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

  The floor beneath our feet was tiled, creamy marble with veins of pure gold. On the right side of the hall, a staircase with an elaborately carved wooden banister led up to the second floor. Every alcove was filled with portraits and busts of hook-nosed ancestors. Shields and banners displaying the Blackwood seal—a pair of clasped hands entwined with ivy—hung upon every wall. At the back of the great, echoing hall, someone had installed a fireplace large enough to house a small family. Maria and I went to warm ourselves before the fire.

  “I wish we could just bloody tell them you’re the chosen one,” I murmured to Maria. She turned her back to the hearth and tossed her red curls over one shoulder.

  “Not yet.” She’d always watched the sorcerers with trepidation. Then again, she had no reason to trust our kind. Maria was a witch. Well, a half witch. Her half-sorcerer blood would not save her if she was discovered.

  When you’re the lady of Sorrow-Fell, you can change so many things.

  “There you are, Henrietta! Mamma’s waiting.” Eliza clattered down the stairs to snatch my hands and drag me after her. I glanced back at Maria and she shrugged, content to remain where she was.

  Eliza’s usually sleek black hair tumbled about her shoulders, and she wore a simple muslin gown. When we’d first met, everything she’d worn had been velvet or silk. Now, with the war at our doorstep, she’d forgone glamour entirely.

  “You look nice today.” I smiled, but she shook her head.

  “Don’t worry, I’m straight off to change while you’re with Mamma. You need a bridesmaid in pink taffeta, after all. One of the worst parts of the war was losing Madame Voltiana as my seamstress. I’ve had to make do with gowns from two years ago. Can you imagine the sacrifice?” She gave a playful wink.

  “The horror!” I laughed. “Where’s George?” I had to resist the urge to call him Blackwood. As an engaged couple, we could use our Christian names with each other. I’d have kept calling him Blackwood, but he’d insisted.

  “On the other end of the house, naturally. He won’t see you until the ceremony. Bad luck, don’t you know?” Eliza plucked my notebook from my hand and scoffed as she flipped through it. “Really, did you need to make another study of those things on your wedding day?”

  We came to the second level of the house. The coffered ceilings were lower here, the walls papered with dark green silk. Sorrow-Fell was comprised of two sections: the more modern west wing, where everyone lived, and the ancient Fae grounds in the east. People claimed those rooms were haunted.

  I disagreed. Hauntings were reserved for the dead. Whatever was on the Faerie grounds felt watchful and alive.

  “Once you’re the countess, you’ll have others to do these nasty jobs for you,” Eliza said, snapping me back to reality.

  “What about the countess’s sister?” I squeezed her hand.

  “She’ll have to be your most trusted advisor.”

  We arrived outside Lady Blackwood’s stately door. Eliza kissed my cheek and swept down the hall to ready herself for the ceremony. Evidently, she wasn’t worried about this meeting. And why should she be? After all, a future mother-in-law was not nearly as terrible as an Ancient.

  Then again, for all I knew, she could be worse.

  Shrugging off that alarming sentiment, I forced my shoulders back and opened the door.

  Candles burned on tabletops, providing dim illumination to this gloomy space. Lady Blackwood’s bed lurked in the center of the room like a monolith, its curtains drawn. Deep shadows capered about the walls. A thin sliver of daylight broke through the damask curtains to cut across the floor.

  “Miss Howel? Come here,” a woman said from the bed.

  I approached and tentatively pulled back the curtain.

  The lady lay beneath the blankets, her face hidden in shadow. Something about the way she worried her thin, gloved hands made me nervous. Why was she wearing gloves in bed?

  “My lady.” I curtsied to her.

  “As the current countess, it is my duty to instruct you.” Every word she spoke sounded odd—juicy—as though her mouth was filled with saliva she could not spit.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “And to warn you.” There was a rustle of silk. She drew closer—it was all I could do not to leap away. “You still have a choice, child. You can still run.”

  The wound at my shoulder exploded in sharp pain. I gritted my teeth. Just once in my life, could I meet someone who didn’t have a warning to impart? Just once, I’d like for someone to give me a warm hug and a pat on the cheek.

  “Why should I run?”

  Silence. I summoned a ball of whispering flame into the palm of my hand and examined the woman more closely. Even in bed, her face was veiled. Low panic cramped my gut; something was wrong with this lady. Her nightdress, designed to be fashionable, had yellowed, and stained lace decorated the sleeves. The scent of camphor and sweat met me. Her gloved hands felt for mine, and I resisted the urge to pull away.

  “You are not one of us.” She said it flatly. Ah, so she was a snob, then? Was I not high-blooded enough for her family?

  “No, my lady.” I bristled. “I’m a solicitor’s daughter. My parents died when I was quite young. I was born a magician, as well.”

  “All this I know.” She tsked, and her tongue sounded clumsy. “Do you think I care a jot, girl? I was the daughter of a minor sorcerer house myself. My father sold me in marriage for the prestige of the Blackwood name. What a fool he was. Only stupid people fuss about blood. What they should care about is power, and you possess a great deal of that.

  “Marriage is a contract.” She changed the topic with a strange ease. “When you become a Blackwood, you take on a debt.” My blood chilled. Did she know, then, what her late husband had done? How he had been partly responsible for the fate of this country? More than that, how he had placed the blame upon magicians and witches and spared his family from the punishment?

  “A debt?” I repeated.

  “Have you ever wondered why my son is Lord Blackwood, but his estate is Sorrow-Fell?” I had wondered. In a traditional house, the earl would title himself after his estate. Blackwood should really be Lord Sorrow-Fell. “Sorrow-Fell is more than a name; it is a living part of Faerie,” the lady continued. “To call oneself lord of this place would be akin to calling oneself God.”

  “That’s…interesting,” I said. Her grip tightened; her hands were sharp and bony.

  “The Blackwoods are not like other sorcerer families. Our bloodline does not stretch back a thousand years. We are a new house, a mere three hundred years old. The first earl stole this estate from a Fae lord.”

  “He won it, I thought.”

  “Stole.” The s sound in her mouth was particularly wet. “The first Blackwood was a nameless blacksmith, a common man with a sorcerer’s ability—likely the bastard of a well-placed sorcerer father. This nameless commoner took his family name from the dark forests that surround the estate. The whole history is smoke and mirrors. The family is cursed, my dear.”

  “Excuse me?” Next she was going to tell me Blackwood had buried the corpses of his previous wives beneath the floorboards.

  “Cursed by the faerie queen Titania.” The woman’s voice rose to a frenzied pitch. “She claimed she’d free the family once they paid a blood debt, a sacrifice on the part of a young Blackwood bride. Then, only then, would she lift her curse.”

  “I don’t understand. You’re a wealthy, powerful family.” It all sounded like something out of a novel, frankly. But I knew better than to dismiss something because it sounded radical.

  “There was never a Blackwood heir whose end was not untimely, and never a Blackwood consort who did not waste and wither. As you see.”

  She released me and made a vague gesture toward herself. I suppressed a shudder. “My Eliza may be spared all this pain.” The wom
an’s voice gentled a bit. “If she married, she would no longer be a Blackwood. She would be safe.”

  Unfortunately, Blackwood’s previous hopes for Eliza’s marriage had been dashed.

  “Girl, take my warning in the kind spirit in which it’s meant. You can still be free of the Blackwood bane.”

  The Blackwood bane? My temples throbbed. I was an hour from the altar, and she shared this now? I studied her and my heart softened; clearly, the woman had been a recluse for years. She was not in her right mind.

  “Thank you for the advice, my lady.” I curtsied once more.

  “You’re determined to stay.” She sounded resigned. “Very well. I offered you this chance. Should you choose to be the countess, you must follow tradition. I said that the future lady of Sorrow-Fell must pay a debt of blood. You must do what generations of Blackwood brides have done. Take this.” She offered a cruel-looking dagger with a sweeping silver blade, slipping the thing out from the bedclothes beside her. Did she sleep with this dagger? An ivory design had been laid into the handle: a curl of ivy, Blackwood’s symbol. “Do you know the old druid lands?”

  I did. They ran to the northernmost reach of the estate, through the blackest heart of the forest. I didn’t relish the idea of a trip there.

  “With that knife, make a sacrifice of blood on the border.” She wiped at her mouth with a handkerchief, stealing up under her veil.

  “I cut myself?”

  “Heavens, no. Something else.”

  Blast. Would I need to truly kill something? “What happens then?”

  “Nothing. It is merely the custom. Once you’ve offered the blood, turn around and come home to your prince.”

  I did not like the mocking way she said that.

  “Thank you.” I curtsied one last time to the lady, then hurried away. The cloying, rotten perfume of the air dispersed as soon as I’d left. My back to the closed door, I tried to think.

  Curses. Family rituals. Mad old ladies. Honestly, it was as though I’d stepped into a Gothic tale by Mrs. Radcliffe.

  At that moment, I wanted to see Blackwood desperately. I wanted to feel his hands upon me, his arms around me, his lips tracing mine. A hot, heavy feeling settled low in my body at the thought of him. With him, I would find peace and security. This was it. One more mere hurdle to overcome, and then the chapel.

  First, I needed a sacrifice.

  * * *

  —

  THE WORLD WAS SMOOTH WITH FRESH snow, the air so cold that tears at the corner of one’s eye froze, needle-sharp. I’d worn my warmest cloak, a dense gray with white fur trimming, and even that wasn’t enough. As I trod ahead, I winced to think of the fine blue satin of my wedding gown being demolished: it was custom for the bride to make this journey wearing her gown.

  I’d set off in a sled, buried under blankets, but when we’d approached the border of the wood the driver was required to let me out. The final leg of the journey must be made on foot, alone. The trees towered over me, their black branches entwining to create an arched ceiling.

  In one hand, I held the knife. In the other, a red pomegranate. That had been Maria’s suggestion when I’d consulted her on the offering and suggested a dove.

  “Don’t you dare! What did I tell you about the danger of dark magic?” She’d dragged me down to the kitchen to find what we could. “If the juice is thick and red enough, and from the seed, that’ll do.” She’d passed me the pomegranate, its flesh rough and deep red like heart’s blood. Since I didn’t actually want to kill anything, it suited me just fine.

  I wandered farther into the wood, until the world around me grew silent as snowfall. I listened carefully for the sound of hoofbeats. That could signal the approach of a wild man. They said he’d the body of a stag in the front, a bear in the back, and a cruelly beautiful face with three mouths.

  And to think, this was one of the light Fae’s creatures. But as Blackwood had told me, the light Fae were as dangerous as the dark. More so, in fact.

  There was nothing gentle in magic.

  On either side of me, small white toadstools sprouted out of the snow. They were faintly luminescent as they guided my feet along the path. The air tasted thick here; magic sat on the tongue like a sweet. Shuddering, I burrowed deeper into my cloak. Lady Blackwood’s words haunted me as I walked these eerie woods. Every Blackwood earl came to a bad end; every lady withered. But Blackwood was not his father, and I would not be reduced to his mother’s fate. We wouldn’t be chained to the past.

  I became light-headed as I pushed on into the darkest part of the forest…and then broke through the wood and into a clearing—a patch of stark white. The druid lands waited beyond, a blank expanse of nothing. I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes. The wind became sharper, and my shoulder pained me, a bright scream in my mind. Gritting my teeth, I held the pomegranate out before me.

  “No one told me what to say,” I whispered into the void. “I suppose I don’t need words.”

  I sank the knife into the fruit and let the juice bleed over my hand. It dripped, a startling red onto the snowy ground. Three drops, then four.

  There. I’d done it. I was prepared to turn and go, until the mist lifted.

  The mist lifted, and I saw the stones.

  Twelve stones stood in a ring. I stepped into the circle to find blue sky stretching above a lush, grassy field. It was high summer.

  Sweat dripped down the back of my neck, and I untied my cloak and dropped it into the grass. There was a persistent buzz all around me. It sounded like a chorus of bees, but I knew that was not true.

  The droning came from the stones.

  Around me, the stones were about ten feet high, stationed roughly ten yards apart from one another.

  My stomach dropped. The markings covering them were runes. I hurried to examine each stone. Some of these runes looked familiar. Blackwood’s father had numerous tomes on runes, and Blackwood and I had spent time reading through the volumes and making notes. Runes were how Lord Blackwood, Mary Willoughby, and Mickelmas had opened the world to R’hlem and his Ancients. Runes were how we had lost my father to that hellscape, damning us all in the process.

  Some of these appeared to be porter runes for transportation, some runes for summoning. But the largest runes of all, one carved into each stone, were unlike anything I had yet seen. They looked rough and jagged at the edges, like rudimentary weapons. There was something primitive about them. Touching one lightly, I saw

  a cracked and barren plain, the earth clay red, the sky a sunset orange, the sun a boiled lump of

  When I took my hand away, the image vanished. That had not been our world. I was sure of it. In my bones, I knew it had been the Ancients’ home. For that moment I had stood in another world, and I had felt…minuscule, an ant surrounded by giants. Dimly, I recalled a dream I’d had back in Agrippa’s house soon after I’d arrived in London. Nearly a year ago, but it seemed a lifetime now.

  In my dream, I had found myself in this exact circle of stones. The Seven Ancients had gathered around, all of them watching. Waiting.

  In my dream, the Ancients came to this place.

  The idea of it filled me with a bone-deep horror.

  I pressed my hand to the rune again, daring everything for another look. I winced as a riot of shapeless color and blinding light played through my head, and then

  A tear in the blue sky above. The fair summer day darkens as the rift opens between this world and the next…the beast, bristling with hair and teeth, gnashes at the circle of stones all around. It is trapped by the circle, unable to break free and wreak havoc upon the world outside. On one side, in the space between stones, stands a woman with her hands outstretched.

  On another side waits a man wielding a stave.

  And then, another man, one with a golden beard and a doublet of forest green, his hand raised to the sw
irling maelstrom in the summer sky.

  With a scream, the beast is pulled up into the vacuum above, sent to the roiling world beyond the stars. With a cry, the woman and the two men raise up their hands, and the circle vanishes.

  I fell back, gasping. I stared up at the sky, my hand trembling on my stomach. That scene had played out in our world, in this very circle. I had seen an Ancient, some kind of monstrous dog creature as it was sent back to the world above. I had seen a witch—the woman, obviously—and a sorcerer, and Ralph Strangewayes, the father of England’s magicians. They had all stood there, calm as you like, and worked together to send the monster back to its hell world.

  Sweeping on my cloak, I grabbed the knife and tore off into the woods. I barely felt the returning sting of winter or noticed the encroaching darkness. My shoes were soaked, my toes numb, but I didn’t care. I kept a ball of fire over my head to guide me until I emerged from the wood. The waiting driver put me on the sled, and we made for the house. My heart hammered as I arranged the blankets on my lap.

  Bother the wedding and all the rest. I needed to tell Blackwood what I had just seen. He needed to know that the gate to the Ancients’ home world rested on his own estate.

  * * *

  —

  BLACKWOOD HAD TAKEN THE OLD PARLOR, as the servants called it, to change and prepare for the wedding. I knew where that was, at least.

  The Faerie side of the manor was not built for humans, and sometimes the hallways did not lead straight on to anything. Rather, they spiraled like dreams, making a sharp turn here or a looping reversal there. The ceilings were so low they nearly scraped the top of my head, and the stones beneath my feet were unevenly placed. Torches flickered and smoked in the walls, granting the place the air of a dungeon. No one knew when the Fae had built the eastern wing, but it felt ancient. I had sometimes imagined the rooms carved out of time itself.