The Invasion of the Tearling

Except for a few moments of rogue longing, Kelsea had more or less resigned herself to the fact that she would spend her life with a round, friendly farm girl’s face, good-natured but unremarkable. She had often wished that she were beautiful, but it simply wasn’t in the cards, and she had come to terms with her appearance as best she could.

Now she felt a deep ripple of fear as she studied her face in the mirror, remembering something Carlin had once said: “Corruption begins with a single moment of weakness.” Kelsea couldn’t remember what they had been talking about, but she seemed to remember Carlin looking at Barty, judgment in her gaze. Now, staring at herself in the mirror, Kelsea knew that Carlin was right. Corruption didn’t happen all at once; it was a gradual, insidious process. Kelsea neither felt nor saw anything occurring, but change had crept up on her back.

Her nose was transforming, that was the first thing. It had always sat in the middle of her face like a squashed mushroom, too big for its surroundings. But now, to Kelsea’s searching eyes, her nose had lengthened, become tapered, so that it emerged quite naturally and gracefully from the ridge between her eyes. The rounded, slightly piggish upturn had softened at the tip. Her eyes were still a bright cat’s green, the shape of almonds. But the pockets of flesh around them had been steadily eroding, and now the eyes themselves seemed larger, dominating Kelsea’s face in a way they never had before. Perhaps the most noticeable change was Kelsea’s mouth, which had always been full-lipped and flat, too wide for her face. Now it too had shrunk, the top lip thinning slightly so that the bottom looked fuller, a deep healthy pink. Her cheeks had dropped weight as well, so that her face was oval rather than round. Everything seemed to fit better than it had before.

She wasn’t beautiful, Kelsea thought, not by any stretch. But she was no longer plain either. She looked like a woman someone might actually remember.

At what cost?

Kelsea shrank from the question. She was no longer afraid that she might be sick, for she had plenty of energy, and the image before her was the very picture of health. But beneath the initial pleasure she felt, looking at this new woman, there was a sense of great falsity. Here was beauty blooming from nowhere, beauty that reflected no change inside.

“I’m still me,” Kelsea whispered. That was the important thing, wasn’t it? She was still fundamentally herself. And yet … several times lately, she had caught Mace giving her hard looks, as though trying to analyze her face. The rest of the Guard, well, who knew what they talked about once they retreated to their quarters at night? If things continued in this vein, they might well think her a sorceress, just like the Red Queen. They were still worried about the trance she’d had, that night in the library; whenever Kelsea stumbled these days, there seemed to be several guards at her arm to hold her up. She closed her eyes and saw, again, the pretty pre-Crossing woman with the sad eyes, the deep lines around her mouth. The bruises.

Who are you, Lily?

No one knew. Lily had vanished into the past with the rest of humanity. But Kelsea couldn’t be satisfied with that. Her sapphires operated outside of her control, their actions inconsistent and maddening. But they had never shown her anything she didn’t need to see.

What makes you think it’s the sapphires? They’ve been dead for weeks.

Kelsea blinked at that. True, the sapphires had done almost nothing since the Argive. But Kelsea was not like Andalie; she had no magic of her own. All of her power, everything extraordinary that she had ever done, was bedrocked on these two pieces of blue stone, both of which could fit comfortably in her pocket. Kelsea risked another look in the mirror, and almost flinched at the calmly attractive woman she saw there.

How can the jewels be dead? They’re transforming your face!

“God,” Kelsea whispered, shuddering. She whirled away from the mirror, almost as if preparing to flee, and stopped short.

A man stood in front of the fireplace, a tall black silhouette against the flames.

Kelsea opened her mouth to shout for Pen, then held back, drawing a long, shaky breath. The Fetch, of course; it was well known that no doors kept him out. She tiptoed a few steps closer, and then, as the firelight crossed his profile, she started. The man before her was not the Fetch, but all the same, she found herself physically unable to scream, or to make any sound at all.

He was beautiful. There was no other word. He reminded her of the drawings of Eros in Carlin’s books of mythology. He was tall and thin, not dissimilar to the Fetch in build, but that was where the similarity ended. This man had a sensualist’s face, slightly hollowed cheekbones tapering to a full-lipped mouth. His eyes were deep-set but somehow wide, their color indeterminate; by a trick of the firelight, the eyes seemed to gleam a deep red for a moment, before fading.

Tear heir.