She had been our sacrifice.
“This child has suffered enough,” Mickelmas said. Standing, he dusted his hands. “Mary. It’s time to go.”
“You left me to die,” Willoughby said, focusing upon Mickelmas. Her voice and form was already growing fainter. “I’d have waited for you, you know. To warn you.”
“You were the better of the two of us,” he said gently.
The wind shifted, and the last traces of her snuffed out like candle smoke. Maria slumped against me. I felt the pulse in her neck, which fluttered entirely too fast for my liking.
“I’ve got her,” Mickelmas said, taking Maria into his arms. “The others need your help.”
Blackwood was facedown on the ground, unmoving, and my father was in an even worse state.
R’hlem was pitched at an awkward angle. The Emperor’s spine kept him upright, though gravity was doing its best to push him down. Blood dribbled out the corners of his mouth.
“Let me help you,” I said, trying to think of a way to get him comfortable and off this blasted pole.
“It’s nearly done,” he rasped, “and I can hardly feel it any longer.” I couldn’t stand to see him like this and forced the earth to spit out the spine. He groaned as the pole left him.
“Please, let me look at you,” he said as I knelt beside him. His hand grazed my cheek.
What did I feel for this man? I had never known him as William Howel. Until these last few moments, I had known him as a man who would sunder worlds for revenge. And for love, as well. Love of my mother and hatred for what had been done to her.
Shaking, I took his hand in my own. R’hlem—my father—struggled to keep his one eye open.
“I wish there were time,” he said. His grip slackened, and he was gone. Between one heartbeat and the next, he had slipped away. There had been no moving final words, no declarations of love or forgiveness. There had been no explanations, or apologies. No real redemption. Nothing fair or just about it. There was only silence. And not enough time.
Everything within me gave out, and I collapsed beside my father’s body.
I awoke with a start. It did not take me long to realize where I was—in Magnus’s tent, back at camp. Outside there was cheering, and guns going off in celebration. The war was over. Truly over.
Before me, Magnus sat on a stool. He’d his head in his hands, looking rather wretched for the end of such a conflict. But he was alive, and here with me.
“Magnus.” He looked up, a bloodied bandage covering half his face. The great wound he’d received in battle had slashed him from chin to temple. But the graveness in his eyes and the painful twist of his lip were the most striking difference. He looked as if he’d aged ten years in two hours.
He came to sit beside me. We were alive and together. He stroked my hair.
“This is all I wanted,” he whispered. I kissed him. He kissed back, though more gently than I’d expected. “There’s something you should know,” he said. “Blackwood is alive.”
“Oh, thank God.” I could have cried in relief, but Magnus didn’t smile.
“The doctors have seen him.” He closed his eyes. “There’s not much time left.”
Time. It was always running out, always stingy. First my father on the battlefield, and now Blackwood. “May I see him?” I whispered. I wanted to curl into a ball and weep, but as Magnus had said, there was no time for it now. There would be time later.
Plenty of time to grieve.
“You’d better, I think. The doctors also examined you.” He spoke stiffly, as if reading lines in a play, and badly.
“ ‘Examined me’? Magnus, what are you talking about, for God’s sake?”
“You’re with child.”
My whole body froze. How? That is, of course I knew how. But…why? Touching my stomach, I felt as if some strange presence had placed its hand alongside mine in reply. After everything we had been through, this was not how Magnus and I should feel. And Blackwood…my God.
“I need to see him.” Magnus helped me up.
“The doctors are with him. I’ve sent for the vicar as well.”
Yes. Of course. We would need to be married, Blackwood and I. That is, if he still even wanted to. After everything…
I felt numb as Magnus walked me toward the queen’s tent. The exclamations of joy all faded away as though swallowed by a rising tide. All I could hear was my own blood’s movement. Magnus stared straight ahead. He would not break, and I could not break, either.
As we approached the tent, he stopped us. “Not so long ago, I might have asked you to marry me and pass it off as mine.”
“Not so long ago, I might have agreed.” I could not do that now. I’d known the pain of being deceived about one’s family history. I knew the damage lies could do. I would not visit those same mistakes upon an innocent child, and neither would Magnus.
We had both grown into people who could properly love one another, but those people—those responsible, mature people—now had to part.
Numbly, I entered the tent. The men moved aside for me. I noticed how the doctor watched me when he believed I wasn’t looking. I could only guess at what he thought.
All my anger fled when I saw Blackwood. They’d stretched him out on a cot. His right hand lay over his breast. His skin, always pale, had now gone nearly white. The most shocking change of all was his hair. No longer a rich black, it was pure silver, as though the color had been leached away. His green eyes were paler as well, and the blue of his veins stood out on his alabaster skin.
“You’re alive,” he whispered. I fell to his side, kissed his hand.
“I have something to tell you,” I murmured.
“First, I want to ask you. Something.” He could not draw enough breath for a full sentence. “Marry me.” He swallowed. “I know. I’m dying. But as my widow…” He coughed, unable to finish. I knew what he meant. As a widow with no heirs, I would have a pension, and a house on the estate. I would be secure.
“I need to tell you something.” I whispered the news into his ear. He closed his eyes. A tear tracked down his cheek.
“Then I suggest we hurry,” he rasped. He craned his neck to find Magnus standing over the bed. The other men had left the room, and it was only the three of us. Swallowing, Blackwood said, “I know this isn’t what you wanted, Magnus. But please, would you stand by us today?”
He wanted Magnus to be our witness. Magnus knelt by the bed—I couldn’t bear to look at him. I needed to stay strong.
“Of course.” He clasped hands with Blackwood.
“I’m sorry.” Blackwood coughed. Patiently, Magnus gave him some water.
“Nothing to forgive,” he murmured. The three of us sat there, all the blame washed away. Magnus and I looked at each other. I put all of my heart into that one glance, and he told me with his eyes all that he felt in return. “Did you ever think we’d shake hands and part friends, Blackwood?”
“Truly, the most”—Blackwood took a breath—“surprising development.”
Finally, the vicar entered. Blustering, he began the ceremony at once.
I still had Blackwood’s ring, I realized. Sliding it off my right ring finger, I let him put it on my left. Magnus stood to the side, watching all of it unfold. He was there when Blackwood and I murmured our vows, when we kissed lightly to seal it. Magnus did not flinch when we were pronounced man and wife, and even applauded.
“A handsome couple.” He winked at me, then left with the vicar to give us privacy.
Now we were married. I’d his ring on my finger. I was Lady Blackwood, just as Lambe had said I would be.
Blackwood placed an ice-cold hand on my cheek. His thumb traced my bottom lip. “I still love you,” he murmured.
Even though my heart was breaking, I spoke the truth. “And I you.”
&nbs
p; It was possible to love in different ways, to love Rook, and Blackwood, and Magnus, even as they were all taken away from me one by one. I lay down on the cot to give him warmth. Blackwood ran his fingers through my hair. Already, the strength in his body was depleting. Soon what little scrap of his soul remained would flee.
“Promise you’ll raise the child to be better than I was.” He kissed the top of my head.
“Any child would be proud to take after you.”
“This world isn’t mine any longer. I was forged by one thing, Henrietta. The Order. I don’t have your flexibility. I don’t know how to live in a different world, even if it’s a better one. Raise someone who’s the opposite of me.”
“I don’t want the opposite of you.” The tears came hot and fast now. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”
“You did.” He sounded amazed. “The war is over. The kingdom is saved. Sorrow-Fell will rise again, overseen by my wife and child. Even if this joy is an hour long, it is perfect. Don’t pity me, my love.” He kissed my lips. “Pity those who never know such happiness.”
I traced my fingers across the beautiful planes of his face, his jaw, his lips. I laid my head on his chest. I told him how he had taken my breath away at Eliza’s commendation ball. He’d seemed a prince from a fantasy. I believe that made him happy to hear. We spoke of all the things we had done and seen together.
“I think,” he said, his voice faint, “that I know why the optiaethis could not take my entire soul. A part of it has its safekeeping with you, always.”
After a while, Blackwood could not speak. He listened as I spoke. I told him of meeting him that first time in Agrippa’s study, of feeling the stirrings of love when we waltzed together at his house. Finally, three hours after our marriage, Blackwood exhaled one long, soft breath. There were no more after that.
It felt as though I had always had an invisible cord tied to my waist, one that steadied me as much as the one in the stone circle. I had not known the significance of that cord until it was cut, sending me spinning into the abyss.
I gave a muffled cry against his chest, and my hands fluttered uselessly over him. His hair, his cheek, his chest, his hands. Trying to trap the memory of them forever. He was lost to another world now, hopefully a kinder one.
I couldn’t let him go. Even when the men entered the tent, even when I felt Maria’s soothing hand on me, and even when Magnus lifted me into his arms to take me away, I wouldn’t let go. I reached over Magnus’s shoulder for Blackwood. He had been my enemy, then my greatest friend, my lover, my husband. He had been the worst and the best of sorcerers, and now he was gone.
“I’m sorry,” Magnus said over and over as I wept. It took a while for me to realize that he, too, was crying.
I had not expected to sit in Buckingham Palace ever again. But after the battle of Sorrow-Fell, and after Blackwood had been laid to rest on his family lands, we had journeyed back to the capital. London was still a tomb, a broken world filled with ashen air. But the palace remained. And the day after we had arrived, the queen summoned her three magical heads.
Mickelmas sent the Chen siblings, Alice and Gordon, in his place. “The future requires younger blood,” he had told the queen. In truth, he did not want the responsibility of governing.
Maria also turned over the position, for similar reasons. Of our initial triumvirate, I alone answered the queen’s summons. I now stood before her throne, raised upon a velvet dais. Lord Melbourne, the prime minister, had survived, and stood alongside the monarch. Certain members of Her Majesty’s government had also made it through and were happy to slink out of hiding now the war was done. I didn’t much trust politicians, I realized.
But I held Her Majesty in the highest esteem. Her warm smile indicated she felt the same about me.
“Lady Blackwood,” she said. How odd it felt to hear myself called that. Henrietta Howel was truly gone. “For your sacrifice on behalf of our country and our people, We thank you. We honor you.” So she’d begun to use the royal We, speaking for both herself and her nation. It suited her, as she had never seemed more like a queen than she did right now.
She turned a disapproving eye to her courtiers, who half bowed. Lovely.
“What may I do for Your Majesty?” I asked.
“I wish to truly set up my new consortium,” the queen replied. “To that end, I will require only the noblest and best of my three races to lead.” For a moment, I believed Her Majesty needed my help choosing one of the older men, perhaps a Hawthorne. Instead, she continued. “I wish you to take the place at my right side, head of all the sorcerers in my kingdom.”
My jaw dropped; it had been one thing to assume the mantle in time of war, quite another to be gifted it now.
“I don’t know what to say,” I murmured.
“Indeed. This will involve, of course, remaining in London.”
As one of the queen’s most trusted advisors, I would need to stay close by her side, and I would have access usually granted only to the prime minister and other important heads of state. The power would be exceptional. “You’ve overwhelmed me, Majesty. I can never thank you enough.”
“Well?” Her Majesty asked.
For me, there could be only one answer.
“I thank Your Majesty, but I regret I must decline.” I gave a deep curtsy. Some of the men snorted in derision. Well, they could all rot.
“I…We don’t understand.” Queen Victoria frowned.
“Your Majesty has given me everything I could ever want,” I answered. “But Sorrow-Fell must be rebuilt.”
“There are those in your late husband’s family who can oversee that.” But she had not given her word to Blackwood on his deathbed. She had not promised to raise our child in Sorrow-Fell. Beyond that, the queen did not know how homesick I had been for Yorkshire.
There was work to be done up there, taking care of the estate and, more importantly, the people.
“London is too political for me. I want to rebuild the ties between the magical races in the north.” Indeed, being the regent of Sorrow-Fell would require a political hand all its own. “Also, I want to oversee the portal. That stone circle is still active and must be protected. But above all”—here I paused to keep my voice from breaking—“I would like to go home.”
My voice was quiet, and so was the room. For a moment, the only noise was the patter of the rain outside.
Finally, the queen said, “Of course. You’ve earned your rest, How—Lady Blackwood.” She extended her hand. I went and kissed it, much as I had when I was first commended.
“If Your Majesty would take my advice, Arthur Dee would make an excellent nominee.”
Someone snorted. “Isn’t he a bastard?” That was one of the queen’s human councilors.
Forcing my anger to remain at bay, I said, “He understands the people in a way few others will.”
I locked eyes with the man and let off a quick gust of flame. He wisely fell silent. I curtsied once more to the queen and walked to the door. Before I left, Her Majesty spoke again.
“What We owe you can never be repaid.”
I looked back at her, the young queen with a ruined kingdom to reunite. I prayed she could do it. I believed that she could.
“There is no debt, Majesty. I only did my duty.”
Alone, I walked the halls of Buckingham Palace and exited into the courtyard, where the spring air was beginning to warm through winter’s chill.
* * *
—
“AMERICA. LAND OF OPPORTUNITY, PURVEYOR OF only the best in whale oil and rude political cartoons.” Mickelmas led all of us along the dock. His children, the gaggle of orphans he’d taken in long ago, dragged his magical trunk and gaped up at the ship.
“I believe you’ve a limited idea of the country,” Maria drawled. Fiona was beside her, the pair of
them outfitted in gray cloaks. Maria’s left wrist was wrapped in bandages. Fiona held her by the arm, treating her as though she were delicate china. Being Maria, she didn’t love it, though since it was Fiona, I could tell that she didn’t mind so much. After the war, they’d said that they didn’t want to remain in England or Scotland any longer. “Too much pain and too many memories” was how Maria had put it.
“Will you be all right in America?” I asked Mickelmas as his children loaded the trunks. “They’ve still got those monstrous laws.”
“I shan’t be going south. New York, I think, or Boston. Besides, the young, upstart nation’s views on slavery might make for a worthy challenge.” He pulled his beard. “My most shameful secret, my hedgehog, is that I need conflict to thrive. It’s how I stay looking so marvelously young.”
“You really don’t want to be at the queen’s right hand, lauded as the greatest magician of the age?”
“What I want is to wake in a place that doesn’t remind me of everything I’ve lost,” he said. He narrowed his eyes at me. “If you weren’t tied to that bloody estate, I’d suggest you come with me. A change will do you good.”
“I’m afraid I’m not as adventurous as you,” I said. Some required the constant hustle from one day to the next. I wanted to be useful and active, but at home. I was not the voyager that Mickelmas was, and I did not mind that. Mickelmas kissed my hand.
“You were my favorite apprentice,” he said.
“Wasn’t I your only apprentice?”
“Shut up.”
Grinning, I kissed his cheek. Maria came up to me, her pack slung over her shoulder. Her red hair billowed in the wind as we clasped hands tightly. Already, I could feel this goodbye taking a piece of me.
“Are you certain you won’t stay?” I whispered. Maria lowered her eyes.
“I…I don’t know that I can do it. Too many memories.”
A Sorrow Fierce and Falling (Kingdom on Fire, Book Three) Page 28
