The Kingdom of Night (Book 3)

Mystery

Up now: Colin. Initially I didn't think that he was going to be integral to the storyline, but as it progressed, I found he seemed much more important. Possibly it was because he was Elemental, because if you remember from Book 3, the others were not. That's probably the reason why Alice's relationships with the other two men were doomed. The events of this short story only extend a few years beyond the end of Book 3, and what happens at the end of this one is basically left up to the imagination. You'll also see a few familiar faces appear, which was a comfort for me.

Above: Richard Madden as Colin (Pictured here in Lady Chatterley's Lover).

       

Colin

Strife and unrest had always been a part of my life. I was nine when the Depression hit, sixteen when the King abdicated and married a divorced American heiress, and nineteen when Britain declared war on Germany. Two days before the Blitz, I enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps, training in Aldershot while the war picked up speed. I was posted to North Africa and Northern France, both in sixteen-month periods.

Then came the convalescent home back in Scotland, not far from the village I was born in. I was posted there, upon request, after a German bomb destroyed our medical base in France. Being the only survivor, it was difficult to come to terms with this, asking myself every night why I survived and they hadn't. Other soldiers told me about this same feeling. They called it survivor's guilt.

I whiled my time away there as I had before the war: drinks with fellow soldiers while off-duty, shagging the local girls, listening to the wireless and chain-smoking endless cigarettes. Managing the convalescent home wasn't difficult—I checked on the soldiers and the nurses twice a day, making sure everything was running smoothly. It usually was.

That was until I caught sight of Alice Bishop for the first time. Even despite her initial sodden bedraggled appearance, I felt an instant connection spark between us. I remember our first few interactions as tentative, exchanging no more than a few words at a time. While fixing up a soldier's wound, our eyes met across his body, and I was immediately struck by hers. One was a deep green, like the rolling moors that surrounded my village as a boy. The other was a bright gold and shifted like flame.

It was after that I learned a few astounding truths—our connection was because the both of us were Elemental, human beings gifted with power over one of the four elements; she was descended from one of the greatest threats to our kind, Benedict Huntley, and was fleeing a second, a former German dignitary known as Friedrich von Wittenberg. Of course, she was very reluctant to reveal those things, and it took a life-threatening situation between her and Wittenberg to draw them out.

The war, of course, persisted. Alice's cousin George was shot down, presumed dead, and then somehow ended up on the Burren with us when we'd made the decision to go after Wittenberg. Needless to say, we escaped that ordeal with our lives, just about. It was when we were recovering in the hospital in Glasgow that her father approached me.

'What is your intention with my daughter, Captain?' he said, without introduction. He had the same dark brooding air around him as Alice, his body thin and fragile from his time trapped in Wittenberg's lair. Still, this man was dangerous. I sensed it in the air between us.

I shook my head, confused. 'Intention, sir? I don't have one.'

'I am a duke, Captain, therefore you will address me as such.'

'Apologies,' I said, feeling foolish because it had only just occurred to me that I didn't know how to address a duke. 'You're the first duke I've met.'

'I see,' he said, still not looking at me. 'I only ask because my daughter has been taken advantage of by many men, and has scars to show for it.'