The Invasion of the Tearling

The two acolytes took Seth between them and dragged him forward, down the stairs and then up the aisle between the rows of priests. Tyler didn’t want to look, but he had to. Red sheeted down Seth’s thighs and calves, and a crimson trail followed him up the aisle. Mercifully, Seth appeared to have lost consciousness; his eyes were closed and his head lolled against his shoulder. The acolytes staggered under his deadweight.

“Look and remember, brothers!” Anders thundered from the dais. “God’s Church has no room for panderers and sodomites! Your sin will be discovered, and God’s vengeance is swift!”

Tyler felt his dinner, barley soup, climbing up his throat, and swallowed convulsively. Many of the faces around him looked similarly ill, white and frightened, but Tyler spotted plenty of exceptions: smug faces, vindicated faces. Father Ryan, eyes bright with excitement, nodding vigorously at Anders’s words. And Tyler, who had not experienced true fury since the early, starving days of his childhood in the Almont, suddenly felt rage contract within him. In all of this, where was God? Why did He remain silent?

“Backsliders,” Anders intoned solemnly. “Repent your works.”

Tyler looked up and found the Holy Father’s gaze locked on him.

“Ty?” Wyde asked in an undertone, his voice plaintive. “Ty? What do we do?”

“We wait,” Tyler replied firmly, his eyes pinned on the river of scarlet at his feet. “We wait for God to show us the way.”

And yet even this statement sounded hollow to Tyler’s ears. He looked toward the dome of the chapel, toward heaven, waiting for some sign. But none came, and a moment later he saw that the gallery was empty. The Mace had disappeared.

WHEN KELSEA HAD finished with Arliss, she dismissed Andalie and returned to her own chamber alone. She was tired of people today. Everyone seemed to have constant demands, even Arliss, who knew better than anyone how strapped the Crown was for men and money. Arliss wanted to provide armed protection for a small portion of farmers to stay out in the Almont until the eleventh hour. Kelsea could see the argument; with the Almont emptied, the entire autumn crop harvest would be lost. But she had no idea where to get the manpower. Bermond would howl if she asked for even a fraction of his soldiers, and though Kelsea disliked the old general, she knew that he was indeed stretched extremely thin. Perhaps a fourth of the Tear army was deployed in and around the Argive Pass, making sure that the Mort didn’t open it up as a potential supply line. The rest of Bermond’s men were scattered across the eastern Almont, busily moving refugees inward toward New London. Hall’s battalion was entrenched on the border. There were simply no more men to spare.

Kelsea left Pen behind in the antechamber without a word, drawing the curtains closed behind her. Andalie had made her a mug of tea, but Kelsea ignored it. Tea would only keep her awake. She brushed her hair and rearranged her desk, feeling restless and exhausted but not at all sleepy. What she really wanted to do was return to her library, to the continuing puzzle of Lily Mayhew. Who was she? Kelsea had gone through more than ten of Carlin’s history books now, looking for any reference to either Lily or Greg Mayhew, but there was nothing, not even in the books published closest to the Crossing. Whoever the Mayhews were, they seemed to have faded into obscurity, but still the riddle of Lily seemed infinitely solvable compared to the problem on the eastern border. Kelsea was certain that if she could only find the right book, the answer would present itself and Lily would become clear. But no solutions were forthcoming for the problem of the Mort.

She couldn’t go back to the library now. Pen needed his sleep. Kelsea had gone to bed early for the last three nights, but Pen still looked very ragged. She had begun to wonder whether he ever slept, or whether he simply sat there on his pallet, sword across his knees, as the night turned into morning. There was no reason for him to be so vigilant; Mace now had well over thirty Queen’s Guards under his command, and the Keep itself was more secure than ever. But still, the image of Pen sitting there, motionless, staring into the darkness, was strangely persuasive. Kelsea didn’t know how to make him sleep, when she barely slept herself.

After a moment’s thought, she tiptoed toward the mirror. She had deliberately avoided looking for the past week, and although she ascribed this to Carlin’s strictures about vanity, the real reason was much simpler: she was terrified.