“Take me to her now, General, or I swear to you, you will not be able to enjoy your siege. You will no longer be equipped to do so.”
Ducarte swore, then turned and began tromping back up the hill. Kelsea followed, surrounded by six of Ducarte’s men, a group that had the feeling of a guard. This gave Kelsea pause: did Ducarte really need a guard in his own encampment? He was not a man who inspired loyalty, but it seemed extraordinary that he could be that hated. Even this picked guard, Kelsea noticed, made sure to steer well clear of her, traveling perhaps twenty feet out to the side.
They topped the hill, and Kelsea halted briefly, stunned by what she saw. Looking down at the Mort camp from the walls of New London was a very different proposition from seeing it up close. Black tents seemed to stretch for miles into the distance, and Kelsea’s first thought was to wonder how they kept from overheating when the sun was up. Then she noticed the sheer, almost reflective nature of the fabric, and her earlier anger recurred. Always, Mortmesne had something new.
As they entered the camp, the six men tightened up around her, and Kelsea saw the reason soon enough. The path they were traversing passed between many tents, and the men lining either side looked at her like hungry dogs. Kelsea tried to prepare for violence, but didn’t know what good it would do. The invisible wall she had sensed the other day was still there, protecting the camp; did the woman never sleep? As they moved farther toward the center, whispering became hissing, and the hissing gradually resolved itself into discrete comments that Kelsea wished she could unhear.
“Tear bitch!”
“When our lady is done with you, I’ll use you until you break!”
Ducarte made no sign that he had heard them. Kelsea straightened her shoulders and stared straight ahead, trying to remind herself that she had been threatened before, that people had been trying to kill her all of her life. But this, the hostility and bile raining down from all sides, some in Mort and some in broken Tear, this was very different, and Kelsea was afraid.
“She’ll make you beg for death!”
So much hate . . . where does it come from? Kelsea wanted to weep, not for herself but for the waste, the thought of how many extraordinary things could have been accomplished in the new world. She could not close her ears to them, so she searched for Lily and found her, just beneath the surface, staring up at the night sky, the white sails in the moonlight. But the sails were billowing now, as though stirred by a strong wind.
I missed it, Kelsea realized sadly. She had missed the launch. But Lily had made it. Lily was on board one of the ships. Grief threatened to overwhelm Kelsea, but she battled it, thinking of William Tear, of the main prize.
They turned another corner, and now Kelsea glimpsed a hint of scarlet through the mass of black. The Red Queen . . . soon Kelsea would stand in front her, face-to-face. In all the long, blurred night past, this was the one thing she had avoided thinking about. A piece of discarded metal caught her left foot, and Kelsea nearly fell in the mud, landing heavily on her ankle. The jeering of the men seemed to double in volume. Her body was exhausted from more than a day without sleep, and it was beginning to show. But her mind . . . her mind felt bright and sharp, sure of its course, if she could only hold herself together a bit longer. The crimson tent loomed ahead, and Kelsea was frightened, but there was relief as well, a sense that her approaching fate was now so final that it could not be averted.
She was nearly done.
The Queen was nervous. She didn’t know why; all things were proceeding better than she could have devised. The girl was coming—actually delivering herself!—when the Queen had thought that they would have to fight tooth and nail to get into the Keep. She was wearing both jewels; Ducarte’s runner had been very definite on that point. This development simplified matters enormously, but the Queen didn’t trust it, for it seemed too easy. She had not seen the Tear sapphires in more than a century, and even as a child, she had never been able to study them as she would have liked. Elaine never took the Heir’s Necklace off, and the Queen’s mother had never let her close enough. The sapphires would be the last piece of the puzzle, the Queen was sure of it, but all the same her heartbeat was up and her left leg twitched madly, tapping and tapping beneath her skirts.
How to get hold of them?
From the dark thing, she knew that she could not simply snatch the things off the girl’s neck, not without suffering a terrible consequence. The dark thing had been working on the girl, that much was obvious, but the Queen had no idea how far that work had progressed, what the girl could do. Did she present an actual threat? It seemed unlikely, not with her crown city under the knife. But the dark thing was an extraordinary liar, one of the best the Queen had ever encountered. Who knew what the girl might have learned, what she believed? The Queen couldn’t know, and not knowing tormented her. She had few vulnerabilities left, but in this moment, she was excruciatingly aware of those which remained, and it seemed unfair that they should come to the forefront now, when she was so close to holding the solution in her hand.
Now she heard a new sound: the gathering roar of her soldiers. What could the girl hope to accomplish by coming here? Did she seek martyrdom? The girl had already demonstrated a marked weakness for the grand gesture, although such demonstrations were so revealing that the Queen felt they constituted weakness in themselves. The din outside grew louder, and the Queen drew herself up straight, casting around the tent to make sure that everything was ready. Ducarte had procured a low table for her to eat meals on, an extravagance that would now come in handy. She would kill the girl, certainly, but first they would have a conversation. There were so many things the Queen was curious about. For a moment, she considered drawing the flaps of her tent, so that she could watch as the girl approached. But no: the girl was coming as a supplicant, and the Queen would treat her as one. She remained standing, hands at her sides, though her heartbeat kept climbing and her leg went like mad beneath her dress.
“Majesty!” Ducarte called.
“Come!”
Ducarte pulled back the flap of the tent, creating a doorway, and the girl ducked through. The anxiety that had been growing on the Queen in the past ten minutes suddenly crystallized, and when the girl straightened, revealing her face to the light, it took all of the Queen’s years of control to keep from taking a step backward.
Before her stood the woman from the portrait. Everything was the same: hair, nose, mouth, even the lines of deep sorrow around her eyes.
Is it a trick? the Queen wondered. But how could that be? She had smuggled the portrait from the Keep more than one hundred years ago. Her eyes dropped to the girl’s stomach and she was relieved to notice at least one difference: this girl was not pregnant. But otherwise, the detail was exact, and the Queen felt suddenly as though something had been stolen. The portrait, the woman, these things were hers alone; the girl had no right to stand here wearing the woman’s face. She stood straight, her posture defiant, with no hint of begging about her, and this deepened the Queen’s unease, her sense that something had been tilted askew.
“The Queen of the Tearling,” Ducarte announced, rather unnecessarily, and the Queen flicked her hand toward the door.
“Perhaps I should stay, Majesty.”
“Perhaps not,” the Queen replied. She had spotted another difference now, and this one steadied her, lessened her sense of disorientation: unlike the woman in the portrait, the girl had deep green eyes, the same Raleigh eyes that the Queen had once wished for with all her heart. Both sapphires lay on the girl’s chest, just as Andrew had reported, and once the Queen had noticed them, she could not tear her gaze away.
“Majesty, the New London Bridge—”
“I know all of this, Benin. Go.”
Ducarte left, dropping the flap of the tent behind him.
“Please, sit.” The Queen offered the far chair, and after a moment’s hesitation, the girl stalked forward to take it. Her eyes were bloodshot, and the Queen wondered at this. What did
the girl cry for? Not herself, surely; she had already proven that she had no interest in her own safety. Perhaps she was merely tired, but the Queen thought not. Grief sat on her plainly, like a raven perched on her shoulder.
The girl was studying the Queen now, staring at each of her features in turn, as though trying to dissect her face and put it back together. She recognizes me, the Queen thought for a fearful moment. But how could she? How could anyone? This wasn’t the woman from the portrait. This girl was only nineteen years old.
“How old are you, really?” the girl asked abruptly, in Mort. Good Mort, hers, with only the barest hint of an accent.
“Far older than you,” the Queen replied steadily, pleased to hear that her voice betrayed none of the upheaval in her thoughts. “Old enough to know when I have won.”
“You have won,” the girl replied slowly. But her eyes continued to dart across the Queen’s face, as though seeking clues.
“Well?”
“I’ve seen you before,” the girl mused.
“We all have visions.”
“No,” the girl replied. “I’ve seen you. But where?”
Something tightened in the Queen’s chest. Only nineteen, she reminded herself. “What can it possibly matter?”
“You want these.” The girl held the sapphires up on her palm. Even in the diffuse light that filtered through the fabric of the tent, the jewels sparkled, and the Queen thought she could see something, far in their depths . . . but then the girl shook them, and whatever she believed she had seen was gone.
“They are pretty jewels, certainly.”
“They come with a price.”
“Price?” The Queen laughed, although even she could hear the slight edge in her laughter. “You’re in no position to bargain.”
“Of course I am,” the girl replied. Her green gaze speared the Queen with bright intelligence. Sometimes one could look in the eyes and simply see it, in the focus of the pupil, the sharpness of the gaze. “You can kill me, Lady Crimson. You can invade my city and lay it waste. But neither of those things will get the sapphires from around my neck. I’m sure you know what happens if you try to take them by force.”
The Queen sat back, discomfited. The girl did have a bargaining chip, after all . . . and the Queen wondered who had talked. Thomas Raleigh? Thorne?
“I can simply order some other poor soul to kill you and take them off,” the Queen replied after a long moment. “What do I care?”
“And that will work, will it?” the girl asked. The arrogance in her voice staggered the Queen. Most information concerning the Tear sapphires was myth and legend; no one had tried to take them by force since the death of Jonathan Tear. But the dark thing had said it could be done. And now the Queen had a truly terrible thought, one that hit her right in her solar plexus: what if the dark thing had lied to her, so long ago? What if it had only needed her to procure the sapphires, do its dirty work and take the punishment?
“Good.” The girl nodded. “Think on these things. Because I tell you, anyone who tries to take them against my wishes will suffer agony. And if your hand merely guides them, my vengeance will find you as well.”
“I have been cursed before. You don’t frighten me.” But the Queen was unsettled, all the same. She had overcome the awful idea that the woman from the portrait had come to life before her, but still the girl’s face mocked her, raising the ghost of the past. She could not be sure that the girl was bluffing . . . and the stakes if she guessed wrong! “Those jewels have had no proper owner since William Tear.”
“Wrong.” The girl bared her teeth again, her eyes burning with a fierce emotion, something like jealousy. “They’re mine.”
The Queen was appalled to find herself believing this nonsense. So little was known about the magic of jewels . . . several special pieces had come out of the Cadarese mines over the years, but nothing with power even remotely comparable to that of the Tear sapphires. The Queen had never heard of a jewel bonding with a specific owner; so far as she knew, possession was everything in this game. But she also didn’t think the girl was lying; her gaze was too clear for that, and she didn’t strike the Queen as much of a liar to begin with.
I don’t know, the Queen admitted to herself, and that was the crux of the problem. Uncertainties abounded here. She wanted to ask the girl about the dark thing, try to glean some further information about her abilities. But she was afraid to raise either issue, afraid to give the girl any more leverage. She was no fool, this one. She had come here with a plan.
“I do know you.”
The Queen looked up, found the girl’s eyes bright with revelation.
“In the portrait.” The girl tipped her head to one side, fixing the Queen with a critical stare. “The disfavored child. The bastard. She was you.”
The Queen slapped the girl across the face. But she had only a moment to admire the welt she had made before she was seized, as though with invisible hands, and thrown across the room to land on the thick, sumptuous pallet she used as a bed. She had not been pushed so much as flung, and if she had landed with equal force against something of iron or steel, she would probably be dead. She sprang up, ready to fight, but the girl had remained at the table, motionless, the Queen’s handprint ugly and stark on her cheek.
I am in danger, the Queen realized suddenly. The thought was so novel that it took a moment to become frightening. Somehow the girl had reached right inside her, right through the defenses that the Queen kept around her person at all times. How had she done that? The Queen rallied herself; she should return to the table, but something had shifted now, and even with her defenses up, the Queen found that she did not want to cross the room.
“You don’t like being recognized,” the girl mused. “Was life with the Beautiful Queen really so bad?”
The Queen snarled, an animal sound that lashed through her teeth before she could hold it back. She had forgotten about the damned portrait. It must still be lying around the Keep somewhere, their last family moment before all hell had broken loose. But the Queen had shed that sad child as though she were emerging from a chrysalis. The girl should never have been able to connect the two. The Queen thought about calling for Ducarte, but she couldn’t seem to open her mouth.
“I have poor vision,” the girl remarked. “But my jewels are useful. Sometimes I see. I simply see, where other people might notice nothing.” She stood up from the table and approached the Queen slowly, her gaze appraising and, worse, pitying. “You’re a Raleigh, aren’t you? A bastard Raleigh, unloved and unwanted and always forgotten.”
The Queen felt her guts twist. “I am not a Raleigh. I am the Queen of Mortmesne.”
But the words sounded feeble, even to her own ears.
“Why do you hate us so much?” the girl asked. “What did they do to you?”
Evie! Come here! I need you!
The Queen shuddered. The woman’s face, her mother’s voice . . . one was bad, but both were too much to bear. She tried to gather herself, to find some of the control she’d had when the girl first entered the tent, but whatever she took hold of seemed to melt in her hands.
Evie!
More impatient now, her mother’s voice, a bit of steel showing through. The Queen clapped her hands to her ears, but that did no good, for the girl was already inside her head. The Queen could feel her there, reading the Queen’s memories as though they were a novel, running through them, flipping the pages, pausing on the worst moments. The Queen stumbled away, but the girl followed her across the tent, across her mind, leafing through the past and discarding it behind her. Elaine, her mother, the Keep, the portrait, the dark thing . . . they were all there, called up suddenly, as though they had been waiting all along.
“I see,” the girl murmured, her voice laced with sympathy. “She traded you away. They all did. Queen Elaine got everything.”
The Queen shrieked, wrapping her arms around herself and clawing at her own skin.
“Don’t do that.” The g
irl pulled up the sleeve of her dress, and the Queen saw that her left arm was a mess of welts, some new, some healing. The sight was so shocking, so contrary to what the Queen thought she knew about the girl, that her hands dropped away from her own arms.
“I do it too, you know,” the girl continued, “to control my anger. But it does no good in the long run. I see that now.”
Ducarte burst through the doorway of the tent, his sword drawn, but the girl whirled toward him and suddenly Ducarte was doubled over, choking, his hands clasped around his throat.
“Don’t interfere, Monsieur General. Stay over there, and I will allow you to breathe.”
Ducarte backed toward the far wall of the tent.
The girl turned back to the Queen, her green eyes contemplative. The Queen’s mind ached, a feeling of terrible violation, as though everything she kept locked away had been laid out in the open under a corrosive sunlight. She could still feel the girl in there, somehow, looking her over, picking through the debris. The Queen tried to summon anything, any of the thousand small tricks she had wielded over the course of her life. She had not felt so powerless since she was a small girl, trapped in a room. The past was supposed to be past. It should not be able to reach up and drag her down.
“What is your name?” the girl asked.
“The Queen of Mortmesne.”
“No.” The girl walked up and stood right in front of her, only a few inches away. Close enough for the Queen to wound, but the Queen couldn’t so much as raise a hand. She felt the girl’s mind again, prying at hers, running fingers over everything, and now she understood that the girl might be able to kill her. No weapon would have done the job, but the girl had found her own knives in the Queen’s mind. Each little piece of history that she touched was sharpened to a fine point, and the Queen felt her entire psyche shudder at the violation of that, of having another person handle her identity so easily. The girl had found her answer now, and the pressure in the Queen’s mind finally eased.
The Invasion of the Tearling Page 46