The Invasion of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen

  “Perhaps you’re right,” he admitted. “I will tell you, then: long ago, I did your family a great wrong.”

  “What wrong?”

  Finn blinked, and Kelsea realized, astonished, that each word was costing him something. Was it possible for this creature to feel remorse?

  “I betrayed Jonathan Tear.”

  This wasn’t what Kelsea had expected. “The Fetch said you were a liar.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Let me tell you something about the man called Fetch, girl. I see your wish to wound him, and believe me, he is vulnerable. Ask him about his role in the Tear assassination. See if he has any defense.”

  Kelsea recoiled.

  “I grow weary, Tear heir. Do we have a deal, or not?”

  “You first,” she replied, forcing the Fetch from her head. “How do I kill the Red Queen?”

  “Give me your word that you will set me free afterward. I have watched you for a long time, Tear heir. I know your word is good.”

  The words reminded her of Thorne. There was something wrong here, something Kelsea was missing. If Finn had been involved in the Tear assassination, what did that have to do with Kelsea? All of the Tears were dead.

  The Mort! her mind insisted. Think of the Mort! She needed time, time to make a good decision, but all time had run out. If there was even a possibility of killing the Red Queen, didn’t that outweigh whatever threat this creature might represent? Kelsea wondered if it had been this way for her mother: two terrible options, the Mort at the very gates, and Elyssa, blinded by the immediate danger into making the worst decision possible.

  I see, Kelsea whispered silently, the words falling into some dim corner of her mind. I see, now, how it was for you.

  “I promise to set you free.”

  Finn smiled, vulpine. “A good bargain, Tear heir. Your Mort Queen came to me a long time ago, nearly a century now. She was not seeking me, but found me by accident, and once she realized what I was, she begged me to help her.”

  “Help her do what?”

  “Become immortal. She was a young girl then, barely a woman, but already her life had been terrible, and she wished to be so strong that nothing could harm her again . . . not man, not fate, not time.”

  Thorne had been right, Kelsea realized. “You helped her, then?”

  “I did. She has distant Tear blood, and for a long time I thought she was the one I was looking for. But she is . . . flawed. Her early years left too deep a mark on her, and she focuses only on her own safety and her own gain. Your heritage is much clearer, undiluted. Sometimes I can even see him, just there, in the expressions of your face.”

  Who? Kelsea wondered. But she could not afford diversions. “You said she could be killed.”

  “So she can. She has a bit of your family’s talent, and I taught her to refine it: to manipulate flesh, to cure herself when her body failed her. You know these lessons, Tear heir; you have been teaching them to yourself. But the Mort Queen is still vulnerable. Her mind is vulnerable, because deep inside her mind will always be that young girl who came to me, frightened and starving and alone. She cannot eradicate her childhood, as hard as she might try. It defines her.”

  Kelsea twitched, suddenly angry. She did not want to think of the Red Queen as a vulnerable child, like Aisa. Kelsea wanted her to be the figure of great power and terror that she had always imagined. She felt as though Finn had made everything more difficult.

  “How is this useful to me?”

  “The woman cannot be killed, Tear heir, but the child can. She knows this, and so she must have your sapphires.”

  “What do they have to do with it?”

  “Time, Tear heir, time. Surely you must have realized by now that you hold much more than two pretty necklaces. There are many magic gems out there, but Tear’s sapphire is unique. You must have discovered this, no?”

  Kelsea said nothing.

  “There are many things the Red Queen would like to change in her own history. She believes your jewels would allow her to do so, to wipe away the past that makes her weak. She wants them very badly.”

  So Thorne had told the truth about that as well. For a moment Kelsea pictured the bleeding man, writhing in agony at her feet . . . then she thrust the image away. “How would someone else make use of that past, though? Surely anyone she might fear from childhood is dead now.”

  “Not necessarily, Tear heir. She fears me. But even more, she fears you.”

  “Me?”

  “Oh, yes. She may not admit it, even to herself, but she fears you, and fear is a monstrous weakness that an industrious woman like yourself might use. The Red Queen has many defenses, but if you find the child, you find the vulnerability.” Finn splayed his hands. “Have I fulfilled my end of the bargain?”

  “I’m not sure. What if you’ve lied?”

  Finn chuckled bitterly, his handsome face twisting. “Believe me, I learned a long time ago not to play at truth with your family. The lesson came at a bitter cost.”

  “All right.”

  “Your end of the bargain, Tear heir.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Let me see your sapphires.”

  Kelsea held them out, but he recoiled. “No closer. I can’t touch them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Punishment, Tear heir. The worst punishment imaginable.”

  The worst punishment imaginable. Someone else had used those exact words with Kelsea, not long ago. The Fetch, of course, standing in almost the exact spot where Row Finn was standing now.

  “Take both sapphires in your hand—”

  “Wait a minute,” she interrupted. “You said you had done my family a wrong. The Raleighs. What wrong?”

  He smiled. “The Raleighs, the grasping Raleighs . . . you may have their blood, but you’re no Raleigh. You’re a Tear.”

  “The Tears were slaughtered. None survived.”

  “Are you so dense, child? Look in the mirror!”

  Kelsea turned and looked. From old habit, she expected to see a girl there, but instead she found a woman, tall and lovely, her expression grave, her face prematurely lined with sorrow.

  Lily.

  For a moment, Kelsea thought it must be a trick, some illusion concocted by Finn to sway her. She raised her hand, watched her reflection do the same. She might have been Lily herself, standing in front of the floor-length mirror that stood in the front hallway of the New Canaan house. Only Kelsea’s eyes were still her own, deep green rather than Lily’s cool blue.

  “Was my mother one of the Tear line, somehow?”

  “Elyssa?” Finn giggled, a sound that chilled Kelsea.

  “Do you know who my father was?”

  “I do.”

  “Who?”

  He shook his head, and in his eyes, Kelsea saw the most alarming thing she had seen during this entire nightmare evening: a thin vein of pity. “Believe me, Tear heir, you don’t want to know.”

  Mace had said the same thing, but Kelsea pressed onward. “Of course I do.”

  “Too bad. That isn’t part of the bargain.” Finn gestured toward the sapphires. “Keep your end, Tear heir.”

  She clasped both sapphires in her right hand. So bad that she wouldn’t want to know . . . which of the rogue’s gallery in her mother’s generation could it be?

  “I forgive you, Rowland Finn,” he prompted.

  Kelsea closed her eyes. Her mother’s face swam up before her, but Kelsea ignored it and spoke clearly. “I forgive you, Rowland Finn.”

  In the dark of her tent, less than five miles away, the Queen of Mortmesne woke screaming.

  Finn smiled wide, showing bright, sharp teeth. “Do not even consider revoking your forgiveness, Tear heir. You gave it on your sapphires, and oathbreakers are punished, badly.”

  “Ah.” Kelsea sat back, staring at him. “I see. What was your punishment, then? Different, I’d imagine, from that of the Fetch.”

  Finn stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “I am going to pa
y you a great compliment, Tear heir. Always, I come to the women with this.” He circled his perfect face with one hand. “It pleases them, and flatters them, and muddles their thinking. But you’re too clever to be distracted, and you’re too honest to be flattered.”

  Kelsea wasn’t sure of that. Her pulse had elevated, as it always did when Finn was near. But if he had been fooled, then so much the better.

  “You asked, so I will show you my punishment. See who I really am.”

  Finn’s face began to change, the color bleeding away. His hair thinned, became a ragged patchwork on his scalp. His skin whitened, the lips reddened, the eyes grew their own dark hoods. The face was that of a clown, perhaps the joker in a deck of cards, but there was no humor in those eyes, only a killing joy that embraced everything and nothing. Kelsea nearly screamed, but she clapped her hand over her mouth at the last moment, realizing that it would only bring her entire Guard running.

  “It burns,” Finn rasped. “All the time it burns.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “I have been alive for more than three centuries. I have wished for death many times, but I cannot inflict it on myself. Only on others.”

  Kelsea had backed up until her knees met the bed, and now she sat down, staring at him.

  “Do not be frightened, Tear heir. I am dangerous, infinitely so, but I have no immediate business with you. My hatred lies east, with the Mort Queen. If you fail, I will succeed.”

  He moved toward the fireplace, and Kelsea felt relieved, but just at the hearth, he turned back to her, his red eyes burning.

  “I have no feeling, Tear heir, not for any living thing in this world. But at this moment, you have my gratitude, and perhaps even respect. Do not get in my way.”

  “That depends on where your way leads you. Stay out of the Tearling.”

  Finn’s smile widened. “I promise nothing. You have been warned.”

  He retreated back into the fireplace, damping the flames, and Kelsea’s stomach knotted in anxiety as she watched him go. Finn’s form faded until there was nothing, only the sinking sense that she had not avoided Elyssa’s Bargain after all, that the deal she had just made might turn out to be even worse.

  Too late now. It was nearly dawn. Kelsea wondered where Lily was now, what she was doing. Had they launched the ships? To where? How had Tear been able to protect his tiny kingdom of travelers from the collapsing world around them? The pre-Crossing earth had held more than twenty billion people, but no one had followed them to the New World. How had Tear gotten away?

  “Only crossing,” Kelsea whispered again, savoring the words like a talisman. Finn had said that Tear’s jewel dealt in time; had Tear been able to see the future, anticipate obstacles? No, that was too simple. An undiscovered landmass in the middle of the Atlantic? That seemed unlikely, if not impossible. Yet they had sailed thousands of miles, crossing God’s Ocean to land on the western shores of the New World.

  Time, Tear heir, time.

  Finn’s voice echoed in her head, and Kelsea looked up, startled, as a vision took shape before her. There were no certainties here; there never were where her sapphires were concerned. But she thought she understood, if only dimly, what had happened. Tear’s people had traveled thousands of miles across the ocean, yes, but the real journey was not in distance.

  The real Crossing was time.

  An hour later, cleaned up and dressed, Kelsea went to Arliss’s office, where he handed her a sheet of paper without comment. She turned it over and found, charmed, that Arliss had taken some pains with his handwriting, pushing his normally straggling letters into upright legibility. He hadn’t waited for her approval of the language; beside him was a steadily growing stack of copies.

  Bill of Regency

  Her Majesty, Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, seventh Queen of the Tearling, hereby relinquishes her office and places it in the hands of Lazarus of the Mace, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, his heirs and assigns, to act as Regent of Her Majesty’s Government. Should Her Majesty die or become incapacitated while this Bill of Regency is in effect, the aforementioned transfer of office shall become permanent and the Regent shall be declared ruler of the Tearling. All acts by the Regent will be taken in Her Majesty’s name and according to Her Majesty’s laws—

  “That’s good,” Kelsea muttered. “I forgot to tell you that.”

  —but any such acts may be repudiated by decree of Her Majesty upon resumption of her throne.

  Kelsea looked up at Arliss. “A resumption clause?”

  “Andalie told me to put it in.”

  “How did Andalie know?”

  “She just knew, Queenie, same as she always does.”

  Kelsea looked back down at the bill.

  At such time as Her Majesty may return and resume her throne, this Bill will be declared null and void. The Regent will relinquish all powers of office to Her Majesty, or Her Majesty’s heirs upon sufficient evidence.

  Kelsea shook her head. “A resumption clause is a bad idea. It weakens Lazarus right out of the gate.”

  “You need one, Queenie. Both Andalie and that little sibyl of hers say you’ll come back.”

  She looked up, startled. “They do?”

  “The little one seemed particularly sure of it. Vastly changed, she said you’ll be, but you will come back.”

  Kelsea didn’t see how this could be. If she tried to kill the Red Queen, she would either succeed or fail, but either way, it seemed unlikely that she would live long after the attempt. But it was too late to change the bill now; they needed enough copies to distribute throughout New London. Kelsea sat down in the chair opposite Arliss and began to sign her way through the stack. The work was soothing, but monotonous, and Kelsea’s mind wandered back to the conversation with Row Finn. Again, the nagging question recurred: who had fathered her? If the Tear line had survived somehow, it could only be because someone had been hidden during the bloody period after Jonathan Tear’s assassination. A secret that old would be nearly impossible to discover . . . but Kelsea’s paternity might provide a start.

  “Lady.”

  Mace was in the doorway. Kelsea straightened automatically, drawing her arm over the bill she was signing. But Arliss was far ahead of her; he had already whisked the entire stack of copies out of sight.

  “What is it?”

  “I need you to weigh in on something.”

  Kelsea got up from the desk, heard a slither of paper behind her as Arliss made her bill disappear as well. “What is it?”

  Mace closed the door behind him. “Pen insists on accompanying you this morning. I’ve said no, but he won’t listen. I could have him restrained when we leave, but I don’t wish to do that.”

  “What’s the question?”

  “Do you think he should come?”

  Kelsea nodded slowly. “It would be cruel to leave him behind.”

  “All right.” Mace lowered his voice. “But when we get back, Lady, you and I will have to talk about Pen. He cannot be your close guard and your paramour, all at once.”

  Paramour. It was such an antiquated concept that Kelsea almost laughed, but after a moment’s thought, she realized that Mace had chosen the right word. Paramour . . . that was exactly what Pen was.

  “Fine. We’ll discuss it.”

  Mace looked over her shoulder. “What goes on here?”

  “We’re going over the tax situation.”

  “That so?” Mace fixed his keen glance on Arliss. “Taxes a crucial issue right now?”

  “Whatever Queenie wants to talk about is the issue on my desk, Mr. Mace.”

  Mace turned back to Kelsea. He stared at her for a very long time.

  “Spit it out, Lazarus.”

  “Why not tell me what you’re planning to do, Lady? Don’t you think I could help?”

  Kelsea looked down, blinking, suddenly near tears. He would not understand, she thought, not until it was all done, and at that point it would be too late to ask his forgiveness. But Mace was a Queen�
�s Guard right down to his core. He would knock her unconscious, if necessary, to keep her from her intended course, and so she could not explain to him, nor to the rest of the Guard. She would not be able to say good-bye to any of them. She thought of the day they’d all ridden up, tired and impatient, to collect her from the cottage. That departure had been terrible, just as this one would be. And yet the world had opened wide, from that day onward. She remembered riding down the length of the Almont, farms all around her, the Caddell still a blue twinkle in the distance. How she had been struck by the land, its vastness, its sweep . . . and remembering, she felt a tear slide down her cheek.

  I can’t fail, or everything is lost.

  “Get the other three together, Lazarus. It’s time to go.”

  Later, thinking on that ride, Aisa would only remember that it should have been raining. Rain would have been fitting, but instead the sky was a deep, clear blue, blushed with pinkish-orange clouds in the coming dawn, the light just bright enough to reveal the ocean of people on either side of the Great Boulevard. New London was bursting at the seams, and although it wasn’t yet six in the morning, the entire city seemed to have crowded into the streets.

  Despite the three guards with her, Aisa felt very small and alone, and she was frightened, not of death but of failure. Last month the Mace had given her a horse, a pretty young stallion that Aisa had named Sam, and Fell had been teaching her to ride. But riding a horse was much more difficult than working with a knife or sword, and Aisa did not deceive herself that she was proficient. At any moment, she felt, Sam might throw her, and she would rather die than have that happen now, in front of all of these people, in front of the Mace, who had chosen her to come along on this dangerous errand. Aisa’s weapons were currently stowed in her belt, but if anyone so much as made a move in the direction of the Queen, she could be off the horse with her knife ready in two seconds flat.

  The Queen rode tall and straight between the four of them, the dim light of dawn gleaming dully off her silver tiara. She looked very regal to Aisa, very much as a Queen should when going out to negotiate with her enemy. But the Queen’s hands were clenched on the reins, her knuckles fiercely white, and Aisa understood that all was not as it seemed. Before they left the Keep, the Mace had drawn the three of them aside, speaking in a low voice.