The Invasion of the Tearling

Maya stared at him for a moment longer, then scrambled up from the sofa. Tyler was no longer embarrassed by her nakedness; in fact, for a few moments he had forgotten all about it. Maya hurried over to the Holy Father’s prone body, reached beneath him, and pulled a chain over his head. On the chain was a small silver key.

“I need to leave,” Tyler told her. He did not want to abandon her here, she was so terribly troubled, but he could not take her with him, even if she wished to flee. Adrenaline had departed, and was rapidly being replaced by the full realization of what he had done. His leg was even worse than he’d thought; going up the stairs had strained it badly. The journey downward would be terrible.

“My mum was a pro, priest.”

“What?”

“A pro. A prostitute.” Maya crossed the room and crouched down in front of a glossy oak cabinet, her movements sure. Tyler barely recognized the languid addict of a few moments before. “Mum used to talk to us about the thing she would do someday, the one important thing that would wipe out all the years before. You only got one moment, Mum said, and when it came, you had to jump, no matter the cost.”

“I really need to—”

“He tells us about the invasion. Soon the Mort will be at the walls, and there are too many to hold back. It will take a miracle.” The lock clicked, and Maya opened the cabinet, then looked up at him, her face suddenly shrewd. “But they say the Queen is full of miracles.”

When she stood, she held a large wooden box that had been burnished within an inch of its life; the sides gleamed deep cherry in the torchlight. “You have to give it back to her. It’s wrong for him to keep it here.”

“What is it?”

She opened the lid, and Tyler stared at the Tear crown, which sat before him on a deep red cushion. Silver and sapphire glittered, sparkling reflections against the open lid of the box.

“This is my moment, priest,” Maya told him, shoving the box into his hands. “Take it and go.”

Tyler considered her for a moment, thinking again of the farmers he had known in his youth, dying in their huts, desperate to confess, and he wished that he could suspend time, even for an hour, to sit and talk to this woman who had never had anyone to listen. Her dark eyes were entirely clear now, and Tyler saw that they were beautiful, despite the lines that shrouded them like hoods.

“Andy?” A woman’s voice drifted from beyond the darkened archway, sleepy and confused. “Andy? Where’d you get to?”

“Go, priest,” Maya ordered. “I’ll try to hold her, but you have very little time.”

Tyler hesitated a moment longer, then took the box and tucked it alongside the Bible in his satchel. For a moment, grief over his books threatened to overtake him, but he would not give it space, was ashamed to even feel it now. He had lost his library, but the woman before him was risking her life.

“Go,” she told him again, and Tyler limped for the doors, opening one of them just wide enough to let himself through. His last glimpse of Maya was fleeting, a quick flash of her staring at the vial on the table before he shut the door behind him. The two acolytes leaned against the wall on either side, so casually that Tyler wondered if they had been eavesdropping. Overbite eyed him narrowly, then asked, “Does the Holy Father want us?”

“No. I think he means to retire for the rest of the night.” Tyler turned and started down the hall, but he only made a few steps before a hand fell on his shoulder.

“What’s in the bag?” Overbite asked.

“My Bible.”

“And what else?”

“My new robes,” Tyler replied, amazed at how easily the lie came to him. “The Holy Father has granted me a bishopric.”

Both of them drew back, trading anxious glances. In the hierarchy of the Arvath, the Holy Father’s personal aides, even the acolytes, carried more weight than any priest. But a bishop was another matter; even the least powerful of the bishops’ college was no one to argue with. As if by mutual consent, the two acolytes bowed and back away.

“Good night, Your Eminence.”

Tyler turned and limped down the hallway. He guessed he had two minutes, at most, before they realized that his story was absurd. The Holy Father didn’t keep spare sets of bishops’ robes around to hand out like candy. And the other woman might raise the alarm at any time.