Fallen Magic

“Greetings to you all,” says the woman. Her voice rings out louder than it should; it must be magically amplified. “I am Beatrice Langley, the King’s Executioner. The traitor who will die today is George Cavendish, formerly Lord of the Kingdom of Rasin. He has been found guilty of the charges against him: misleading Parliament, taking a bribe to influence Parliamentary process, and high treason.”

“Traitor,” someone in the crowd shouts.

“Death,” another voice joins in. “Death to the traitor!”

Beatrice Langley calmly raises a hand for silence, and waits a few moments until she gets it. “In particular, he used his former position on Parliament’s Sirgalese Relations Committee to give misleading impressions about that country’s intentions towards our Kingdom, and in fact took money from Sirgal to do so.”

This revelation starts up a fresh round of jeers and cries of “Death!”. It’s not a comfortable feeling being part of this crowd that’s baying for blood when that’s the last thing I want.

“His Majesty has chosen to sentence George Cavendish to death for these crimes against the very nature of our Kingdom. Bring forth the traitor!” She shouts those last words and gestures towards the back of the platform.

There must be stairs behind it, because three men ascend slowly up towards the platform. Two heavily-built guards half-march, half-drag the man between them.

I don’t know what I expected Mildred’s father to be. But he just looks normal. Old, tired and very much human. He ignores the growing chants of the crowd and sits down on the central chair, staring straight ahead and letting his arms flop to his sides. It’s an attitude of such despair that part of me wants to scream no! Don’t do this! Can’t you see he’s human, can’t you see he has a daughter!

But that would be even more useless than my earlier failures. I’m not here to play the hero and save him at the last possible second. I’m here to bear witness. And that is what I must do. Stand and watch. Know that perhaps if I had chosen differently this wouldn’t have happened.

“Before the sentence is carried out,” says Beatrice Langley, “perhaps His Majesty would like to share a few words with his subjects?” She sweeps a graceful bow towards the King.

He rises slowly. “Thank you, Beatrice. In my coronation vows twelve years ago, I swore that I would defend this country and its traditions. Ever since then, I have done my best to fulfil that oath: to protect my Kingdom against all those who would seek to take it from us, to ensure that it is prosperous and peaceful – “

“Lies!” someone shouts.

Utter silence. Calling the King a liar is no small thing; people have died for lesser crimes. So to do it here, in public – with a reminder of the consequences of treason right in front of us –

The King draws himself up icily. “Who said that?” he asks, his voice cold and dreadful. “Who dares call me a liar?”

For a moment I hope there will be no response, that the King will recover his place and resume his speech, that nothing will come of that cry.

Then the voice shouts “I dare!”

And a woman’s voice from behind us: “I say you will not save us!”

“I say you will not serve your people!”

And then the woman in the oversized coat who shoved past us, as she throws it off to reveal a sword strapped to her back: “I say you are not fit to rule!”

After that it’s impossible to distinguish individual voices, there are so many shouting contradictory things: the noise of the crowd becomes a single great roar. There are chants of “Death to traitors! Death to the false lords!”, screams of panic. The guards below the platform have drawn their weapons. Lord Blackthorn jumps to his feet and starts barking out what could be a string of orders or an incantation.

And Edward tugs at my hand.

He doesn’t need to say anything: we have to get out. Now.

We turn away from the platform and the chaos developing there and plunge into the crowd. It’s not easy to escape, though: there are hundreds of people with the same idea, all trying to force their way forwards at the expense of others, and some trying to fight their way forwards towards the platform.

Our small size relative to the many grown adults here makes it even harder. We’re buffeted from side to side, nearly knocked over, again and again. It seems for every step we take forward we’re forced back another. I cling to Edward’s hand like a drowning swimmer does to a rope.

And then a woman with a screaming toddler on her shoulders barges through the gap between us and knocks his hand from mine. I lose sight of him in an instant as half a dozen people flow through the space where he was a second ago.

No. It’s going to be okay. I just have to get myself to safety, and then I can find him. Edward will be fine; he can take care of himself much better than I can.

I can feel my heart beating a little faster, my breathing becoming quicker and shallower. Charles First-King. Edwin the Just. A Malaina episode here and now would doubtless result in many deaths. I can’t let that happen.

I battle my way forward a few more paces, but I’m not looking at where I’m putting my feet. So when I step onto the remains of the stall where Edward and I brought sausage rolls, crushed by the sheer weight of the crowd, I’m not prepared for it. My foot hits an unstable plank of wood.

I fling out my hands, hoping I can right myself, but I’m too late. I fall and hit the ground, hard. The shock of the impact numbs me for a second, but my senses are rudely restored by the unmistakeable feeling of someone treading on my foot.

It hurts. Stars, it hurts. I have to get up. Simon the Drunkard. Thomas the Defender. I brace my hands against a plank, but before I can push myself upwards someone steps on my hand. I bite back a scream and try again, but my hand won’t generate any upwards force now. I’ve probably broken something.

I can’t get up. The crowd isn’t stopping. More people are going to trample all over me, break more of my body.

I’m going to die here.

There is nothing that you cannot make worse through an active episode.

If it’s a choice between that and death –

Then you choose death.

Maybe a Malaina episode could save me, but it would kill dozens. I can’t let that happen.

I can’t lie here and die knowing I could have saved myself.

Someone steps onto my back. “No – “ I shout hoarsely, “please – “

But it’s no use: there’s so much noise and chaos that no-one hears me scream.

Eleanor the Bold. I pull my limbs in towards my body. If I take up less space, fewer people will tread on me. Timothy the Peacemaker. “Maria the Seafarer,” I whisper.

There are worst last words than the names of kings.

“Get away from her!”

I blink and look up. I’m not being trampled any more. Is that – yes – Edward is standing over me, wielding a plank like a sword and shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard over the crowd. “Give her space! This girl is my friend, and I am not letting her die here – “ he shoves a man in the chest with the plank, and sends a frantic woman stumbling backwards with a spell of some sort.

And it’s working. The crowd isn’t moving towards us any more. Edward has carved out a circle of space for the two of us in the ruins of the sausage roll stand.

“Edward,” I shout over the noise. “You came back for me.”

“Of course I did, you idiot. Can you stand?”

“I doubt it.”

He reaches one hand down towards me, still holding the plank in the other. I grasp his hand in my good one.

“Magician!” someone shouts.

I hesitate, glancing around. The crowd might not be advancing, but they’re looking at us with distinct hostility now.

“He’s fighting against us!”

“Did that girl just call him Edward?”

“It is! It’s him! He even looks like the Black Raven!”

“So what if I am?” Edward yells back. “My friend is in danger and I’m going to protect her.” He tugs on my hand. I let him pull me up, and immediately feel a surge of pain in my ankle. I’m not going anywhere without his help. It’s as much as I can do to stay on my feet.

“You’re one of them!” a man shouts. “False lord!”

“Magician!”

“Monster!”

“No!” I scream. “Edward Blackthorn is my friend, and he is not a monster!”

No-one listens to me.

Edward releases my hand – I wobble a little but remain upright – and raises his own hand to the sky. “Help!” he calls, and a stream of black smoke rises from where he stands. It must be visible from everywhere around us.

Then he reaches for a second plank and presses it into my good hand.

No. I can’t.

I take it from him.

“He’s summoning monsters!”

“We have to stop him!”

And as if that’s a signal, they’re rushing towards us. I prod a man in the chest with the plank; he barely notices. Maybe I can cast something – but I don’t know any spells that could be useful here –

Edward moves like a whirlwind around me, fighting with plank and magic both, holding back the mob almost through sheer force of will, but I know he’s not going to be able to keep it up forever. I’m not sure I can even stay standing much longer; each thrust of my plank sends fresh shards of pain through my whole body, and my ankle is barely holding my weight.

Our circle of safety grows ever smaller. We have minutes, maybe even seconds. I send a desperate prayer that whatever help Edward called for comes quickly. Before it’s too late.

The world doesn’t quite feel real any more. I know that I could tap into the full power of Malaina if I wanted to, that it is capable of far more than I am. It could save us both easily. Maybe I could control it, guide it, minimise the damage – no.

No, I’m lying to myself, trying to pretend that what I want so desperately to do won’t claim dozens of lives and send me one step closer to becoming the monster they say Edward is.

But they’re trying to kill us. It’s self-defence. Killing in self-defence is perfectly legal. I’m only trying to save myself – more than that, to save Edward. Maybe I have the strength to choose death for myself, but I don’t have the strength to choose it for him.

Edward slips up, inevitably: as he uses his plank to shove back a man getting dangerously close to me, a woman shoves him hard in the back. He recovers well, but the single second he lost is critical. There’s no holding everyone back now.

This is it. Time to choose.

“Richard Blackbeard.”

And the man advancing towards me seems to bounce off the air between us and goes sprawling backwards, knocking into the woman behind him and tripping her off her feet as well. All around our little circle, our attackers fall back in the same way.

For a moment I think it’s me, that I drew on the power of Malaina without even realising it. Then I see the scarlet-robed man standing beside us.

Lord Blackthorn has just teleported into the tiniest of gaps in the crowd and cast a powerful shielding spell around the two of us in an instant.

My plank falls from my hand.

I thought I understood how scary he could be, that day on the Abbey steps. This is different. He’s tense yet confident, prepared for anything and utterly furious. “Are you hurt?” he asks, not even having to shout to be heard over the crowd – though he can’t be magically amplifying his voice, not while maintaining the shield.

“Bruises,” Edward replies. “Tallulah is worse. I don’t know how bad – “

“I’m not dying,” I choke out, finding a lump in my throat and my eyes stinging with tears of pure relief. “But it hurts. A lot. I don’t think I can walk.”

“You have to get her to a doctor – “

“I have to – “

“Dad!”

I see it a second after Edward does: Lord Blackthorn is standing outside the shield he created, and that makes him vulnerable. A brave man charges out from the crowd towards him – wielding some sort of blade –

Lord Blackthorn doesn’t even turn around. The blade never touches him; it reaches his robes and then slips off harmlessly. Then he turns and raises his hand almost contemptuously.

The man lifts into the air and hangs there, legs scrambling for footing that isn’t there, a couple of feet above the ground.

But that shouldn’t be possible. Either he’s dropped the shield protecting us, which is unlikely, or – or he’s simultaneously casting.

Stars, no wonder Edward thought of Electra being secretly multi-School; his own father is.

“Did you think that would work?” Lord Blackthorn asks his would-be killer. He sounds genuinely curious.

The man is trembling, his legs still whirling in a fruitless attempt to touch the ground. “M-mercy,” he chokes out. “Please. I have children – “

“So do I.” Lord Blackthorn’s words are ice given voice. He reaches into his robes and pulls out a small dagger.

The man’s face pales, his eyes fix on the blade. “No! Please! Don’t! I’m sorry, I swear – “

“Stop!”

It takes me a second to realise I’m the one who’s spoken.

Lord Blackthorn turns to face me with exaggerated slowness. “Why should I?”

And I’m standing on the Abbey steps once more. Persuade me. Only I’m even less prepared than I was then, and the task is still as impossible as ever. I can’t do this.

As if brought on by that thought, my legs finally give way beneath me and I collapse.

Or I would have collapsed if Edward hadn’t caught me. Instead I fall back into his arms and let him take my weight. “It’s okay,” he says.

And fool that I am, I believe him. Because his presence has just given me the answer I need. “These people tried to kill Edward,” I say, hoping my voice will hold out for as long as this will take. “They called him a monster, a false lord. Because he is your son.”

Lord Blackthorn is silent, his expression carefully blank. I might be making the biggest and last mistake of my life. Still, I’ve started now; I might as well finish.

“I know you love him. I know you want the best for him. But your reputation puts him in danger. People will hurt him because they think you are a monster.”

“I am a monster. I have to be.”

It takes me a moment to find the right words. I’m running on instinct and my best guesses here; if I only had a quill and a few minutes… but I don’t. I have to do the best I can with what I do have: my mind and my voice. “Do you? Have you considered a different way?”

Close by, a battle still rages between the mob and the guards, and people are still fleeing. But here in our little circle, there’s silence.

“What would you have me do?” he asks. “He tried to kill me. If I let him go, he might do the same again.”

“I won’t – I swear, I won’t – “ The man’s eyes are fixed on me. Pleading. Desperately hopeful. I can’t bear it.

“He is not a threat to you,” I say simply. “What good would it do to kill him?”

“It would only give people more cause to hate and fear you,” Edward adds.

I blink up at him. His words are true enough, but what matters is the intent behind them. He’s choosing a side here. Choosing me over his father.

And Lord Blackthorn knows that too.

“Is that what you want?” I ask. “Do you want Edward to forever live in your shadow, always afraid of what those who hate and fear you would do to him given the chance?”

There’s another long moment of silence. I wonder whether I’ve gone too far. What he might do, if pushed too far.

Then Lord Blackthorn moves: he jerks his hand downwards, letting his victim fall. Before the man even hits the ground, he takes two quick strides towards us, grabs Edward’s hand and turns on the spot.

And the crowd, the noise, the remnants of the sausage roll stall vanish as we disappear into an awful, wrong darkness in which we don't belong.