“Maria!” I drew a ward around us, just in time. Another piece of flaming timber fell and shattered on my ward. I gripped her left hand, now balled in a fist. Something about how tight it was made me think that if I loosened it, it might call Maria back. Slowly I straightened her fingers, shaking with the effort. “Let her go,” I said through my teeth.
And then, through what must have been superhuman effort, Maria sloughed off Willoughby and returned. She looked up at me, her face white and wan.
“I c-can’t stand up,” she said.
I would stand for her. We got to our feet, the front door directly ahead. Fire ate the velvet curtains by the windows. We left the men fighting and screaming around us. Two sorcerers who had come in from the cold lay at our feet, throats slashed and blood spread along the marble floor. Flakes of snow and ice still hung in their hair. I ripped the cloaks from their bodies, draping them around Maria and myself. Guilt pained me, but the men wouldn’t need these anymore. We did.
“Henrietta!”
Blackwood was surrounded on all sides by creatures. A louse Familiar leaped for him, and Blackwood cut the monster down with one swift stroke of his blade. He spun his stave in an expert fashion, raining fire down upon the monsters. His every move was elegant and powerful, each muscle honed to this task. He looked to me, his expression twisted in pain. I was abandoning him, and we both knew it.
I had to, for Maria’s sake.
A Familiar rose up behind him. I guided a stream of fire to kill the thing. The last help I could give Blackwood. I prayed it would be enough.
“Let’s go,” I whispered to Maria as we shoved our way out into the snow. I looked about in terror, in case my father should appear. As the sorcerers screamed behind us, I forced myself to leave. I could not even stop to look for Wolff or Lambe, to try to help the Speakers. Selfish as it was, Maria was my sole concern. The blazing heat of the fire at my back, I didn’t yet feel how shattering the winter cold was, though I would soon enough. Through the night, monsters were arriving.
Besides the swarm of Familiars, I recognized the large, disgusting forms of a few Ancients. We were exposed here in the open, and I gathered the shadows around me with a murmur halfway between a spell and a prayer. The dark whispered in around us. Thus shielded from the Ancients’ sight, Maria and I paused to watch the creatures approach.
There was Zem, the enormous lizard crawling across the ground toward the house, his tail swinging lazily, forked tongue jabbing out of his mouth. Molochoron rolled behind the serpent, pulsing with disease. The moonlight glistened on his gelatinous surface. Before I could do anything, he rolled atop a young sorcerer lying in the snow. The boy screamed as the blob sucked him up inside his monstrous body. I glimpsed the boy thrashing, until he went horribly still.
Though my first instinct had to be to protect Maria, reason abandoned me for one brief moment. Porridge in hand, I wanted to fight. But then all my courage deserted me.
R’hlem came striding up the path.
My father had not changed since I’d last seen him in London. His flayed face was as disgusting as ever, the single eye in his forehead a terror. He wore a fine winter coat, the collar trimmed in fur. He strolled behind his monstrosities as though taking them on a pleasant walk.
I couldn’t let him get hold of Maria. Or me.
Shaking, I dragged her over the yard and into the trees. We went up the hill, losing ourselves in the densest part of the forest. There, I could breathe and let Maria rest against a tree. Retching, she sank to her knees while I paced back and forth.
“We can’t stop them,” she muttered, looking back at the estate. The flickering red and orange of the fire illuminated the night sky.
“No. Not yet. We have to push north and find help.”
Together we made our way through the dark forest. After I had been allowed to pass into the druid lands, it was almost as if I could feel Sorrow-Fell around me, like a living thing. As the Ancients rampaged, I could sense the place withdrawing into itself to hibernate. The Fae magic of the estate, smashed when Blackwood had been dethroned, shriveled around us. Lines of those luminescent toadstools that had marked pathways flickered and died.
Ahead, there was movement as a snow-white stag caught my eye. It stepped so lightly over the ground that it did not leave prints. Blackwood had told me once the white stags were the most magical creatures on this estate. I marveled at the animal, the silky sheen of its coat, the delicate hooves, the soft muzzle. Its black eyes beheld me, and I glimpsed a human intelligence within them. Then the stag turned and bounded away, drawing the magic of the area behind it like an invisible cloak.
Sorrow-Fell was going to sleep.
Cursing, Maria and I made our way out of the estate. It was a ten-minute walk to the barrier, and we could not risk flying. Behind us, the place smoldered, the park littered with the bodies of the dead. Maria dropped to her knees at the barrier, vomiting all over the snow. I held her hair away from her face. Her skin was hot to the touch.
“I’ll be all right,” she gasped. “She doesn’t have me now.”
If Maria could hold Willoughby off for good, that would be too wonderful. But it had been mere days since her possession had started, and she already looked drained of life.
I thought of the druid lands beyond the house, the stone circle and the runes. Soon R’hlem would go there to prepare the beginning of the end of our kingdom. The sorcerers had defeated themselves in their rush to condemn Blackwood and his father. The irony was almost too much to bear.
Blackwood was surely dead. How on earth could he stand against R’hlem? It felt as though I were sinking deep beneath the surface of a frozen pond, watching the light fade from above. Our country’s future was gone.
Sorrow-Fell belonged to the Ancients now.
I had always fancied myself a survivor. After all, I had overcome hunger and abuse at Brimthorn. I had faced the most magical men in London. I had destroyed a bloody Ancient. But all of that glory paled in comparison to trying to catch a rabbit.
“See? You’ve only to loop it like so.” Maria’s hands took over, turning a clumsy muddle of rope to something secure. She had her wild tumult of hair back in a low bun, a stray wisp or two falling into her face as she worked. “Then we’ll tie it to that little bar of the trap I made.” She gestured to the small contraption she’d hammered together from a few sticks. “It’ll hang there, and we force the rabbit through. Roast rabbit’s the best thing for winter.”
“Any food at all’s the best thing for winter.” My stomach felt like someone had trod on it till it was flat.
“Least we’ll never run out of fire,” she said, giving me a hopeful smile. Since we’d left Sorrow-Fell five days before, Maria had not broken down. She’d woken cheerful every day, digging us out of whatever burrow we’d made for shelter. I could provide fire, but she knew how to set up the camp. She knew how to read tracks to find animals for hunting. She knew how to avoid stepping into deep pockets of snow, which could drench and freeze a person. Maria knew every step of the land as if it were a part of her own body.
And I? Well, I could provide fire. I would stand there in the snow, a thin layer of blue flame covering my body, while Maria warmed her hands and cooed words of encouragement. “You’ve such a pretty flame” and “Nice and warm” were two of her polite endearments.
Maria set the hanging snare and huddled beside me. I tried offering a bit of fire, just to be useful, but she made me put it out. “Don’t want to frighten anything off,” she whispered. Before too long, a brown rabbit hopped along the snowy path. Maria had set up something of a blockade, fallen branches and the like that forced the little creature to hop where we wanted it to go. Within minutes, the rabbit was hanging in the snare. Maria took out her knife, and the end was swift. I kept a hand over my eyes all the same.
“You eat meat, for pity’s sake. You know where
it comes from,” she tsked as she skinned the creature. “Now then. Light us a fire, if you please.”
My hands shook as I held them over a pile of kindling. I’d never known a human could survive such cold. I’d never known hunger like this, either, and now wanted to go back to my childhood and shake myself for when I’d complained of a meager supper at Brimthorn. At least there had been supper.
“What should we do?” Maria asked as we ate the thin rabbit. Her eyes were sunken, and dark circles like bruises had formed underneath them. The battle against Willoughby was ongoing, though she never complained.
“Magnus took his squadron north, though I don’t know where. What about the witches?” And the magicians as well. Perhaps I could melt some snow for a scrying mirror.
“Not sure how many of the covens remain. Witches are tribal by nature. Territorial. Could be they’ve all grown accustomed to warring among themselves.” Maria sighed, gnawing at a bone. “Even if we find them, gettin’ them to all agree to come fight for the bloody sorcerers seems a tall order.”
Well, perhaps once we convinced them how bloody urgent it was, they’d fall into line. That was likely a fanciful dream, but one to which I clung. We packed up the camp and doused the fire, making sure there was nothing R’hlem could use to track us. As we walked, Maria pulled up her collar. “You did well grabbing these coats when we ran.” She beamed. “I wouldn’a thought of it, and we’d have frozen to death.”
“You’re trying to make me feel less useless, aren’t you?”
“Not at all,” she said too quickly. For the first time in two days, we laughed. As we walked, she sighed. “Truly, though, I miss the bonny cloak that you gave me. And my ax,” she added with a wistful sigh. “Imagine they burnt in the fire.”
“Perhaps R’hlem kept them. I imagine he’s wearing your blue cloak right now, vain devil that he is. We’ll get them back.” I took her arm in mine. “You’ll see.”
“Know any good songs?” she asked as the sun vanished behind a cloud. “It makes the cold hurt less.”
“I’m a poor singer.”
Maria was not a poor singer. Her voice was throaty and strong, and she sang “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.”
“The winter’s passed and the leaves are green
The time is passed that we have seen
But still I hope the time will come
When you and I shall be as one.”
On that last line, a different, more womanly voice took over. I grabbed Porridge, but Maria held up her hand.
“I’m all right. She’s gone.” She staggered a step or two. When I went to catch her, she held me off. “Please, Henrietta. I must find my own feet.”
We walked apart for a while, and Maria did not sing again.
That night we found an overhang of rock and huddled together beneath our cloaks. While Maria slept fitfully and the winter wind roared outside, I tried to think of a plan. The only thing we had on our side now was time. R’hlem likely could not open that portal before the spring equinox. That was the good news.
The bad news: the spring equinox was mere weeks away. If we wanted any hope of stopping R’hlem, we needed to find enough manpower to ride back to Sorrow-Fell and wrest the portal from him. How we were to deal with all the Ancients and Familiars, I’d no idea.
One step at a time.
We could still prepare. I needed to believe that. Grunting, I unlaced my boot and touched snow to my blistered feet. Every step now was like a gunshot in my mind, but we couldn’t stop until we’d entered Scotland and found help.
Then Maria began laughing.
I froze. That might be Willoughby claiming the girl again, but I didn’t think it was. After the scare with the song earlier, Maria and I had agreed that when she felt Willoughby overpowering her, she was to say “lady in the wood.” Then I was to knock her senseless.
It wasn’t a perfect plan.
She hadn’t uttered the words of warning. Slowly, I turned to her. The laugh sounded again…but with an unusual edge to it. With mingled relief and concern, I realized that Maria wasn’t laughing.
She was sobbing.
I’d never heard such a sound from her before, like a wounded animal. Arms wrapped around her body, she shuddered as she strained for breath. I touched her shoulder, but she shied away and bunched farther into a ball. With nowhere else for her to go, I rested my hand on her shoulder again and waited for her to tell me the matter.
“I’m alone.” Maria’s voice was muffled.
“No,” I murmured. It was all I could think to say.
Maria pushed her tangled hair away. “I thought…I thought she cared about me.” Her face twisted, and I knew the subject was Willoughby. “After Mam died, the world was hell. The workhouse…all the screams and struggles in the dark, all the horror I didn’t dare name. Thought I’d die there. Then when I finally escaped, I ran back to my grandmother’s coven, and she…she cast me out.” Tears fell into her lap. “Told me it was my fault Mam died.”
“That’s a lie,” I said, appalled. What kind of monster could say such a thing?
“Willie was all I had.” Maria pulled her knees to her chest and hid her face. “And she was usin’ me. Only person that ever loved me was my mother, and they burned her.” These last words were lost in a great, low wail. Her body rocked with her sobs.
I wound my arms around her. She was tense at first but yielded bit by bit. I whispered, “I swore I’d never let anyone harm you. I love you, and I won’t let her take you.”
She kept crying but relaxed against me. After a while, the sobs stopped, and we both grew heavy with exhaustion. The hours were cold and dark, and our hunger still had teeth. After a long silence, she spoke.
“You truly think your da likes parading about in my peacock cloak?”
For some reason, I found that image hysterical. “One day, we’ll make him give it back,” I promised, between giggling fits.
“One day. Like the sound of that,” she said. Nudging her elbow against my arm, she added, “And ‘we.’ Like the sound of that, too.”
* * *
—
THE NEXT DAY, MARIA SEEMED TO have improved marvelously. At least one of us felt better. I’d woken with what seemed a wild animal tearing the inside of my skull. My shoulder wounds burned in a way I’d never known them to before, like bee stings with boiling oil poured over them. A new blanket of snow had fallen the night before, and the world around us was pristine as a painting, and cold as the lowest level of Dante’s hell.
Apparently, we’d passed into Scotland the day before. I’d never been this far north, and recalled Miss Morris, our head teacher, and her tales of barbaric kilted Scotsmen who roamed the land and drank the blood of maidens to satisfy ancient clan rites. I secretly felt she’d mashed up a copy of Sir Walter Scott with the vampires from a penny dreadful.
The trees began to thin around us as we neared the edge of the forest.
“Look at that,” Maria said, her breath a cloud of white. “It’s grand, is it not?”
Snow-covered hills appeared in the distance.
The air tasted clean, as if it had been scrubbed and proudly set shining on display. My skirts were sodden, though, and I lit the hem on fire to dry myself. Maria warmed her hands by my flame.
“Do you think we might come upon a free town soon?” I asked her as we trudged along.
“I’m afraid independent towns might be scarce just across the border,” she replied, jumping over a fallen log in our path. She looked back at me, a strange expression on her face. “Do you truly think I’m your chosen one?”
“What?” The question was so startling I tripped on the log and nearly tumbled face first into the snow. “Of course you are. Why on earth would you think you’re not?”
“I killed…that is, Willoughby killed Eliza.” At menti
on of the girl’s name, Maria hung her head. “And the whole of Sorrow-Fell burned. Seems I’ve caused more harm than good to our side.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, reflecting again on that prophecy tapestry. Part of me wanted to strangle the Speakers for how damned opaque they’d been about the whole thing. But then, as I dwelt again on the prophecy, I frowned.
That third line…Sorrow falls unto the fierce army of the Blooded Man. Originally, we’d all assumed that meant that sadness and loss would come to R’hlem and his army. But…sorrow falls…sorrow-fell.
Unto the fierce army of the Blooded Man.
Perhaps…perhaps Maria was not entirely wrong.
“What are you thinking?” she asked. I hastened to change the topic, but even as we discussed how to forage for supper, my mind turned the question over.
Perhaps the prophecy revealed that R’hlem would conquer Sorrow-Fell. But if that were the case, then surely that meant good things could come. After all, if Maria burned in the heart of the black forest…
For the first time since realizing Maria’s destiny, fear truly gripped me. For now that I had begun thinking, I could not stop. Black forest could also equal black wood.
Or Blackwood.
Burning in the heart of Blackwood could mean the destruction of Sorrow-Fell. It could mean the destruction of the Blackwood line in general. And Maria, even inadvertently, had already caused Eliza’s death, and Lady Blackwood’s as well.
Perhaps I was inventing all of this. Perhaps none of it was true. But the more I shifted the ideas, the more I began to see how many different ways that prophecy could be interpreted.
The tapestry had never specified a chosen one. It had never even truly explained what she would do. The ending line had read something about triumph reigning in England, but suppose that simply meant one side winning this war? Suppose it indicated R’hlem’s side?
A Sorrow Fierce and Falling (Kingdom on Fire, Book Three) Page 13
