The Invasion of the Tearling

“Sometimes.” On her way through the door, Kelsea reached up to touch her mother’s canvas, the painted hem of her green dress, feeling rogue regret surface in her mind. No matter how hard she tried to hate the smiling woman in the portrait, she would have liked the chance to speak to her, at least once. “You knew my mother well, Lazarus. What would she have thought of me?”


“She would have found you too serious, Lady. Elyssa wasn’t one to feel anguish on behalf of others, let alone of circumstances that couldn’t be changed. She surrounded herself with similar people.”

“Was my father a good man?”

A pained expression darted across Mace’s face, then was gone, so quickly that Kelsea might have imagined it. But she knew she had not. “Yes, Lady. A very good man.” He gestured into the darkness. “Come, or I’ll end up carrying you. You’ve got that look about you.”

“What look?”

“Like a drunk about to pass out.”

With a last glance at her mother’s portrait, Kelsea followed him into the tunnel. Through the walls, she could hear the murmur of many voices, even in the middle of the night, people too worried to sleep. They were all in equal danger now; lowborn or highborn, the army outside the wall would not make distinctions. Kelsea tried to picture the coming dawn, but could get no further than the end of the New London Bridge. Something was blocking her vision. Burning fire spread through Kelsea’s arms, a tingling pain that moved on to her chest before attacking her legs. The pain intensified, and Kelsea halted in the darkness, unable to move. She had never felt anything like this; each nerve in her body seemed to have opened up wide, become an infinite conductor.

“Lady?”

“Make it stop,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears leak beneath the lids. Mace fumbled for her in the dark and Kelsea grabbed his hand, clung like a drowning man. “I don’t want to see.”

She couldn’t hold herself up; it felt as though her nervous system had collapsed. All muscle control had gone from her legs. Mace grabbed her, lowering her softly to the ground, but the pain didn’t stop. Every cell seemed to be on fire, and Kelsea screamed in the darkness, writhing on the rough stone.

“Take them off, Lady!”

Kelsea felt him tugging at the chains around her neck, and she slapped his hand away. But she didn’t have the strength to fight him off. None of her muscles were working correctly, and the pain controlled everything. She tried to roll away, but could only wriggle helplessly on the floor.

“Quit, dammit!” Mace dug a hand beneath her neck and lifted her head from the floor. Strands of hair ripped from her scalp.

A warning, the dark part of her mind whispered. That’s all he needs.

She concentrated on the hand that held the sapphires, first pressing, then digging. Mace grunted in pain, but did not let go, so Kelsea clawed at him now, opening up scratches.

“I know how valuable your hands are, Lazarus. Don’t make me take them from you.”

Mace hesitated, and she pressed even harder, digging inward toward the muscle until he swore and scrambled away.

Kelsea pulled herself into a sitting position, then rested her head on her knees. The pain had begun again, in her legs this time, and she realized now that she had no choice. Lily’s time was an open doorway, and there was no going halfway through.

“Lazarus,” she croaked into the dark.

“Lady?”

“I’m going back. I can’t stop it.” She stretched out on the floor, feeling the blessed coolness of stone against her face. “Don’t try to take them off while I’m gone, either. I’m not responsible for what might happen.”

“Keep telling yourself so, Lady.”

She wanted to snap at him, but now Lily was upon her, Lily’s mind slipping inside her own the way a hand would slip inside a perfectly fitted glove. The pain had faded again; Lily had taken refuge in her own imagination, her vision of the better world, fields and a river seen from atop a hill. Kelsea recognized the view: the Almont, as it looked from the hills of New London, and the Caddell stretching into the distance. But there was no city yet in Lily’s dreams, only the wide-open land running toward the horizon … a clean slate. Kelsea would have given anything for that land, that opportunity, but it was too late.

“Had enough yet?”

Kelsea barked laughter, a helpless doglike sound. She looked up and saw the grinning, sharklike face of the accountant, and the laughter died in her throat.

I SAID, HAVE you had enough?”

Lily blinked as sweat ran into her eyes, stinging and blinding. She had found that once she answered an innocuous question, it became that much easier to answer a question that mattered. Now she held silent.