CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Elizabeth acted without thought. Her magic sprang to her command, a desperate surge of power coalescing into a blast of fire beneath her hand, her will a hair's breadth from unleashing it. She did not know if it would pierce the Blight’s conjured wind, or if it would be enough to counter the terrible, gathering force she felt from Wickham.
She knew only that in the next instant, she might cross a line she could never uncross. She might become a killer.
Darcy’s warning from the inn parlour returned to her as a phantom echo, a chilling whisper against the screaming wind.
I wonder, Elizabeth, if you have considered what Wickham truly stands to gain from this venture. If I should meet my end here, who, then, has the strongest claim to Pemberley?
Revulsion, hot and acrid, filled her mouth. Her magic burned at her fingertips. The power felt foul, its purpose a violation.
But then her mind flashed to Georgiana’s earnest face, to her unwavering faith in the man she had married.
I have seen a tenderness and courage in him. The responsibility of his rank has changed him. Being a husband has changed him.
The two competing truths churned within her: Darcy’s world-weary logic against Georgiana’s heartfelt faith. The man Wickham had been, versus the man he might have become. Her magic wavered, caught between a lethal strike and a desperate hope.
But in the fraction of a second before she could commit to one action or another, a glint of metal at the edge of the clearing tore her attention away.
The colonel. He was braced against the howling gale, his rifle to his shoulder, the long barrel a steady, dark line. Bile rose in her throat. The thought of its imminent, brutal finality was a physical, nauseating thing, made all the more so by its grim necessity.
A high-pitched hum of straining magic pulled her focus back to Georgiana, her face pale, her body trembling with the strain of being the sole anchor for her brother's mind in a storm of psychic despair.
With every pulse of her magic, another wave of colour seemed to drain from her.
She was pouring everything into her efforts, blind and deaf to the danger escalating around her.
Through the swirling chaos, Elizabeth saw Wickham take a half-step forward, an involuntary motion not towards Darcy, but towards Georgiana.
The sound that ripped from Wickham's throat was not one of triumph. It was a sound of pure frustration, and it was aimed squarely at the man he had every reason to let die.
“God’s teeth, Darcy! Of all times to become useless, you pick the worst!” And he slammed down against the blighted earth with magical force.
A shockwave of earthen power erupted from the ground, punching a narrow, momentary corridor through the Blight’s conjured wind barrier.
The sharp crack of the colonel’s rifle split the air. But the bullet was torn from its path, thrown aside like a child's toy as the gale shrieked and collapsed inwards upon itself.
Unaware, Wickham threw himself into the breach and seized Darcy roughly by the shoulder.
Elizabeth surged after him, but the corridor of air imploded before she could pass.
The icy squall slammed back into place, a solid wall of force that flung her backward, cutting her off completely.
The gale howled between them again, more furious than before.
Through the swirling grit, she could see their blurred shapes. From the other side of the wind barrier, Wickham's voice was a muffled roar.
“Whatever it’s showing you, Darcy, it is not true!” he yelled, shaking him, “Fight its lies before we all die in this Godforsaken hole!”
Darcy’s eyes remained unfocused, lost in some vision only he could see. His mouth opened on a silent, strangled cry that was more terrifying than any scream.
Elizabeth flung her magic against the Blight, struggling to freeze the winds, to throw them aside, to wrestle control, when she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. Her head whipped around.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had finished reloading. His rifle was rising, the barrel once again aimed directly at the struggle.
“Colonel, stop!” she cried, “Hold your fire!”
The rifle paused. His voice was a raw shout, almost torn away by the wind. “Are you certain, Elizabeth? If you’re wrong…!”
He did not need to finish. The question slammed into her with the force of the gale. If she was wrong, if this was still part of Wickham’s final, treacherous play, then it was not just Darcy’s life she was gambling, but potentially all of theirs. And everything that came after.
But:
“The wind — !” she shouted back at him, “You cannot risk it!”
Then her gaze snapped back to the two men.
The furious desperation in Wickham’s expression was not a lie.
He was yelling, his words a frantic attempt to cut through a magical assault he couldn't see.
Knowing nothing of the rifle aimed at his back, or the life-or-death bullet that had just passed by him, he shouted again, his voice climbing with urgency.
“So this is how it ends, Darcy? You would rather drown in your own self-pity than fight? I never took you for a man who would simply give up. Now, blast you, master yourself before we all die!”
The ground at their feet split, and a volley of stone shards blasted upwards, aimed directly at Georgiana.
Reacting on pure instinct, Elizabeth threw a shield of her own magic into the path of the assault.
But where Darcy’s shields were solid walls of golden light, hers was a shimmering curtain.
The first shards shattered against it with loud cracks, but the relentless barrage was too much.
Her shield buckled, then tore apart, the force of the impact throwing her back a step. They needed Darcy.
“Come now, Fitz,” Wickham snarled, giving Darcy another, harder shake, “Think of Pemberley. I’ll sell the south woods for a week's worth of cards in London.
Your precious library will be auctioned off to pay for my tailor.
And as for your tenants…well, let us say they will learn the true meaning of a landlord's due.”
Darcy’s fingers and limbs began to tremble violently, as if gripped by convulsions.
A pained cry was ripped from Georgiana's throat as she stumbled back, her hands flying to her head. It was as if the backlash from his fracturing mind had struck her like a blow, shattering her concentration.
“George!” she cried, her voice cracking with terror, “I cannot hold him!”
Wickham cursed. His voice took on a goading, frantic edge. “Rouse yourself, man! Or must I be the one to comfort your widow? A fine, spirited woman like that, left all alone…I should find it my solemn duty to see she is not left to languish in grief for long.”
Elizabeth understood in a flash what he was doing. She knew it was a performance, but even knowing it was a lie, the revolting picture he conjured filled her with a profound sense of defilement.
The words were unforgivable. Their effect was undeniable.
For it was with that scathing taunting that a glint of recognition, a glint of pained awareness, finally pierced through the blank terror.
Darcy’s eyes squeezed shut for a torturous second, his entire body going rigid, before he spoke in a terrifyingly level whisper.
“Hell will have its due before then.”
And then his eyes snapped open, clear and focused.
The shrieking gale died instantly. The sudden, absolute absence of sound was more shocking than the howl had been. Darcy’s magic had cut the windstorm from the sky.
But her relief lasted no more than one precious heartbeat. The Blight would not concede its prize so easily. With a slurping sound, the blighted earth beneath Darcy's feet liquefied into a grasping mire of black sludge, forcing Elizabeth and Wickham to leap back.
Before Darcy could fully form a defence, the mire surged upward, forming hungry arms that pulled him down. He slashed outward with a hail of ice, but the shards barely slowed the foul, wet corruption. Darcy fell with a strangled cry as the sludge began to engulf him, pulling him under.
In an uncoordinated reaction, Elizabeth and Wickham struck.
A blast of her fire and a surge of Wickham’s jagged earth magic hit the heaving mass of corruption at the same instant.
But it was like throwing stones into a great, dark river.
The fire was smothered, the rocks were absorbed into the ooze, and the suffocating tide did not even slow, its purpose fixed entirely on swallowing the man it held in its clutch.
Elizabeth felt a hollow drop in her stomach. The signal station. It was happening again. She reached vainly for the resilient magic of the land itself, the power that had saved him once.
But this time, the land was silent to her senses. The Blight’s presence here was too strong, a blanket that smothered the force she sought. And her own fear was a blindfold. She could not reach it. She could not save him.
Her desperate eyes found Wickham’s across the chaos. She saw a look of absolute, cutting understanding in his gaze.
He knew. He knew what she had thought, what she had suspected from him in that moment of opportunity. He had seen the suspicion in her heart. She had seen the temptation in his.
And now, what she saw was not goodness, not heroism, but a raw, furious defiance.
“You will not have him that easily!” With that shout, Wickham plunged his will into the oily substance. He commanded the rock and soil beneath the mire to reject the corruption.
Elizabeth saw the ground around Darcy’s feet begin to smoke, the black sludge hissing as the earth it was rooted in turned against it.
Shaking off her own fear, Elizabeth understood.
She followed his lead, adding her own will to his, desperately pouring all her energy towards the effort.
Wickham staggered under the weight of her power, but clung grimly on.