The Invasion of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen

  “We’re taking him out the Gate.”

  “Christ, they’ll slaughter him before she can execute him.”

  “Maybe, but she wants to give them a show.”

  Together, the three of them marched the prisoner between them, out the door and down the stairs. Here, at least, was something that Ewen understood, lessons learned from years in the dungeon. He kept his eyes on the scarecrow’s back, looking for the smallest twitch, the slightest sign that his prisoner meant to bolt. When the prisoner coughed, Ewen put a quick hand on his arm. As they descended the staircase, Ewen checked the position of his knife, and found it right where it should be, tucked into his belt.

  One job, Da had always said, and one job only, Ew: make sure they don’t run. The rest is for someone else.

  At the bottom of the stairs, they came around the corner toward the Keep Gate and Ewen saw a group of people on horses. The Queen was there, sitting atop a brown horse, dressed in a long black dress that draped over the horse’s flank. Ewen thought about bowing, then decided not to when the other three guards did not. He might not be a real Queen’s Guard, but he could act like one.

  “El, tie him down,” the Mace ordered. “Make sure no one can pull him off.”

  Beside the horses was a broad, open wagon. Ewen helped the big guard lift the prisoner into the wagon bed, then climbed in himself, thinking: No one has ever escaped on my watch. He held the idea firmly in his mind as the big guard shackled the scarecrow to the wagon. Ewen had never let a prisoner get free, and it would not happen now. Da was right. The rest was for someone else.

  The Keep Gate opened before them, bright sunlight splashing the dark walls. But the sound . . . Ewen looked out and saw people, hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, waiting beyond the moat. As the bridge lowered, the roar seemed to double in volume. The sound was frightening, and it hurt Ewen’s ears, but then he reminded himself that he was a Queen’s Guard, and Queen’s Guards were not frightened. He stood up straight, grasping the side of the wagon for balance as it began to roll.

  It took Ewen only a few minutes to figure out what all the noise was about: the scarecrow. They screamed his name, Thorne, mixing it in with curses and threats. Many people threw things: eggs, fruit, even a fresh lump of dog shit that narrowly missed Ewen and landed in the bed of the wagon. Ewen wished he had been able to ask Da what the scarecrow had done, but Da was far too sick to visit the dungeons now. Ewen hadn’t seen him in several weeks.

  They left the Keep Lawn and proceeded down the Great Boulevard. Here, someone had placed wooden barriers to keep people out of the center of the road, but the mob crowded up against the barriers, nearly knocking them over, shrieking at the wagon the entire way. When the procession passed Powell’s Sweet Shop, Ewen saw Mr. and Mrs. Powell out front. Powell’s had always been his favorite shop, ever since he was little, when Mum used to take him and his brothers every Sunday if they had been good in church. Mrs. Powell was nicer to Ewen than she was to his brothers; she would always stick a few extra pieces of taffy into his bag. But now Mrs. Powell’s face was twisted and dark. Her eyes met Ewen’s, but she did not seem to recognize him, nor did she stop screaming, high furious cries that meant nothing.

  “Hey, Ew! EW!”

  Ewen looked around and saw his brother Peter, clinging to the top of a lamppost with one hand, waving wildly with the other. Peter pointed beneath him, and Ewen saw that they were all there: Arthur and David, his two younger brothers, and Da. Even from this vantage, Ewen could see that Da was leaning heavily on Arthur’s arm, that he would have fallen over without help. Ewen longed to wave at Da, but he could not; he was a Queen’s Guard, and he sensed the Mace watching him, looking for him to make a mistake. Da didn’t wave; he was too weak. But his old eyes were gleaming, and he smiled as Ewen went by.

  As they left the boulevard and entered the twisting labyrinth of streets that led to the Circus, Ewen finally turned his attention back to the wagon. The crowd followed, screaming blood and murder behind them, but Ewen no longer heard them. He had never imagined that one single moment of life could be so important. He was a Queen’s Guard, and Da had seen, and Da was proud.

  For the first few minutes, Kelsea had been able to convince herself that the crowd was merely expressing healthy anger. Seventeen years of the lottery required some outlet, and Thorne was the perfect target, for he stood nonchalantly in the wagon, smiling as though he had not a care in the world, as though he were going to a Sunday picnic rather than his own death. The crowd hurled objects at Thorne, howling like animals, and by the time the procession reached the Circus, Kelsea could no longer deceive herself about what was going on here. This was not a crowd, but a mob, and it was only winding itself up as the procession continued.

  The Circus was New London’s unofficial plaza, a wide oval of broken paving stones at the center of the city. It was a convenient place for meetings, for it stood at the intersection of five streets and its perimeter was dotted with pubs. But today the plaza was dominated by a high wooden structure: a scaffold, built by contractors in the past week. The platform was taller than Kelsea had expected, perhaps ten feet high, and the scaffold itself seemed to loom over the crowd below.

  Three long, twisted ropes, ending in nooses, dangled from the crossbar. Two of them were already occupied, tightened around the necks of Liam Bannaker and Brother Matthew. Kelsea had expected some pushback from the Arvath; technically, only the Holy Father could sentence one of his people to death. But there had been nothing from the Holy Father for days, no complaints or demands. He was waiting for something, Mace said, but if Mace knew what the something was, he kept it to himself.

  Kelsea had hoped that the sight of the rope would touch Thorne, even a little, but he continued to smile broadly, and the crowd screamed louder, and their fury fed his smile, and his smile fed their fury, until it sounded as though the world was ending. Everywhere she looked, Kelsea saw clean hate, eyes and faces and mouths burning with it. Even the evacuees—men and women in the thick, patched trousers and loose shirts of the Border Hills and eastern Almont—had come into the city to see Thorne hang. But Thorne seemed not to care.

  There must be something, Kelsea thought, her eyes pinned on him. Something that would break him.

  She turned to Mace, but he was keeping a careful eye on the boy, Ewen, watching to see that he did not get distracted. Mace thought all of this energy expended on Ewen was a waste of time, but there were some things that you could never explain to Mace. For perhaps the thousandth time, Kelsea wondered what had happened to him, to make him so immune to kindness. In this respect, at least, Thorne had won the chess match: Kelsea never really stopped wondering about Mace anymore, about the strange childhood where Mace and Thorne and Brenna had somehow intersected. But if she asked Mace, he wouldn’t tell, and if she ordered him, she would be a tyrant and he wouldn’t tell anyway. Thorne had refused to speak another word, even to the last, but Kelsea had kept her end of the bargain. Brenna was now installed in the Keep proper—five floors below the Queen’s Wing, to Kelsea’s relief—and each day one unfortunate guard had to go down, bring her food, and guard her chamber for the day. Mace had begun to treat the duty as a punishment for small infractions by the Guard, and according to him, it had been surprisingly effective. Kelsea could ask Brenna about Mace’s origins, perhaps, but she couldn’t imagine that the albino would be willing to tell her anything. She had considered bringing Brenna down here today, but in the end decided that such a move would be too cruel. Now she wished she had done it, just to see the look on Thorne’s face. Maddening, to have so many questions to which the answers were hidden by a single pitiless mind.

  Kelsea was pleased to see that Ewen’s size, at least, was an advantage here. After they stopped the wagon, Ewen held Thorne’s arms tightly while Elston dealt with the knots. Normally, it would have been Kibb with Elston, as always, but Mace was still testing Kibb, trying to analyze what had changed since his illness. Kibb was different, even Kelsea could see it. He
sang less, laughed less, seemed more introspective. From time to time Kelsea would catch him staring at her, puzzled, as though trying to decipher some code that only the two of them understood.

  At the foot of the scaffold, Kelsea dismounted and headed up the stairs to the platform, surrounded by her Guard. The crowd howled around her, a sound for nightmares, but she no longer minded, for the cacophony fit her mood. After months spent hunting for Thorne, this should have been her day of triumph, but somehow everything had gone wrong. Thorne had not stood trial, and Kelsea could feel Carlin’s certain disapproval, like a low headache at the back of her mind. Eight days ago, the Mort had crossed the Crithe, and no amount of ingenuity from Hall or Bermond could hold back their numbers; soon Kelsea would have to evacuate the sprawling camp outside the city and move the refugees inside. Whenever she closed her eyes now, she saw the Mort: a faceless black horde, waiting, at the end of the New London Bridge. What did they wait for? Kelsea shrank from the answer.

  She beckoned her herald, Jordan, who had hung back from the group of Queen’s Guards in clear discomfort. The guards were not unkind to him, certainly, but there was little doubt that Jordan was a mouse among hawks.

  “See if you can get them to settle down.”

  Jordan moved to the front of the scaffold and began yelling, waving his arms. His deep voice was strong enough to make the wood thrum beneath Kelsea’s feet, but still, it took a few minutes for the crowd to fall into an uneasy silence, one broken by hisses and muttering. Elston and Ewen had moved Thorne to the pinnacle of the scaffold, where he stood with bound hands, staring far over the crowd.

  “Arlen Thorne, Brother Matthew, and Liam Bannaker.” Kelsea was pleased to hear her words ring across the Circus and bounce back again from the wall of pubs. “You are guilty of treason, and the Crown has sentenced you to death. Should you have anything to say before you hang, the Crown is listening.”

  For a moment, she thought that Thorne might speak. He scanned the crowd, and Kelsea knew without knowing that he was looking for Brenna, for the damnable albino who had such an incomprehensible hold on him.

  Speak, Arlen!

  But he said nothing, and then the moment was past. Kelsea felt it blow right by her, a cold wind of withered promise.

  “Beast!” a woman screamed, and then they all began again, howling and cursing. There was nothing more to accomplish here; Kelsea nodded to Mace and Coryn, who stepped forward without ceremony and shoved both Bannaker and the priest off the scaffold.

  Bannaker’s neck broke instantly, a quick crack like a slap, and his limp body swung back and forth in decreasing arcs before the crowd. But Brother Matthew struggled, choking, against his noose. The crowd had begun to fling items again, making a game of it now, trying to hit the two dangling men. Most of these objects bounced harmlessly off the wooden facing, but one piece fell near Kelsea with a dull crack: a misshapen brick, its edges worn. Beside the brick, a playing card lay facedown on the platform, no doubt left by some worker on break from construction. Not knowing why, Kelsea bent down and picked it up. Turning it over, she saw that it was the queen of spades.

  Kelsea stared at the card, transfixed: a tall woman dressed all in black, holding weapons in both hands. The Queen’s all-knowing gaze pinned Kelsea where she stood, as though she knew every thought in Kelsea’s mind.

  But no, Kelsea thought, that isn’t it at all. The nights of slicing her own flesh open, the incident with Kibb, the steadily growing sense of her own power . . . all of it had been narrowing to a point, distilling Kelsea to her essentials. She squeezed her hand into a fist, feeling the playing card crumple inside.

  I am her: the tall, dark woman with death in each hand. She is me.

  “Be silent!” she shouted.

  A hush fell over the crowd, as quick and sharp as a curtain dropping. Brother Matthew still convulsed, gagging, at the end of his rope, but Kelsea didn’t mind the counterpoint. She moved up toward the edge of the scaffold, so far out that Pen, close as always, grabbed a handful of her dress. It felt as though there were yards of extra material in the small of Kelsea’s back now, where the fabric had always stretched tight for her entire life. She had transformed, become something more than herself, become extraordinary.

  The queen of spades.

  “You have come to watch this man die!” she announced. “But I know you, people of the Tearling! You do not come to watch a hanging! You come for blood!”

  “Aye!” hundreds of voices shouted back.

  “Make him bleed, Lady!”

  “Give him to us!”

  “No.” Something seemed to be unfurling inside Kelsea, unfolding stealthily, like a dark pair of wings opening in the night, and she wanted to spread them wide, feel their span. Always she had been a child of the light, loving the warm sun through the cottage windows, when it felt as though all things were right and kind. But the world was also full of darkness, a cold gulf that beckoned. The people hungered for violence, and suddenly Kelsea wanted, more than anything, to give it them.

  Corruption. Carlin’s voice, a dim echo, long ago in the morning gleam of the library. Corruption begins with a single moment of weakness.

  But Kelsea was not weak. She was strong . . . stronger than Carlin could ever have imagined. Her entire being seemed to be filled with bright light.

  “Arlen.”

  It was only a whisper, but Thorne jerked around to face her, a marionette pulled by invisible strings.

  I own him, Kelsea realized, her mind a dark marvel. Every cell, every molecule. I could force him to speak. I could force him to tell me everything I want to know.

  But that was nonsense. The time for talk had come and gone.

  “Lady?”

  Mace touched her arm, and Kelsea turned to see that he was offering the third noose in one hand. But she ignored it, staring at Thorne, memorizing his form, learning his outlines. He watched her placidly, and Kelsea saw that he felt no regret, even now. In the bleak white landscape of his mind, he was certain that he had acted justifiably, that no man would have done any better. Seventeen long years of facilitating the shipment . . . but no, Thorne’s role had been even worse. Deep within his mind, Kelsea found a bright flash of memory: a hand holding out a pen, a smooth, persuasive voice, speaking in murmurs. I’m afraid you have no choice, Majesty. There’s no better option.

  Fury coiled inside Kelsea, a sick fury that seemed to come from nowhere, descending like an animal with ragged claws and needle teeth. She tasted blood on her tongue.

  A dark slash opened just above Thorne’s left eye. He cried out, clapped a hand to his forehead, and Kelsea watched with pleasure as blood spilled between his fingers and ran down his cheek. The crowd broke its silence now, howling in delight, pushing toward the scaffold. Kelsea leaned forward, heedless of Pen’s restraining grip on her dress, and grasped Thorne’s hair, tipping his head back. Bright blue eyes stared up at her from a face tacky with blood.

  “I have news for you, Arlen. We’re on my chessboard now.”

  Another slice appeared across Thorne’s cheek, opening all the way from his hairline to the corner of his mouth. Thorne groaned, and Kelsea felt that winged thing inside her growing, heaving, desperate to break its bonds. She slashed at Thorne’s neck, dangerously near the jugular, and watched crimson bloom across the white linen of his shirt. Thorne screamed and the sound was music to Kelsea’s ears, the crowd’s approval roaring around her, lifting her up. She saw herself as they must see her: a beautiful woman, long dark hair snapping in the wind, a figure of great power and . . . was it terror? Kelsea hesitated, seeing the scene before her from another angle, as though a third person stood beside her, observing dispassionately. Thorne was bleeding from half a dozen deep wounds. He had fallen to his knees. The crowd had pushed farther up against the scaffold in its eagerness now, some of them shinnying up the supports and reaching for Thorne, their hands grasping at his legs. But they shied away from Kelsea. Even the most eager took care that their hands should not come wit
hin range of her, not even to brush the hem of her dress. Terror, yes . . . it must be, and Kelsea’s mind went out to the black shadow of the Mort army, somewhere in the floodplain between the Caddell and the Crithe.

  My kingdom, she thought, and the wings inside her spread wide, prepared for some unimaginable flight. Briefly her mind skipped backward, to that night when Kibb had lain dying, when she had snatched him back. That was power, yes, but it would not save the Tearling. Her kingdom was laid bare, ripe for slaughter, and she had nothing to offer but this darkness. The black wings folded, enclosing Kelsea in their embrace, and she nearly sighed at the relief she found there, a bottomless fathom where no light ever shone, where all choices were easy because all choices were one.

  She returned to Thorne, pushing past his skin, seeking the meat beneath. Her mind had sharpened into a killing blade and she launched into the creature in front of her, slashing everything within her reach, feeling a sweeping excitement as tissue shredded away from bone. Thorne howled, his body becoming misshapen as the inner upheaval played out across his skin. Blood gouted from his nose, spattering the hem of Kelsea’s dress, but she barely noticed. She was already digging into the meat of his chest, looking for his lungs. She found one, constricted it, and felt it pop with sickening ease. More blood poured from Thorne’s mouth, and at the sight of scarlet dripping down his chin, Kelsea felt it again: a fainting sort of pleasure, akin to what she felt when Pen touched her at night. But this was more visceral, like a punch to her core. Thorne’s other lung collapsed and he fell forward, writhing, on the scaffold. The crowd screamed with delight, and the sound lifted Kelsea up. Her entire body felt charged, electric.

  “I am the Queen of the Tearling!” she shouted, and the crowd immediately fell silent. Looking over them, their open mouths, their wide eyes, all fixed on her, Kelsea felt as though she held the world in her hands. She had felt so before, but could not remember when. She placed her boot on Thorne’s neck and pressed down, hard, liking the way he writhed, liking the feel of his neck beneath her boot.