A Shadow Bright and Burning (Kingdom on Fire #1)(101)
“Miss Morris said this would be good. It’s black pepper, mustard seed, and mint leaf, to cool the fever. Mr. Colegrind told her she should let God do what he must. I snuck into the kitchen to get it.” Proud as only an eight-year-old could be, I gave it to the boy and coaxed him past the spice and bitterness. As he drank and sighed in relief, the darkness around us seemed to become less oppressive. When he opened his eyes, I could see I’d been wrong. His eyes weren’t black, but blue.
“Thank you, Miss Howel.”
“You don’t have to call me that. Just Nettie.” I rocked back on my heels, studying him. “You sure you don’t have a name?”
“No. Maybe you could give me one, Nettie.” We talked for two hours, trying to imagine a proper name. I wanted Edgar or Fitzwilliam or Nebuchadnezzar. He wanted something else. But I stayed with the boy in the darkness until his fever lessened.
—
I STOOD IN THE BLACKNESS AND listened to my ragged breathing. I wasn’t dead. Not yet. I blinked the remnants of the vision away. Korozoth had such a skill with illusion that apparently entering him allowed the victim a perfect re-creation of a past memory. I wasn’t sure why I’d glimpsed that childhood moment with Rook. Perhaps it was down to chance, nothing more. Perhaps Korozoth sensed which memories were most precious to me.
There was a sharp pain in my heart. Rook couldn’t be dead.
Voices swirled around me. I lit myself on fire and looked about. Now inside the monster, I could dimly see that it was a great funnel of a cloud, not solid fog all the way through. Forcing myself to be calm, I constructed another column of wind.
I rose higher and higher, my fire illuminating the undersides of tentacles. All the while, faces appeared and disappeared within the shadowy folds of the monster, mournful, pale faces that morphed in and out of existence. There was a man with a gray beard, who cried and vanished. Here was a young woman, weeping and wailing. Charley sobbed until her image was pulled back into the shadow. The higher I climbed, the more I could hear the whimpers and the cries of those who had been absorbed. If my ward failed, I would join them.
Master Agrippa appeared before me in the blackness.
“Henrietta, why did you let it take me?” he groaned.
He reached out to me with two perfect hands. This was a trick, one of Korozoth’s illusions. Still, seeing his image brought tears to my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and continued on. Mr. Colegrind came out of the darkness, trying to touch me with spidery fingers.
“How dare you escape me?” he hissed. I passed him. Mickelmas appeared this time, swirling his coat and pulling at his beard.
“You made a bad choice,” I called to Korozoth, my voice almost lost in the torrent of wind. “He doesn’t frighten me.” As if acknowledging the mistake, Mickelmas disappeared and was replaced by Aunt Agnes. I knew that long face, that pale brown hair, and those darkly accusing eyes the moment I saw them.
“You were a horrid child,” she said, her voice a hollow whisper. “That’s why I sent you away. No one in their right mind could love you.” It felt like a hot needle pierced straight into my heart.
“That’s not true,” I whispered, inching backward in fear. “I have friends.”
“The magician who lied to you? The sorcerer who wanted you dead? The boy who saw you only as a plaything?” I felt myself weaken as I was sucked deeper into the black cloud. She stretched out her hands to touch me…and why not? Wasn’t she correct?
No. Hargrove had helped me, Magnus had come back for me, and there was Rook. There had always been Rook.
“You’re a liar!” I shouted. I scanned my surroundings, searching for the perfect opportunity to put my plan into action. How strange that this hadn’t been more difficult. No tentacles attempted to grab me. It felt almost as if Korozoth were granting me safe passage. I found that unsettling as I flew higher and higher….
I stood in a blindingly white room. There were no windows, no furniture. Where in God’s name was I? I was no longer inside Korozoth. When I turned around, I came face to face with R’hlem the Skinless Man.
He was as hideous as he had been in my dreams, the pulsing blue veins and arteries strung along his arms, the taut stretches of bloodied muscle that bunched or released with his movement, and that burning, ugly yellow eye at the center of his forehead. I shied away, pressing my back against the wall. The monster moved toward me.
“My dear child,” R’hlem said, his voice disturbingly human, “how tired you must be of all this fighting.” He stroked his bloody chin with his raw fingers.
“Where am I?” I whispered.
“My faithful Korozoth’s finest illusion, stronger than any dream. It gives us space to talk.” He reached out a hand and stroked my cheek. Retching, I pulled away from him and wiped at my face. “I want you to come with me, my dear. Your abilities are interesting, particularly the fire. Where did you learn such a skill?”
“I won’t go anywhere with you.” I touched the walls, pressed against them. R’hlem laughed at me.
“You’ve a fine inner strength. Falling out of that window to escape me was impressive. You show far greater resilience than the last girl the sorcerers honored. She gave in to my dreams so quickly. Embarrassing, really.” I stopped and stared at him. Gwen. He’d destroyed her body and her soul, and now he dared to be contemptuous of her. “I’d hoped she’d be a trophy for me, but in the end I unloaded her onto Korozoth. But you.”