CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“It let us win at the first node.”
Darcy’s voice, gravelly and barely audible, cut through the silence of the inn’s dreary parlour. He was bent over the large map spread across the main table, his finger tapping a point representing the monastic ruins as a dismal breakfast sat nearby, untouched.
“The Blight yielded too easily,” he continued, more to himself than the room, “It was luring us in, taking our measure, and making us expend our energy while it fortified its second position.”
Elizabeth, seated beside him, felt a chill that had nothing to do with the draughty room.
“The second node was a sequence of traps, once it had learnt our strategy. First, the lure, to make us strike the wrong target. Then the elemental fury.” She swallowed, the memory of the shadowy tendrils wrapping around Darcy rising like bile in her throat. “And then…its malice, given form.”
“That nearly succeeded,” Darcy admitted, his gaze meeting hers, a flicker of remembered terror in their depths.
“Yet you managed to force its retreat from both nodes,” the colonel said, “At least it seems the power of the Concordance can still hurt it.”
“For a time they have forced its retreat,” Wickham said, “But the Blight is not dead. I can still feel it, under the land. It will regrow, perhaps even before the day is done.”
The iron control Darcy usually held in his posture seemed to dissolve. His shoulders slumped, a rare and visible admission of resignation.
“We face a tedious opponent, it seems,” said Elizabeth, deliberately choosing a word so mild it was an act of defiance against the overwhelming despair.
“And the third major node remains poisoned by the Blight,” the colonel said, his gaze fixed on the map.
“Not to mention the countless others marked here. It feels insurmountable. I hate to say it, but perhaps the Arcane Office was right. Perhaps it is futile to remain. The Blight is too entrenched.”
The terrible question cast a pall over the room, a presence so heavy it was like a physical weight.
“Tell that to the woman I saw yesterday who was boiling shoe leather to feed her children,” Wickham said finally. “Tell her your efforts are futile.” He shook his head. “For them, every hour you have bought them is another hour of hope.”
The image was a powerful one, and Elizabeth saw its effect on Darcy as he raised his head and looked at Wickham with a slightly bewildered look on his face, as if he simply did not know what to make of him.
Was this heartfelt advocacy or simply the most effective argument he could contrive to keep them here, to keep them fighting this battle?
Then Elizabeth saw Georgiana, who had been listening intently, reach out and place her hand over Wickham’s on the table. It was a subconscious act of solidarity and absolute faith. Georgiana, who knew Wickham best, who had suffered the most for his past sins, believed in him.
She saw that Darcy had noticed the gesture, too. His gaze lingered there, on their hands.
And then he said, with a care that belied the effort it cost him, “The hour of hope Wickham speaks of is one we should not waste. It is clear we underestimated our opponent. We must devise another approach.”
The day was spent in a morose attempt at further strategising.
They huddled around the map, a sorry grouping, Darcy staring at the ink markings as if they were a personal accusation.
“I still do not comprehend it,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, looking directly at Elizabeth. “From what you say, the Blight had him. Utterly. And then...it did not. What did you do?”
Elizabeth sighed inwardly. It was a question she had already answered, in various forms, to each of them in the hours they had been discussing it. Her explanation never seemed to satisfy their need for a logical, repeatable strategy.
“I have explained it as best as I am able, Colonel,” she said, her words blunted with weariness.
“I do not know precisely. My own magic was useless against it. I reached beyond myself, and felt an answering deep thrum from the earth. Though how I was able to employ it to Mr Darcy’s aid, I truly cannot say. ”
“But that is...” the colonel began, turning to Darcy, his expression one of complete astonishment.
“Impossible. I am aware,” Darcy finished, his voice dull and flat, “It violates a fundamental tenet of arcane theory. Yet she did. Must we continue to belabour a point for which we have no explanation?”
“But could it be done again?” the colonel pressed, a hopeful glint in his eye. “Could we call upon it for the third node?”
Every eye in the room turned to Elizabeth.
She felt a phantom echo of the power, the terrifying, searing torrent that had threatened to tear her apart from the inside.
She closed her eyes, reaching out now with her resonance, searching.
There was nothing. Only the sour, cloying presence of the Blight.
“Perhaps,” she said at last, “But I possess no true understanding of it, and when I search for that hum now, it is silent. It may have been a final, lucky pulse from a dying land. A last act of defiance.”
Wickham grimaced, rubbing a hand over his face. “She has the right of it. All I can feel now is the Blight, waiting. If there is anything truly alive down there, its voice is once more smothered.”
“Then we have our answer,” Darcy said, “We must proceed as if such a miracle will not occur again. Let us move on.”
While the men resumed their debate over their possible next moves, Elizabeth found herself unable to concentrate, haunted by the vivid memory of Darcy being choked by the living darkness, his face a mask of agony, his magic sputtering like a dying candle.
She could still feel the constriction in her own chest, the desperate, frantic surge of her own power as she reached for a magic she hadn’t known she could touch.
In that moment, it had no longer been an abstract war for England; it had been a visceral, terrifying fight for the life of the man she had come to love.
Their words now, so detached and clinical, became unbearable. To hear them dissect the moment of Darcy’s greatest vulnerability, the moment she had almost lost him, as if it were merely a move in a chess game, was a torment. The memory was too raw, the fear too close.
She rose abruptly, her chair scraping against the floorboards. The harsh sound was answered a moment later by the softer, collective scrape of three other chairs as the gentlemen reflexively stood.
“I am not feeling quite myself,” she said, tightly, strained, “I must ask you to excuse me.”
Without waiting for a reply, she left the room, leaving a startled silence in her wake.
She sought the sanctuary of her chamber, but found no peace.
The battle had taken a tremendous toll, leaving her feeling magically and physically depleted, her body moving with a stiff, bruised slowness.
The thought of another assault, of facing that darkness at the third node, was a terror she could barely contain.
She sank onto the edge of the bed, pressing a trembling hand to her mouth, the image of Darcy’s agonised face searing itself into her mind. She simply could not stop shaking.
It was then that a hesitant knock came at her door. “Elizabeth?”
It was Georgiana.
Upon opening the door, she saw that Georgiana stood in the corridor, a cup of steaming tisane in her hands, her expression one of shy concern. “I saw you looked unwell, Elizabeth,” she said tentatively. “Mrs Reynolds packed this for me. It is meant to soothe the spirits.”
Elizabeth managed a grateful smile and gestured for her to enter. They sat together for awhile, while she took small sips of the tisane and still felt like ice inside. Georgiana watched her, her eyes holding a thoughtful note.
“May I try something else?” Georgiana ventured at last. “I might be able to help.”
“Is it…your healing you offer? Georgiana, you do not have to do this for me, if it would be too difficult for you.”
A wistful smile touched Georgiana’s lips.
“It is always difficult to be reminded of what I have lost,” she admitted, “But to have even a shadow of that power, and to not use it for a friend? That would be a different kind of failure, and one I am not willing to accept.” She shook her head slightly.
“Do not worry. It is not the great gift I was trained to command; there is little enough of it left to cause me any great strain.”
Seeing Elizabeth’s silent question, she elaborated.
“I was meticulously trained at Pemberley when I was young. My magic was never like Fitzwilliam’s; I have never had a good command of the elements.
My father sensed my true talent was for healing and engaged some of the best masters to teach me.
” Then she paused. “I suppose it does not matter. It has not been the same…since.”
“I remember,” Elizabeth said carefully, a gentle acknowledgment that Georgiana did not have to explain the painful details again.
In response, Georgiana gave a grateful nod.
“During the worst of the Blight in Newcastle, I did what little healing I could for the sick, but it was never enough. It exhausted me so, and offered so little in return. All I will likely manage now is to soothe the ache behind your eyes or offer some small comfort of that nature.”
Elizabeth felt a surge of affection for her. “It will not be small to me.”
Her sister-in-law took her hand, her fingers surprisingly warm, and her brow furrowed in concentration.
What she felt at first was a hesitant, almost painful trickle of magic. It felt constricted, a sorrowful hum that seemed afraid of its own sound. Elizabeth’s heart ached in sympathy for the effort it was costing the younger woman.
But then something shifted. The sorrowful hum seemed to find a new note, and the constricted feeling dissolved.