The Invasion of the Tearling

“Lady, what is it? Are you ill? Injured?”


“No. Not me.” For Kelsea suddenly knew: somewhere, centuries away, Lily was paying the price for her silence. Lily needed her now, but Kelsea shied away, cowering inside her own mind. She wasn’t sure she could face Lily’s punishment. She didn’t know how she would come out of this thing on the other side. Would she have to feel Lily die? Would she die herself?

“Lazarus.” She looked up at Mace, seeing both sides balanced in equal measure: the angry boy who had emerged from the unimaginable hell beneath the Gut, and the man who had given his life in service to two queens. “If something happens to me—”

“Like what?”

“If something happens,” she overrode him, “you will do several things. For me.”

She paused, gasping. Bright, searing pain scorched her palm and Kelsea screamed, clenching her hand into a fist and pounding it against her leg. Mace moved toward her and she held up her other hand to halt him, gritting her teeth, fighting through it, blind with tears.

“What’s doing this to you, Lady? Your sapphires?”

“It doesn’t matter. If something happens to me, Lazarus, I trust you to look after these people and keep them safe. They fear you. Hell, they fear you more than they fear me.”

“Not anymore, Lady.”

Kelsea ignored his comment. The pain in her palm had lost its sharp edge now, but it still throbbed hotly in time with her pulse. Kelsea closed her eyes and saw a small metal rectangle gleaming in the bright white light, recognizable only through Lily’s memories: a cigarette lighter. Someone had held Lily’s hand to the flame.

Not someone, Kelsea thought. The accountant. A man of whom Arlen Thorne would have thoroughly approved. And Kelsea wondered suddenly whether humanity ever actually changed. Did people grow and learn at all as the centuries passed? Or was humanity merely like the tide, enlightenment advancing and then retreating as circumstances shifted? The most defining characteristic of the species might be lapse.

“What else, Lady?”

She straightened and unclenched her fist, ignoring the mouth of seared flesh that seemed to open up in her palm. “If he’s still alive, you will find Father Tyler and keep him safe from the Arvath.”

“Done.”

“Last, you will do me a favor.”

“What’s that, Lady?”

“Clean out and seal off the Creche.”

Mace’s eyes narrowed. “Why, Lady?”

“This is my kingdom, Lazarus. I will have no dark subbasements here.” Through Lily’s eyes, Kelsea saw the warren of fluorescent hallways inside the Security compound, the endless doors, each of them hiding agony. Her palm throbbed. “No secret places where awful things go on, things that no one wants to acknowledge in the light of day. It’s too high a price, even for freedom. Clean it out.”

Mace’s face twisted. For once, Kelsea read his thoughts easily: what she was asking would be terrible for him, and he didn’t think she knew. She put a hand on his wrist, clutching the leather band that held several small knives. “What’s your name?”

“Lazarus.”

“No. Not the name they gave you in the ring. Your real name.”

He stared at her, stricken. “Who—”

“What’s your name?”

Mace blinked, and Kelsea thought she saw a bright sparkle in his eyes, but a moment later it was gone. “My first name is Christian. I don’t know my surname. I was born in the Gut, to no parents at all.”

“Fairy-born. So the rumors are true.”

“I will not discuss that phase of my life, Lady, not even with you.”

“Fair enough. But you will clean the place out.” The room wavered before Kelsea’s eyes, torchlight becoming electric for a moment before fading back. She wanted to see … she didn’t want to see … she heard Lily screaming. Kelsea clenched her fists, willing the past away.

“You talk like one condemned, Lady. What do you mean to do?”

“We’re all condemned, Lazarus.” Kelsea’s head jolted as a blow landed across her face. Lily was beginning to lose hope; Kelsea could feel despondency creeping in, a deadened numbness that echoed all through her mind. “You might need to take me back up, Lazarus. I don’t have long.”

“We can go back through the tunnels.” Mace played with the wall for a moment, opening one of his many doors. “Where do you go in your fugues, Lady?”

“Backward. Before the Crossing.”

“Backward in time?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see him? William Tear?”