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

by Jessica Cluess

  I did not want this responsibility.

  “You don’t understand.” I shoved her away. “You don’t know what it is to feel so bound to someone.”

  “When I fight off Willoughby like an invisible beast clawing at me? Is that not the same?” she said, not unkindly. “I won’t tell you what to do, but you’ve seen how others are frightened of him.”

  “They can go hang,” I grunted.

  “You’re wiser than this, Henrietta. What if he possesses you? What if he succumbs to R’hlem?”

  “So could I, if I take his power.”

  “The end of the war is near, one way or the other. You might survive without turning monstrous. But it’s too late for Rook. He’s so tired, and in so much pain.” She rubbed her eyes. “It’s not the same, but…once, when I was a child, I came upon a baby deer that had lost its mother. Such a bonny wee creature. I tried to feed it, but it withered before my eyes. One day, it fell and wouldn’t rise again. I had to kill it. It was kindness.”

  “Rook is no deer!” I cried. Sorrow filled her brown eyes.

  “Sometimes we must be harder than life itself.”

  I wanted to run from her until my lungs burst and my knees ached. But no matter how far or fast I went, this thing would dog my heels. Because there was a voice whispering in my head that I wanted to shut out—it was the voice of reason, which I had always prized.

  “I’m not strong enough,” I moaned. Maria nestled me against her shoulder.

  “There is no force greater than you when you’ve your mind made up. You cannot master this.” She kissed my forehead, as Rook had done. “But you are strong enough to see it through.”

  Those words reverberated in my head as we returned to the camp, and stayed with me as we rode out. Always, I could feel Rook’s presence on the periphery. He stayed by us that night, while I lay awake in my tent and made impossible plans. If I could get every witch to work at making a healing potion…if I could trap Rook in a cage…if I could find and kill R’hlem tomorrow, single-handed. If, and if, and if again tormented me throughout the night.

  Come the morning, I was bone-weary and out of ideas. Maria forced some breakfast on me, while I felt Rook waiting deeper in the forest. I caught sight of him, his shadowy cloak thinning in the wind like smoke.

  “You should speak with him.” Maria tore a hunk of bread. “We’ll wait.”

  Slowly, I walked away from Maria and into the forest, Rook at my side. We walked until we arrived in a glen. Sunlight broke through the dark, thatched forest ceiling. There was a fallen log, lightly dusted with snow. Brushing it off, we sat opposite each other.

  I placed the tips of my fingers along his cheek. Besides the black eyes, the fangs, the sharper contours of his face, I could still see Rook beneath there. My Rook.

  But he wasn’t mine. He wasn’t, thanks to my father, even fully his own any longer. My vision fractured as the tears came.

  “It’s all right,” he soothed.

  “It’s not fair!” I tried not to sound like a child, but the words came out as a howl. Rook took me into his arms. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.” Why had I made him come to London? Why?

  “It’s better this way.” He stroked my hair. “What would life at Brimthorn have been without you? When Korozoth died, I might have well become as I am anyway.” He kissed my temple. “Even if it was only for a moment, I felt well and had you in my arms. I’ve no regrets in this life.” He held me apart from him. “You won’t succumb to the power, Nettie.” He placed my hands on his face. I knew what he meant by it, and shoved him off. I couldn’t. “Please.” He sounded mournful.

  “We found Fenswick again. He can help you,” I said. Rook’s patience evaporated.

  “Would you have me suffer so that you can keep me?” he asked. Like a dog. Those had been his accusations the night he’d transformed. Now I wondered if he hadn’t been awfully correct.

  I wondered if we hadn’t clung to each other because that was all we knew. All that was good in this war-torn world. Our love had been the love of childhood, of sweetness and security and home.

  But all children must grow up.

  “I want you to be free,” I said at last.

  We were silent as he looked around at the frozen glen. The trees were pillars of snow, the branches gleaming with ice. Like a fable of a winter world, where two children lived in eternal innocence. This was all a story now; I could not bear it otherwise.

  “I was playing by the river the day Korozoth attacked,” Rook said. “My brothers came to fetch me. I’d not remembered them in so long.”

  “Stephen,” I said, trying to smile. “Stephen Poole is a nice name.”

  “It is,” he agreed. He traced one long, pale finger through the snow. “I sometimes think that it was a curse that left me alive. The only bright spot in my life after them was you, Nettie.”

  I choked on my next words. “If I’d not brought you to London, do you think you’d have been all right?”

  “Perhaps,” he said. Rook would never lie to me. Another path might have led us to a happier outcome. But this was where we’d been brought, for better or worse. Gently, I put my hands to his face.

  “Are you afraid?” I whispered.

  “With you holding me? Never.”

  Trembling, I lit my hands on fire. The flames licked at his face, and

  we run down the hill

  The image was there and gone, like a puff of smoke. Back in London, the Shadow and Fog had stored illusions and memories, the memories of any who passed through it. I had seen a piece of Rook’s remembrance, or perhaps mine.

  “It’s all right,” Rook said. “Those are good things to see.”

  I pressed my lips to his forehead. He kissed me softly as well. One last time, his arms tightened around me. Burying my face in his shoulder, I whispered, “I love you, Stephen. My Rook.”

  “And I love you, Henrietta. My Nettie.”

  The flames swirled around us.

  We run down the hill toward the pond. Rook is already tugging off his shoes.

  “I’ll catch you!” I yell, trying to pull off my own boots. But they are laced so much tighter than his, and I fall over. Wretched skirts.

  “Nettie!” Rook is ahead of me, standing directly in the sun and waving. I leap up, even with one boot off, and charge after him. But he is too far ahead of me. The sun catches his pale hair. He jumps from the rock, to roll down the hill and into the pond. For an instant I think he might take off into the sky like a bird.

  Lord, he is fast. I can’t catch up, and watch as he flies along the path away from me until he is lost to my sight.

  The memories vanished. My arms were empty. I was seated in the glen, alone. My hands were black as pitch and smelled of smoke. Glinting pieces of white ash hung in the air like snow. The seat before me was charred. I looked around the glen and knew I would not find Rook there. I would never find him again.

  It felt like a cage door had opened in my chest and a rare and precious bird had flown out. I watched the shadows lengthen around me. I could not think of moving, no matter how cold I became. I had fire, after all. I had fire.

  I sat there until Magnus arrived. He approached slowly.

  “Maria told me.”

  He didn’t try to make me stand, which was good. I couldn’t leave this place.

  I began to shake. Magnus took me into his arms, where I could feel the fast beat of his heart. Finally, the pressure broke. Finally, I found my voice.

  “Please. It’s the last place I saw him.”

  Magnus pulled his cloak around both of us for warmth. He understood.

  We stayed there until the shadows grew around us, and I knew for certain that Rook was not among them.

  The journey back to the sorcerer camp took two more days. For me, the time meant nothing. I fe
lt no cold, and barely any hunger. Maria had to force food upon me, which I didn’t want but still took. I didn’t want to make extra trouble for her. After all, I knew I wasn’t the only one who grieved for Rook.

  Maria and I had both tried to save him, and we had both failed.

  On the third day, I caught sight of the sorcerer lookout through the trees. Once Magnus and I revealed ourselves, he waved us on with enthusiasm.

  Below us, the tent city was much as we’d left it. Magnus rode in to meet with several of his men and get their report. I went to visit the queen.

  Her Majesty had been placed in a central, and protected, tent. She was not there, to my surprise. Rather, she’d made her way over to Magnus’s tent, where I discovered her in deep conversation with several of his men and one of the engineers. That man was making a demonstration of a toy-sized model.

  “It’s something like a catapult,” he said, springing the little birch and stone contraption into action. It launched a pebble across the room, nearly striking me. When they saw me, the men stood at attention. Queen Victoria looked pleased. There was color in her round face. She no longer appeared the pale, sickly young woman I’d first glimpsed at the commendation ball.

  “They tell me you’ve brought a coven of witches,” the queen said. “Strange to think of fighting alongside them.”

  “Some have ridden off already, to send for reinforcements.” As queen of her coven, Maria had a right to summon other coven leaders to parley. Before we’d left our camp in the highlands, she’d spent half a day negotiating with the clan elders, discussing who should be sent where. Hopefully, the witches would arrive shortly. Even more hopefully, they would stay and fight with us.

  “Speaking of reinforcements, Howel, there appears to be a congregation of magicians going on by the forest’s edge,” one of the sorcerers—Jackaby—said to me. He sounded wary.

  Murmuring goodbyes, I went to meet our new recruits. Magnus soon appeared alongside me. “Don’t you have a meeting?”

  “I received the necessary information. If you think I’m about to miss a crowd of magicians, you’re off your head.” He hurried me along.

  The lot of them had gathered by the forest’s edge. I could see Mickelmas and Alice. The rest were strangers.

  Magicians were, as I had discovered, the most ridiculous people on the planet. I saw coats of bright pink and dyed purple, gloves that resembled snakes, women with shaven heads, men with hair that hung to their waists. I counted as many as thirty-two from where I stood.

  “Alice did well,” I muttered to Mickelmas as I came up alongside him.

  “Every sage old man needs a young, energetic woman to do all his work for him.” Waving a handkerchief in the air, Mickelmas attracted the magicians’ attention. “Henrietta, I present to you our most noble and attractive saviors.”

  The magicians didn’t look like saviors. Rather, they resembled a collection of hungry beggars, watching the world with eyes that had seen too much.

  “Well.” Everyone was staring at me. “I imagine you’ll all want stew?”

  A chorus of huzzahs erupted.

  “I’ll chat them up, Howel. We’ll be friends in no time.” Magnus began greeting magicians as if they had known one another for years. He’d a talent for this sort of thing.

  While we fixed our newcomers with lodgings and food, a strange sort of peace descended over me. It wasn’t until I was walking back to my tent that I realized my wounds no longer hurt. This morning, I’d woken up feeling healthy.

  Rook’s transformation had begun with the pain of his wounds vanishing.

  Already, a tiny voice whispered in my mind. Release me.

  Shuddering, I quashed that thought as I went inside to light a fire. Maria entered with a steaming mug of something that smelled foul, like old cabbage and burnt wood.

  “Didn’t add the honeyed belladonna this time,” she said. Of course. She’d concocted the same potions she’d made for Rook. Recalling Eliza’s death, I paused. Not because of Maria’s skill, but Willoughby…“It’s all right,” she said. “Fenswick made the thing.”

  The taste was bitter, but the voice went away.

  For now.

  * * *

  —

  THAT NIGHT, A GROUP OF US gathered around a great fire in the center of camp. I felt bone-weary, having spent the day organizing and reorganizing groups of people until my head spun. My idea was to assemble ourselves into a decent army and then head for Sorrow-Fell, picking up whatever stragglers we could along the way. More witches had arrived—about two dozen or so. Not a great army, but every person helped. Provided, of course, that they agreed to stay.

  That was a concern for tomorrow. Now I sat beside Maria, staring into the fire with a bowl of stew in my lap. The others were going around and telling jokes and stories.

  First, Alice turned into whatever animal people could name. We had to stop the game when she started turning into people and insulted one of the magicians over the length of his nose.

  Next, Lilly got up and sang “Red Is the Rose,” an Irish ballad that had Dee gazing up at her like she’d invented music itself. “That was my favorite when I was little,” he said when she’d done. He thumped the log on which he sat in applause.

  “I know. That’s why I practiced.” Lilly kissed him lightly, which caused Dee’s blush to turn crimson. People whistled and made suggestive comments.

  Eventually, we got round to personal stories.

  “So there I was, stark naked in front of a tea shop,” one of the magicians, a man named Wilfred, said. He’d a long beard, which he’d woven into a single thick braid. “And this woman comes out, takes one look at me, and asks just what I think I’m doing. ‘Ma’am,’ I says, ‘whatever do you mean? I am wearing the finest suit of clothes in all the land. My vest is purple, my stockings white cotton, and my shoes have silver buckles. Don’t you see?’ With a flick of my wrist and a few muttered words, well, she does see. She thinks I’m the best-dressed fellow she ever beheld. ‘For three pound, I’ll sew you a gown as fine as my own attire. What do you say?’ So she gave me three pound, took off all her clothes, and tried to enter the Court of St. James’s!” Wilfred kicked his feet, laughing hysterically.

  “What happened then?” someone asked.

  “I married her. Best three weeks of me life.”

  “What’d you do with her clothes?” Alice asked. A red-gold hawk perched on her shoulder, and she fed it bacon.

  “Eh, turned ’em into jam.”

  “Not sure I’d want to spread someone’s pants on my toast,” Magnus said thoughtfully.

  “Go on then, let’s hear a sorcerer’s tale.” Wilfred slugged Magnus in the shoulder.

  “Well, there is an ancient tale.” Magnus took a swig of water. “One that I made up myself, of course.” Clearing his throat, he began. “There once was a young prince. He was strong, and bold, and quite handsome. No, no, more than quite. Ridiculously handsome. The handsomest. And the best rider. And the best fighter. With the best smile, and always a witty rejoinder.”

  “Right, so this story’s about you,” I said to roars of laughter.

  “Anyway, this prince lived in a fantasy land. He wore the finest clothes, drank the finest wines, and altogether lived the finest life. Companionship came swiftly and easily to him. But one day, he was out hunting in the glen when he met a faerie.

  “The faerie girl was aloof. She appeared indifferent to him, which made the prince certain he must have her for his own, even if he was already engaged to a princess from a foreign land.”

  I stopped smiling. Magnus took out his stave and tapped the wooden stars embossed upon its length.

  “Every day, the prince returned with honeyed words. He brought gifts, hired musicians. Every day, the faerie was gracious and kind, but composed. Still, he wore down her defenses with his charm. And the pri
nce was sincere in his courtship—he somehow forgot how rakish his intentions were. He was a man who lived for the present moment.

  “And one day, the faerie girl allowed him to kiss her. You see, this prince had expected to enjoy the conquest. He had not anticipated being conquered in turn. He asked the faerie to come with him and live as his wife in all but name, thinking only of his own pleasure. He considered himself a good man, this prince, but how many princes are truly good?” Magnus did not look at me. “The faerie cast him out of her glen. When he emerged from the paradise of her company, he found that it was winter, and very cold.”

  “They’re tricksy like that, faeries,” one magician said sagely.

  “The prince wandered back to his castle. But now the food in his mouth tasted of ash, and the wine of vinegar. The world’s colors had muted. He thought a curse had been placed upon him. He went to a wise man to discover what had been done to him.

  “The wise man replied, ‘It is guilt you feel. If you desire wellness, return to the glen and beg forgiveness. Be all sincerity, and good fortune may yet find you.’ So the prince returned to the glen,” Magnus said, his mouth tightening. “But…”

  He fell silent.

  “But what? Did she turn him into a toad?” Alice cried.

  “Into stone?” someone else asked.

  “Into a wild boar, then had his own father’s men hunt him down?” Maria asked, though she watched me carefully. There was a lump in my stomach. Magnus’s mouth quirked in a smile.

  “Ah, Maria guessed it. Well done.” There were some groans of sadness, a smattering of applause, and one of the magicians offered an opinion as to how the story was rather derivative. Magnus walked away with only the hastiest bow. After a minute, I followed him. I tracked his footprints in the snow, until I discovered him standing in a patch of moonlight.

  He remained still at my approach, as if I were some forest creature that might shy away.

  “How did the story really end?” I asked.