The Invasion of the Tearling

“Can you do the math? Can you, Arlen? Can you, you flesh-peddling bastard?”


Ewen struggled to sit up, though his head pounded so hard that he groaned and blinked tears from his eyes. When he opened his mouth, nothing came out. He cleared his throat and found new agony, roaring pain that barreled down to his chest and back again. But he was able to produce a weak croak. “The Queen.”

Javel paid no attention. He hit the scarecrow again, this time in the throat, and the scarecrow began to cough and gag.

Now Ewen spotted his keys, still stuck in the lock of Cell Three, dangerously close to the reach of Bannaker. He crawled over and retrieved them, then approached Javel cautiously from behind.

“Stop,” Ewen whispered. He couldn’t seem to raise his voice. His throat felt as though someone had set it on fire. “Stop. The Queen.”

Javel didn’t stop, and Ewen realized then that Javel meant to hit the scarecrow until he was dead. Ewen took a deep, painful breath and grabbed Javel beneath the arms, hauling him backward off the unconscious man. Javel snarled and turned on Ewen, attacking him with his fists, but Ewen accepted this with patience; the Queen would not wish Javel to be hurt either. Ewen certainly didn’t want to hurt him; Javel had been a good and well-behaved prisoner, and even when Ewen had thrown him the keys, he had not fled. Ewen kept his arms around Javel in a bear hug, dragging him toward the wall, not letting go even when Javel hit Ewen in his right eye, snapping his head backward and sending sparks across his vision. He threw Javel up against the wall, hard enough for the man’s head to rap against the stones. Javel groaned softly and rubbed his scalp, and Ewen took the moment of sudden silence to croak, “The Queen wants this man alive, do you hear? She wants him alive.”

Javel looked at him with bleary eyes. “The Queen?”

“The Queen wants him alive. She told me so.”

Javel smiled dreamily, and Ewen’s stomach tightened with worry. Even after Da’s many lectures about minding his size, Ewen had injured one of his brothers while wrestling, rolling Peter into a fence post and breaking his shoulder. He might have thrown Javel against the wall too hard. Javel’s voice, too, was odd, hazy, seeming to float somewhere over their heads. “Queen Kelsea. I saw her, you know, on the Keep Lawn. But she was older. She looked like the True Queen. I don’t think anyone else saw.”

“What’s the True Queen?” Ewen asked, unable to help himself. Whenever Da told fairy stories, it was always the queens that Ewen liked best.

“The True Queen. The one who saves us all.”

A shrill cackle echoed behind them, and Ewen whirled, certain that the scarecrow had only been shamming, that he had somehow recovered his knife. But it was only the woman, Brenna, clutching the bars of her cage, grinning happily.

“The True Queen,” she mimicked in a ghastly, cracked voice. “Fools. She goes to her death before the first snowfall. I’ve seen it.”

Ewen blinked and then cast a quick glance toward the ground. The scarecrow lay motionless, but Ewen was sure he had seen the man move. He turned back to Javel, who was still rubbing his head. “Will you help me tie him up? I have rope.”

“I can’t kill him, can I?” Javel asked sadly. “Not even now.”

“No,” Ewen replied in a firm voice, certain of this one thing. “The Queen wants him alive.”

AISA TRUDGED SLOWLY down the hallway, a lit candle in one hand and the red leather-bound book in the other. Two weeks ago she had turned twelve, and Maman had given her permission to get up and read when she was wakeful. Maman didn’t have insomnia, but she seemed to understand Aisa’s misery at being stuck there, alone in the dark. She must have passed the request along to the Queen or the Mace as well, because now the guards ignored Aisa when they saw her wandering through the Keep in her nightgown, clutching her book.