A Shadow Bright and Burning (Kingdom on Fire #1)(46)

Agrippa cleared his throat. “Very good, Julian. Now, who can—steady on, Arthur, don’t wave your arm like that—who can tell me what…”

His voice trailed away. We gazed in horror at a new section of the Cornwall coast. Several ships lay wrecked and impaled along the rocky shore. Their masts had been snapped in half, their hulls ripped apart. Webs covered them like a ghostly shroud. Nemneris’s lice, her Familiars, scuttled along the smashed hulls. We got to our feet and crowded toward the water glass. “Look,” Magnus said, pointing to a ship with a blue flag still raised in the air. I recognized that ship. It was the one we’d watched sail out of the docks while the crowd cheered. But it couldn’t be the same vessel. Those sails had been white, and these sails were a pure…



“Why are the sails red?” I asked. Agrippa put his stave to the water glass and stirred in a queer little figure eight. The ship grew larger and more detailed.

Hanging from the masts like ghastly ornaments were the bodies of the men. They were masses of dark, mottled crimson. I wanted to turn away, but if I were to be a sorcerer and not a magician—not a magician—I would have to take in grisly scenes just like this one. The bodies had been stripped of all skin, the sails stained with their blood. We realized what we were looking at before Agrippa spoke the words:

“That’s R’hlem’s handiwork.”





“You’re not focusing,” Agrippa said as I listed off to the side of the obsidian room. He clapped his hands. “You have to pay attention.”

“Yes,” I said, staring at the wall. In the shining reflection, I could just make out the dark circles under my eyes. I didn’t sleep anymore. All I could hear in my dreams were the frantic cries of Charley and the other unfortunates dragged into Korozoth, of those sailors as R’hlem flayed them alive. I was supposed to help them.

I had been chosen to help them. Hadn’t I?

You are a magician. It had been one week since I’d gone to see Hargrove, and his voice wouldn’t leave me. We’d reached the end of April and made no progress. Agrippa was now officially worried.

“Now then. We start at the beginning of the earth maneuver. Prepare,” Agrippa said, pointing at the large rock in the center of the room. He was right to sound irritated. We were massively behind on the day’s lesson. I was supposed to be breaking the rock and putting it back together, and I hadn’t even begun.

I turned, bent my knees, and burst into flame by accident.



“Watch out!” Agrippa cried as I nearly scorched his jacket. He beat at his sleeve. I stopped burning and cringed with embarrassment. “What is the matter with you today?”

“I don’t feel well,” I murmured.

“That’s no excuse.” His voice was firm. “You have to fight through pain. There will be times in battle where you will feel decidedly unwell.”

I centered myself and prepared again for the maneuver. I lunged forward, spinning the stave above my head. The rock should have split apart into ten different pieces. Instead, it rolled once, twice, and then stopped. Nothing I did worked properly.

Nothing would ever work properly, not if I wasn’t the girl in the prophecy.

“Something’s wrong,” Agrippa said. He came up behind me. “You’ve been scattered this entire week.”

“I just don’t sleep well.” I bit the inside of my cheek.

Agrippa’s voice grew soft. “You can say it if something’s troubling you.”

I turned to him, to tell him about my visit to Hargrove…and kept silent.

I couldn’t lose my position. Not for anything.

Not even for the sake of the truth.

—

AFTER LESSONS THAT DAY, I WENT to the drawing room and curled up in the window seat, the book on the Seven Ancients open in my lap. I studied the picture of R’hlem, his muscles and veins disturbingly exposed to the world. He’d one hideous yellow eye positioned at the center of his forehead. Even in the drawing, I felt that gaze cut to the heart of me. Shuddering, I turned the page to the chapter regarding Korozoth.



Light and flame are the only known deterrent, I read, for what is a greater ally against the unstoppable force of shadow and darkness? There is, however, still no example of light or fire strong enough to eradicate the beast. That massive black cloud glared up at me.

I shut that book and picked up another, very slowly. It was titled Heresy: The Great Magic Schism of 1526. Inside, I read of battles between sorcerers and magicians. There were pictures of the two armies: the sorcerer side was armed with staves and accompanied by a choir of heavenly angels; the magicians rode into battle on herds of swine, the devil himself at their backs. I didn’t think it was historically accurate, but the picture was memorable. I read descriptions of how one murdered a magician so that his soul might grow closer to God in its final moments. The procedure involved cutting off the magician’s arms, legs, and tongue while he was still alive. I read until I could read no more, until my heart was thundering in my chest.

Closing my eyes, I shut the book and leaned against the sun-warmed window. I didn’t hear him enter, and I jumped when Magnus knelt before me.

“Did I startle you?” he said, smirking in that devilish way of his.

I fluffed my skirt out over the copy of Heresy, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “What do you want?”