She had saved him, but the ominous truth remained: their combined power, as formidable as it was, had only been enough to wound their enemy, not vanquish it.
The Blight was still there, under the skin of the land, its malevolent heart still beating. It would regrow. And as an exhausted sleep finally claimed her, it was not with a sense of triumph, but with the bitter taste of defeat.
The fight had nearly cost them everything. She feared the next one would.
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 shedid. 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.”
