The Red Queen didn’t answer.
They continued to travel southwest. The weather grew colder and soon the land began to dry. Streams and rivers vanished, and even watering holes and wells became scarce. In a small village in the lower flats, they stopped and Kelsea traded gold for water, bargaining in Mort while the Red Queen stood silent beside her. Often, Kelsea thought of how she could simply vanish, leave the Red Queen behind and make straight for New London. She was the better rider; in fact, she thought the Red Queen might even be secretly frightened of horses. How long had it been since the woman had left Demesne, or traveled anywhere without a driver? Out of the Palais, the Red Queen had begun to seem less substantial, not the witch-sorceress of Mortmesne but only an ordinary woman, lonely and lost. What were initially small things—scattered focus, tremors in her speech—became more pronounced the farther they traveled from Demesne. The Red Queen looked behind them constantly, and Kelsea could not tell whether she truly saw something, or whether the natural terminus of her paranoia had finally been reached.
“What is it?” she finally asked, when the Red Queen pulled her horse to a halt for a third time that afternoon.
“We’re being followed,” the Red Queen replied, and Kelsea was unnerved by the certainty in her tone. The Red Queen had begun to rub her wrist again.
“Let me take a look at that,” Kelsea offered.
“Get away!” the Red Queen hissed, slapping her hand away, and Kelsea withdrew with a gasp. For a moment she could have sworn the Red Queen’s eyes had gleamed a bright, burning red.
“Do I need to restrain you?” Kelsea asked flatly.
“No. I will beat it. I control my own body, even if I control nothing else.”
Kelsea had her doubts, but she could think of no way to act on them. Even if she succeeded in subduing the Red Queen, where could she go with a bound woman? She felt, again, the urge to simply cut loose, flee north toward her own city, her Keep, her life. But again, something held her back.
What ties me to her? Kelsea wondered. What binds us together? She had gone through the woman’s mind as one might search a dwelling, carelessly, with no regard for decency or privacy, and only now did Kelsea realize that there might have been cost attached to that invasion, a price she had never considered.
“Don’t worry about me,” the Red Queen said roughly. “Let’s go on.”
On the third day of their journey, they climbed the gentle slopes of the lower Border Hills, and Kelsea was finally able to look out over her kingdom, the vast plain of the Almont stretching before her as far as her eye could see. Instead of the pleasure she had expected, she felt almost sick. She had sacrificed much for this broad stretch of land, her imperfect country, but something told her she wasn’t done yet. When she looked down, she found herself clutching William Tear’s sapphire in a hand that was damp with sweat.
That afternoon they reached the beginning of the Dry Lands, more than a hundred miles of desert that stretched across the Cadarese border. They would need to stop and purchase cold-weather gear, furs, and tents; Carlin had once told Kelsea that the Dry Lands became nearly as cold as the Fairwitch in winter. In the distance, Kelsea could see several dark spots, scattered villages, but all around them stretched a vast landscape, parched and colorless and unforgiving. Kelsea sensed no end to it, even beyond the horizon.
Far to the west, she saw a stain in the sky, punctuated by lightning. The storms in the Dry Lands were legendary, fearsome and inexplicable ecological phenomena in which the water seemed to come from nowhere. Torrents of rain poured down, but the water did not alter the character of the landscape one whit; everything remained as parched as before. Technically, the Dry Lands were part of the Tearling, but to Kelsea, the desert seemed to be its own kingdom, lonely and cold.
“What do you mean to do?” she asked the Red Queen. “We’ll die trying to cross that.”
The Red Queen turned, a mad sort of desperation in her eyes. She was clutching her wrist again.
“He knows where I am,” she said quietly. “I can feel it. He’ll send more. I need to get away.”
“Well, you can’t hide in the desert.”
“What’s your point?”
“Why not come back to New London with me?” Kelsea asked. “I’ll—”
She halted, unable to credit the words that had almost escaped her mouth. I’ll protect you . . . but she couldn’t do that. The Tear would treat the Red Queen as a war criminal, and they would be right to do so.
“One of those outposts is bound to have an inn,” she finished lamely. “We have enough coin for a proper bed and bath, at least.”
The Red Queen swallowed and nodded, putting on a good front of her old self-control. But to Kelsea’s eye, it was only a shadow of the real thing.