The Invasion of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen

  He reared back, his eyes filling with hurt. “You think I’m infertile, don’t you?”

  “No, of course not—”

  He grabbed her shoulders, clenched fingers digging into the soft skin just above her collarbone. Lily could almost feel the bruises starting. “I’m not.”

  “I know,” Lily whispered, looking away. Already she could sense herself shrinking inward, her personality diving behind any cover it could find. What point was there in pressing onward, when it only made Greg worse?

  He shook her, and Lily felt her teeth rattle. “What?”

  “I know you’re not infertile. You’re right. It’s important.”

  He watched her narrowly for a moment longer, then smiled, good humor easing back into his face. “Absolutely, Lil. And I’ve had an idea about what we can do.”

  “What’s that?”

  He shook his head, smiling, the barely hidden grin of a boy who knows he’s been naughty. “I have to look into it first, make sure it’s viable.”

  Lily had no idea what he was considering, but she didn’t like that grin. It reminded her of a time in college when Greg’s frat had been under investigation for assaulting a pledge. Despite Princeton’s best efforts, the news had trickled all over the nearby campuses. When Lily asked Greg about it, he claimed that he’d had nothing to do with it, but the same little gleam had been in his eyes then. The younger Lily just hadn’t been smart enough to read the forecast.

  “Dr. Davis says the odds are still very good—”

  “Dr. Davis is taking too long.”

  Lily stood still, almost frozen, as he wrapped his arms around her again. “Think how wonderful it would be if we had a baby, Lil. You’d be such a good mother.”

  Lily nodded, though her throat felt as if there was a tennis ball in there. She thought of being pregnant, having Greg’s baby inside her, and a ripple of revulsion traveled just beneath her skin, making her shiver, making Greg clutch her tighter.

  “Lil? Say you love me.”

  “I love you,” Lily replied, and he kissed her neck, his hand moving to her breast. Lily had to force herself to hold still and not recoil. She didn’t understand how words that sounded so automatic to her own ears could be so pleasing to Greg. Maybe all he really needed was the structure of things. Maybe quality was a different consideration, too graded for him.

  I liked this man once, Lily thought. And she had, when they were both young and in college and Lily didn’t know her ass from her elbow, when Greg would buy her nice things and Lily would mistake that for love. Greg said he loved her, but Greg’s definition of that word had morphed into something dark and invasive. Lily’s friend Sarah said love was different in every marriage, but Sarah had been sporting her own black eye that day, and she didn’t believe her own platitudes any more than Lily did.

  He doesn’t know, her mind whispered. He still doesn’t know about the pills.

  But that was no longer a comfort. Lily had known that she couldn’t get away with the pills forever, but for a long time they had seemed to provide an almost magical protection, the same talismanic quality that she found in her nursery. Even the bad nights had been easier to get through, knowing that some part of her was ultimately safe, that Greg would not have his way everywhere. But she knew that grin, knew it very well. Greg had gotten away with nearly everything in his life, usually with his father’s enthusiastic approval, and now he was once again up to no good. Whatever he was planning, it seemed certain that the status quo wouldn’t hold. Greg was groping around under her dress now, and Lily fought not to move, not to push him away. She thought of saying no—she had been thinking of it for months now—but that no would open up an entire conversation that she wasn’t ready to have yet . . . what would she say, when he asked why? She closed her eyes and pictured her nursery, that quiet space where there was no intrusion, no violation, no—

  Kelsea blinked and found herself in the blessedly familiar space of her library. She was standing in front of her bookshelves with Pen beside her, less than a foot away. For a moment the world wavered, but then she saw all of the books, Carlin’s books, and felt reality solidify around her, the Queen’s Wing settling back in with a solid thud in her mind.

  “Lady? Are you all right?”

  She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. A hissing sound came from the fireplace in the corner, making her jump, but it was only the fire, dying out in the early hours of the morning.

  “I was dreaming,” Kelsea whispered. “I was someone else.”

  But dreaming was the wrong word. Kelsea could still feel the man’s hands digging into her shoulders, laying the groundwork for bruises. She could remember each thought that had passed through the woman’s head.

  “How did we get here?” she asked Pen.

  “You’ve been wandering the wing for the better part of three hours, Lady.”

  Three hours! Kelsea swayed slightly, her hand tightening on the edge of the bookshelf. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “Your eyes were open, Lady, but you couldn’t see or hear us. Andalie said not to touch you, said it’s bad luck to lay hands on a sleepwalker. But I’ve been with you, to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself.”

  Kelsea began to protest that she hadn’t been sleepwalking, but then closed her mouth. Something nagged at her memory, something that would shed light. The woman in the Almont! Kelsea had never even learned her name, but six weeks ago she had watched, through the woman’s eyes, as Thorne took her two children. That had not been a dream either; it had been too clear, too sharp. But what Kelsea had just experienced was even sharper. She knew this woman, knew the terrain inside her head as well as that inside her own. Her name was Lily Mayhew, she lived in pre-Crossing America, she was married to a wretch. Lily was no figment of Kelsea’s imagination. Even now, Kelsea was able to picture a whole host of sights she had never seen, wonders lost centuries before in the Crossing: cars, skyscrapers, guns, computers, freeways. And she could now see chronology, the timing of political developments that had always eluded pre-Crossing historians like Carlin, who had no written record to work with. Carlin had known that one of the biggest factors precipitating the Crossing was socioeconomic disparity, but thanks to Lily, Kelsea now saw that the problem had been much uglier. America had descended into true plutocracy. The gap between rich and poor had indeed been steadily widening since the late twentieth century, and by the time Lily was born—2058, Kelsea’s mind produced the year with no trouble at all—more than half of America was unemployed. Corporations had begun to hoard the dwindling supplies of food for sale on the black market. With most of the population either homeless or in unrecoverable debt, desperation and apathy had combined to allow the election of a man named Arthur Frewell . . . and that was a name that Kelsea had heard before, many times, from Carlin, who spoke of President Frewell and his Emergency Powers Act in the same tones she used for Hiroshima or the Holocaust.

  “Lady, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Pen. Let me think.” Memory had suddenly assaulted Kelsea: sitting in the library, five or six years ago, while Carlin’s voice echoed waspishly against the walls.

  “The Emergency Powers Act! A lesson in creative naming! Honest legislation would have simply called itself martial law and been done with it. Remember this, too, Kelsea: the day you declare martial law is the day you’ve lost the game of government. You may as well simply take off your crown and sneak away into the night.”

  According to Carlin, the Emergency Powers Act had been created to deal with a growing—and very real—threat of domestic terrorism. As the economic divide widened, separatist movements proliferated across America. The better world . . . Kelsea had seen that in her vision, blue letters more than thirty feet tall. But what did it mean? She wanted so badly to know. To see. She looked down at her two necklaces, expecting to see the stones shining brightly, as they had when she awoke from that terrible vision in the Almont. But they were dark. The last time she remembered seeing them ill
uminated had been that night in the Argive Pass when she had brought the flood. For the first time, Kelsea wondered if it was possible that the jewels had somehow burned out. They had worked a great and extraordinary miracle in the Argive, but it seemed to have drained everything from them. Perhaps they were no more than ordinary jewels now. The idea brought relief, followed quickly by fear. The Mort were massing on the border, and any weapon would help, even one as inconsistent and unpredictable as her two jewels. They could not burn out.

  “You should go to bed, Lady,” Pen told her.

  Kelsea nodded slowly, still turning the extraordinary vision over in her mind. Out of habit, she ran a hand over the row of books, taking comfort in their solidity. Sleepwalking or not, she was not surprised that this was where she’d ended up. Whenever she had a problem to consider, she invariably found herself in the library, for it was easier to think when she was surrounded by books. The clean, alphabetized rows provided something to stare at and consider while her mind wandered away. Carlin, too, had used her library as both solace and refuge, and Kelsea thought Carlin would be pleased that she found the same comfort here. Pinpricks of tears stung her eyes, but she turned away from the bookshelf and led Pen out of the library.

  Andalie was waiting for Kelsea in her chamber, though the clock showed that it was well after three in the morning. Her youngest daughter, Glee, was asleep in her arms.

  “Andalie, it’s late. You should have gone to bed.”

  “I was awake anyway, Lady. My Glee has been sleepwalking again.”

  “Ah.” Kelsea slipped off her shoes. “A cunning sleepwalker, I hear. Mace says he found her wandering in the Guard quarters last week.”

  “The Mace says many things, Lady.”

  Kelsea raised her eyebrows. The tone had been judgmental, but she could not interpret the remark. “Well, I don’t need help tonight. You should go to bed.”

  Andalie nodded and left, carrying her small daughter with her. Once she was gone, Pen bowed and said, “Good night, Lady.”

  “You don’t have to bow to me, Pen.”

  Humor sparked in Pen’s eyes, but he said nothing, only bowed again before retreating into his anteroom and drawing the curtain.

  Kelsea took off her dress and tossed it into the clothes hamper. She was glad that Andalie had gone so easily. Sometimes Andalie seemed to feel that it was her duty to help Kelsea get undressed. But Kelsea didn’t think she would ever be comfortable being naked in front of others. Andalie had hung a full-length mirror on the wall beside Kelsea’s dresser, but if she was trying to quietly cure Kelsea of her physical shyness, she had picked the wrong tack. Even this simple device created myriad challenges: Kelsea wanted to look in the mirror, but she didn’t want to, and she always ended up looking, and then hated herself. Her reflection did not please her, especially since moving into the Queen’s Wing, where it seemed she was surrounded by beautiful women. But even stronger was distaste for her mother, Queen Elyssa, who had reportedly spent half of her life preening in front of the glass. So Kelsea had made a compromise: whenever she passed the mirror, she would glance at herself quickly, just long enough to determine that her hair was all right and that she hadn’t wiped ink on her face during the day. Anything more than a peek would be vanity.

  Now, catching sight of herself in the mirror, Kelsea froze.

  She had dropped weight.

  This seemed impossible, for Kelsea was even less active now than when she had first come to the Keep. There was too much to do every day, and most of it involved sitting, either on her throne or at her desk in the library. She hadn’t exercised in weeks, and all of her plans to eat less, which seemed so attainable in the morning, were inevitably wrecked by nightfall. But she could not deny what she was seeing now. Her thick legs had slimmed down, and her hipbones were more pronounced. Her stomach, which had always been a special source of embarrassment due to the dimpling that showed just above her abdomen, had retreated to only a slight, rounded protrusion. Kelsea tiptoed closer to the mirror, peering at her arms. They, too, seemed thinner. The thick meat had disappeared from her biceps, and now they tapered neatly down to her forearms. But when had all of this happened? Less than a week ago, certainly, for she had peeked into the mirror before her last meeting with Hall and seen none of these changes. Staring at her face, Kelsea got a nasty shock, for it seemed that something was different there, too . . . but a moment later she realized that it had been only a trick of the firelight.

  What’s wrong with me?

  Should she ask Mace to get the doctor? She shrank from the idea. Mace didn’t think anyone needed a doctor unless he was bleeding to death, and the Mort doctor favored by Coryn was wildly expensive. Was Kelsea really going to demand him now, simply because she had lost some weight? She wasn’t wounded or bleeding. She felt fine. She could afford to watch and wait, and if anything else happened, then she would tell Mace or Pen. She had been under a great deal of stress lately, after all.

  The fire snapped behind her, and Kelsea whirled around. For a moment she was certain that someone was standing in front of the fireplace, watching her. But there was nothing, only shadows. Despite the fire’s warmth, her chamber suddenly seemed cold; after a final, uneasy look in the mirror, Kelsea put on her nightgown and climbed into bed. She blew out her candle, then dug her feet deep into the warm pile of blankets, pulling the covers all the way up to cover her cold nose. She tried to relax, but behind her closed eyes, unbidden, came the same image that had tormented her for weeks now: the Mort army, a poisonous black tide that poured down over the Border Hills into the Almont, leaving devastation behind. The Mort had not entered the Tear, not yet, but they would. Mace and Arliss had been stocking for siege and building reinforcements around the city, but unlike Bermond, Kelsea didn’t deceive herself; when the Mort really came for the city and put all of their efforts into breaching the walls, no amount of last-minute fortification would keep them out. Her mind turned again to Lily Mayhew, who lived in a town surrounded by walls. There must be some lesson in Lily’s life, something helpful . . . but nothing came.

  Kelsea rolled onto her back, staring into the darkness. Her mother had faced the same no-win scenario, and ended up selling out the Tearling. Kelsea hated her for it, yes, but what could she do differently? She clutched her sapphires, willing them to give her answers, but they were silent, imparting only a feeling of doomed certainty: Kelsea had judged her mother harshly, and this was the inevitable punishment, to be dealt the same hand.

  I have no solutions, Kelsea thought, curling up into a ball. And if I can think of nothing, then I’m no better than she was.

  The miners were a rough lot. They had obviously bathed before coming to the Keep, but nevertheless dirt seemed to have grimed its way into their skins, giving them a swarthy appearance. They were independent miners, and this in itself was something of a rarity; most of the miners in the Tearling belonged to guilds, for combination was the only way they could compete against the Mort. One of the miners was a woman, tall and blonde, though she was as grimy as the rest, and wore a beaten green hat that looked as though it had been through a hurricane. Kelsea, who hadn’t known that mining crews accepted women, watched her with interest, but the woman returned her gaze with hostility.

  “Majesty, we’re just out of the Fairwitch,” announced Bennett, the foreman. “We’ve been mining in the foothills for nearly a month.”

  Kelsea nodded, wishing that she hadn’t worn such a thick wool dress. Summer had come, warm and somnolent, but someone had lit a fire anyway. She hated holding audience these days, for it seemed designed to take her attention away from more pressing problems: the Mort and the refugees. The first wave of border villagers would already be making their way across the Almont, but they were only a fraction of what was coming. Five hundred thousand extra people, at least . . . where would New London put them all?

  “We were originally a crew of fifteen, Majesty,” Bennett continued, and Kelsea tried to keep her attention on him, stifling a yaw
n.

  “Where are the rest?”

  “Gone, Lady, in the night. We kept a pretty close camp, even at first, but . . . well, you know, a man has to take a piss sometimes. Men would leave the camp in the night, and sometimes they just didn’t come back.”

  “And why have you come to tell me this?”

  Bennett began to reply, but the female miner, who had the air of a second-in-command, grabbed his arm, muttering frantically into his ear. The exchange quickly became a protracted argument, punctuated by grunts and hissing. Kelsea was content to watch. Father Tyler stood closer to the miners than the rest of them; he could probably hear what was being said. She had begun to allow the priest to attend her audiences on occasion, and he had already provided several valuable insights. He enjoyed the audiences, said it was like watching history in action. He also knew how to keep his mouth shut, so much so that he had reportedly incurred the wrath of the new Holy Father, who didn’t feel that Father Tyler was providing him with enough information. Kelsea didn’t understand what held Father Tyler’s tongue, but attendance here seemed like a fair reward.

  “Majesty.” Bennett finally broke free, though his companion glared at him as he spoke. “We found something in the Fairwitch.”

  “Yes?”

  Bennett nudged the woman, who gave him a disgusted look but pulled a small black pouch from the pocket of her cloak. Kelsea’s guard tightened automatically, doubling up in a line in front of Pen. Something winked blue as Bennett held it up in the torchlight.

  “What is that?”

  “Sapphire, Majesty, unless I miss my guess. We found a good-size vein.”

  Now Kelsea understood the argument. “I assure you, your find is your own. We may try to buy it from you at a fair price, but on my word, there will be no seizure.”

  The words had the desired effect; all of the miners seemed to relax at once. Even Bennett’s second-in-command calmed down, her brow smoothing as she doffed her green hat.