earth went mad at the Emperor’s presence. The grass rotted. The sky boiled and turned the color of a candy apple. Mickelmas dug his fingers into his eyes.

  “The smile! The smile!” he wailed. I quickly turned away; I could feel my sanity unraveling the longer I stared.

  R’hlem stood frozen, a hand over his mouth. Then, as if making a decision, he threw his arm down and ran toward the thing.

  “Stop!” He planted his feet firmly in the ground. “Go back!”

  The Emperor’s eyes narrowed in fury. Spines bristled along the collar of its jelly neck.

  Before I could even take a breath to scream, one of the quills shot out and speared my father through the center of his body, pinning him to the earth like a beetle. He coughed a bubble of blood, trying and failing to pull himself off the long spine.

  I stared as his body went limp, as he slid down the spine.

  The Kindly Emperor gave a scream of triumph. It was the sound of a thousand madmen being burned alive.

  Nothing could stop this demon beyond time. Nothing except…

  The world turned bright at the edges of my vision. Fire beaded on my hands, the shadows overwhelming the flame. I was a burning tongue of shadow now. And I ran my tongue along my sharpening teeth, and felt the cry of my five other brothers and sisters out there, fighting the sorcerers, the magicians, the witches…

  And then I understood.
Trying to hold on to myself, I turned to Blackwood. “We have to summon the Ancients.”

  “It’s blocking the portal home!” Mickelmas shouted.

  “Yes. I know.” I fingered the bone whistle at my throat. “The optiaethis calls us home.”

  No, not us.

  I fought against the impulse to tip down into that well of endless power, endless darkness. Korozoth’s ability whispered through my bones, but I would not succumb. Not yet.

  Blackwood did as I asked and took the lantern from its black satchel. The white light pulsed, calling me with the sweetest, smallest voice. Come home to me, it called. Hear me and come.

  Mickelmas looked green but held out his hand to Blackwood. “All right, son. Let me have it.”

  Blackwood extended the optiaethis but paused. “Get Maria. She’s fainted.”

  He was right. Maria was sprawled on the other side of the circle, unconscious. Was she free of Willoughby? I couldn’t tell.

  The human part of me wished to run and get her; the part that was increasingly Ancient wanted only my brothers and sisters.

  “I can’t go. Please, you get her,” I said to Mickelmas, straining to remain in control.

  He huffed. “Wait here.” As he hurried over to her, Blackwood turned away from the circle. The optiaethis shone bright in his hand.

  “This was always meant for me.” Blackwood looked into my eyes, and I saw what he intended to do.

  The sight of that lantern tugged at the beast inside me. Gritting my teeth, I forced back that monstrous voice. “No. Mickelmas will be right back,” I gasped. Stop him. I should stop him. But he held up his hand to me.

  “No, Howel. I wanted to be the one to save this country.” His mouth twisted in an ironic smile. “Let me have that.”

  In my bones, I knew that our time was nearly spent. Fighting back the urge to scream, I realized that he was right. Clutching Blackwood’s hand, I let him see the gratitude in my eyes, and the tears. I let him see that I understood what he was attempting—what he was willing to sacrifice. Here, at the end, all his bitterness and hatred had burned away. This was his great purpose. I could not take it from him.

  He squeezed my fingers in return, and I felt the beast within me surge forward in hunger. “Do it,” I growled, giving myself over to my need.

  Without another word, he unhooked the latch and opened the cage door. A great burst of hot white light streamed out. Blackwood clutched the thing to his chest. He collapsed to his knees, his face taut with pain. Light shot across the valley, out into the winter and the snow.

  The call reverberated in my blood: Come here. Come home to me.

  Blackwood howled as the light grew hotter and brighter, so bright I was certain I’d go blind. A spasm racked his body, and he collapsed to the ground. The optiaethis tumbled from his hands, its light extinguishing.

  No. I knelt beside Blackwood, forgetting Mickelmas and Maria, forgetting my father and the Emperor. Blackwood would not open his eyes, no matter how I shook him. The light from the lantern was dead—whatever creature was inside it had expired. I panicked, until I felt the presence of five other creatures.

  With the ground trembling underfoot, the Ancients arrived in answer to the lantern’s call.

  Callax, the Child Eater, pushed his way into the circle first, his shoulders speckled and pocked with mossy disease. He squinted at me, opening his great jaw in a roar.

  Nemneris, the Water Spider, crawled up beside him, towering over us on her long, long legs. A hot, steaming rope of venom dripped from her pincers.

  On-Tez, the Vulture Woman, swooped in to perch upon one of the stones. The old woman’s face glared down at me, the black vulture wings spread.

  Zem, the Great Serpent, arrived, his gullet bursting with flame. His lizard eyes darted about, to me, to Blackwood, to Mickelmas, finally settling upon his master, R’hlem. His spines flared upon his back, and steam issued from his nostrils. As if he’d received a wordless order, he turned his attention to the Emperor. The enemy.

  Finally, with the smell of bones and decay, Molochoron, the Pale Destroyer, rolled up beside Nemneris. The ball of mold swelled at the threat ahead of us.

  Trembling, I put the whistle to my lips and began to blow.

  And as I played, the darkness in the recesses of my soul spread.

  My tongue traced the edges of ever-sharpening teeth. I closed my eyes, the monster inside me responding to the whistle’s call.

  I looked at my brothers, my Ancients. They did not need a whistle. They would follow me.

  I pointed to the Emperor.

  Send it home. I rose, my fire and my shadow rising with me.

  Every one of my Ancients, save R’hlem, took up a gap in the circle.

  It was as it had been in my dream, all those months ago in London. Only this time, Korozoth did not stand here. I took its place.

  There remained a single thread of my humanity, and my soul swung upon it.

  Desperately, I thought of Rook and myself on the moors, when we had played at King Arthur as children; I thought of Magnus’s lips on mine under the winter moon; of Blackwood lying on the ground, having ripped out his soul for his country. I thought of giggling with Maria in the window on the night of Eliza’s ball; of Eliza herself, opening the barrier, and the love between Wolff and Lambe, between Lilly and Dee. I thought of Mickelmas and Aunt Agnes. They were the people I loved; the people I protected.

  They were the circle of invisible arms that kept me from pitching headfirst into the void.

  So I remained myself. But the sharp teeth of Korozoth, and his black power, were at my beck and call.

  “Attack!” I roared.

  Callax plunged forward and struck the Emperor in its face. Nemneris sank her poisonous fangs into the beast’s gelatinous hide. The Emperor gave a cry that could make the stars bleed. On-Tez sliced at the Emperor with her talons. Zem seared the Emperor’s flesh with fire. Molochoron surged forward, knocking the Emperor back.

  It was not easy.

  The Emperor ripped one of Nemneris’s titanic legs apart with its teeth. Black ichor gushed from the Spider’s wound. Callax, as if defending his “sister,” put a fist into one of the Emperor’s hideous eyes. But the monster bit into Callax’s arm, crushing bones.

  My friends; my Ancients. Images flashed through my mind, tinged with emotions of bloodlust, of fear, hunger, rage, and joy. I saw England through their eyes; I saw the land as alien—too cold, too wet, too hostile. They yearned for home, which lay on the other side of the portal.

  They needed my help.

  I went to stand beside my father. He was not dead—not yet. He looked at me with understanding and lit one hand on fire. I followed suit. Together, we pounded the Emperor with flame. My fire came out black as pitch. I gave myself utterly to the magic.

  My magician birthright, my sorcerer training, my monstrous blood, all combined to fight this emperor.

  Our attack blindsided it.

  Together, we drove the Kindly Emperor back up into the hole in the universe.

  I imagined that barren hellscape I had glimpsed several times in different visions. I knew it to be the Ancients’ home world, and it had always frightened me. This time, I experienced a surge of longing.

  I sensed my Ancient brethren quiver with joy as they picked up on my emotion. The images of that world flooded my vision, and I spread that dream to each of my brothers and sisters. The longing for freedom was strong in them.

  They knew exactly what to do.

  Callax climbed up into the portal with a joyous cry, On-Tez flying right behind him. One by one, the Ancients crawled after the Emperor to a world beyond time and space.

  Home. It was home that they craved. I could feel it, like cresting the hill after a long journey to find the lights in your house lit with a welcoming glow.

  But
as soon as the monsters fled into the void, the suction began again. Terrified and at the end of my strength, I stood beside R’hlem and set up a ward around us for protection. I watched in panic as the ragged maw grew wider.

  “A sacrifice.” R’hlem grunted in agony as he held on to the pole that protruded from his chest. “It’s grown too big. One of us must be the sacrifice.” Yes, I recalled Mickelmas’s memory. All those years ago, they had not been able to close the circle until it had devoured my father. He closed his eye. “I’m done for, Henrietta. Finish me.”

  I put a blade to Porridge, shivering as I contemplated what must come next.

  At the corner of the circle, I glimpsed movement. Mickelmas was struggling with Willoughby. No. She’d already made this a catastrophe. What else could she possibly do?

  Maria surfaced back into her own body. With a cry, she pulled out her ax and tossed it to Mickelmas. She threw herself to the ground. He shook his head; he didn’t want to do it.

  Not Maria.

  “No!” I yelled as Mickelmas grudgingly took up the ax. She thrust both her arms forward, and with one deft swing, he severed Maria’s left hand at the wrist.

  The girl screamed in agony, and the scream was matched by another, deeper cry. Light flashed, and the hole above us shrank back to within the boundaries of the circle. Mickelmas smeared his bleeding hand on the nearest stone and shouted, “Close, damn you! Never open again!”

  The vortex swallowed itself whole. In seconds, the sky returned to an August blue. It was as though there had never been an army of monsters, as though the country had not balanced on the precipice of an endless fall.

  Maria cradled a gushing stump to her chest. Mickelmas was working quickly to make a tourniquet to stanch the bleeding. I ran to Maria’s side.

  “It’ll be well,” she gasped, Mickelmas doing an admirable job of tightening the tourniquet. “Provided my heart remembers to pump.” I buried my face in her hair, giving up prayers to whoever would listen to let her stay.

  “Maria,” a voice whispered. The faint outline of a woman wavered in the circle’s gap. She was short and a bit stout. Her face was not beautiful, but it had a kind of hard knowledge about it. A coil of long dark hair hung to her waist. The ghostly shape of Mary Willoughby looked upon us all.