My own voice, Kelsea realized in wonder. Not Carlin’s, not Barty’s, but mine.
“My foster parents made me what I am and gave their lives in my service!” she shouted hoarsely. “Therefore I change my name! From this day forward, I am Kelsea Raleigh Glynn! My throne will be Glynn, my children will be Glynn, and I will not be a Raleigh queen, but a Glynn queen!”
This time, the roar nearly knocked her backward, trembling the parapet and making the door frame rattle behind her. Kelsea didn’t have anything more to say, could only wave at them, but that seemed to be all right. They continued to cheer for long minutes, as though that was all they wanted, just to see her, to know she was there.
I’m not alone, she realized, her eyes filling with tears. Barty was right after all.
She wiped the moisture away and muttered to Mace, “They’re easily pleased.”
“No, Lady. They’re not.”
The crowd had erupted in some song now, but from this height Kelsea couldn’t catch most of the words, only her name. She stared out across her country, a truly spectacular view. The horizon cut the land perhaps halfway across the Almont Plain, but still Kelsea felt that the entire Tearling was laid out before her. Despite her poor vision, she could see every inch of her land, every detail, north to the Fairwitch and east to the Mort border, even to the rocky crags of the Border Hills where Hall and his battalion were preparing for invasion, constructing defenses on the hillsides. She blinked and saw Mortmesne, just as she’d seen it before, miles of forest broken by well-kept roads. The roads were crammed with long, black lines of soldiers, with wagons and siege towers, with cannons that gleamed in the sun, all of them marching inexorably toward the Tearling.
But now Kelsea’s vision blurred and she was no longer looking even at Mortmesne. She could see much farther, across mountains and borders, to seas that existed on no map of the New World, to the skyline of a city that was crumbling into dust. Geography had altered and the land was in upheaval. Kelsea glimpsed wonders, so briefly that she didn’t have the time to understand them, or even to mourn their passing. She could see everything, the future and the past, her vision stretching into a place where time and land merged into one.
Then it was all abruptly gone. Kelsea blinked again, her eyes filled with tears, and saw only her own kingdom, farming plains running out before her to meet the sky. Her heart ached, the same vague sensation of loss she felt upon waking from a dream she couldn’t remember. She was Kelsea Glynn, a girl who’d grown up in the forest, who loved to study history and read fiction. But she was something else, something more than Kelsea, and so she remained there for a moment longer, watching over her country, straining to see the danger beyond the horizon.
My responsibility, she thought, and the idea brought no fear now, only an extraordinary sense of gratitude.
My kingdom.
Acknowledgments
My first and greatest thanks must go to Dorian Karchmar: not only superagent, but friend and gifted editor, who put in extraordinary effort to get this book ready for the world. Thanks also to Cathryn Summerhayes, Simone Blaser, Laura Bonner, Ashley Fox, Michelle Feehan, and the rest of the incredibly helpful people at William Morris Endeavor. All have been great.
Thank you to Maya Ziv, Jonathan Burnham, and everyone at Harper, for placing a great deal of faith in a first-time author. Seabiscuit particularly thanks Maya for shepherding this book down the stretch. Similar thanks to the crew at TransWorld Publishers, especially Simon Taylor; if there’s a better man to lunch and talk books with, I haven’t found him yet.
Thank you, Dad and Deb, for being supportive and understanding of the long and circuitous life trajectory that brought me to this point. And big thanks to Christian and Katie, who constantly remind me that love really does move the wide world.
Thanks and love to Shane Bradshaw, who keeps my crazy under control, accommodates my knitting addiction, and reminds me that things will be all right.
I’m sure many writers can produce good work without having a mentor, but I’m not one of them. Thank you to all teachers out there, but particularly to Edward Carey, Chris Offutt, and others who share their gifts at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, as well as the incomparable Professor Betsy Bolton of Swarthmore College. Thank you also to Jonas Honick, the world’s greatest history teacher; I’m not sure what my sense of social justice (or Kelsea’s, for that matter) would look like without you.
Last but not least, thank you, readers. I hope you had a good time here.
About the Author
ERIKA JOHANSEN grew up and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She went to Swarthmore College, earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and eventually became an attorney, but she never stopped writing.
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Credits
Cover design by Ervin Serrano
Cover photographs: © Rolf Weschke / Getty Images and © Maga / Shutterstock
Copyright
THE QUEEN OF THE TEARLING. Copyright © 2014 by Erika Johansen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Image by Slava Gerj / Shutterstock, Inc.
Illustration and map by Rodica Prato
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN: 978-0-06-229036-6
EPUB Edition JULY 2014 ISBN 9780062290373
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