The Fate of the Tearling

by Erika Johansen

  What can I possibly do with that knowledge?

  There was no answer, only the jailor’s face, staring up at her. His corneas were a deep, dark red; he had tried to claw his own eyes out. Kelsea cast around for the piece of uncut sapphire and found it still lying in the back corner of her cell.

  “What are you?” she asked. She began to pick it up and then froze, feeling her breath halt. The door of her cell was wide open, the jailor’s key ring still dangling from the lock.

  Her first impulse was simply to bolt from the cell, but Kelsea forced herself to hold still, to assess the situation. She had some sense of the layout of the dungeons, but none of the castle beyond. How far would she really get?

  Don’t be a coward. You have an open door!

  At the thought of the Tearling, longing seemed to wrench her heart. She generally avoided thinking of her kingdom in concrete terms; in this dark cell, it seemed like a good way to go mad. But now she closed her eyes and saw the Almont stretching before her, miles of farms and river, and then New London, her city on a hill. Very different from Tear’s, this city, and sinking just as surely, but there was still good there. When the Mort had reached the city and they had brought the last refugees inside, the Keep had been filled to capacity and there were still two thousand people without shelter. They could not sleep in the streets, for the temperature was dropping to freezing at night. Arliss had been at his wits’ end, but at the last moment, Kelsea remembered now, the merchants had come forward, the guild of New London shopkeepers, and offered to house them all in their homes and shops. Her kingdom might be flawed, but it was still worth fighting for, and more than anything, Kelsea simply wanted to go home.

  But acting on desire had gotten her into trouble before. Thorne’s face flashed before her again; sometimes Kelsea felt that she would never escape him, and perhaps that was fitting, for when she had killed him, she had been thinking not of the kingdom, but of herself. She could not afford to make such a mistake here. She could not help her kingdom when she was dead, and she was currently alive on the Red Queen’s grace. An escape attempt would crush their fragile détente. As much as she wanted to, Kelsea could not simply flee and hope for the best. For her kingdom, she had to stay.

  She could at least get her jailor’s body out of her cell. But another look at him convinced Kelsea of the futility of that. The floor around his corpse was covered with blood. No, they would find him, and they would find him in her cell. There was no way to prevent it.

  You have an open door! her mind hectored.

  “Maybe just a look around,” Kelsea whispered, and realized in horror that she was speaking to the jailor as she skirted his corpse to reach the door. “Just a quick look around, see what’s what.”

  She tiptoed out of her cell. The corridor to her right was dark, but to her left, far down the hallway, there was a hint of flickering torchlight near the stairs. Otherwise, the long line of cells was still, and she heard no sounds of movement. The jailor had made plenty of noise as he died, but screams were hardly uncommon in these dungeons. It didn’t sound like anyone was coming to investigate. Cupping her hand around her candle flame, Kelsea moved toward the light.

  Even a brief survey of her neighbor’s empty cell showed that seniority did have its privileges. The bald man had clearly been here for a long time; he had not only a pallet and several buckets, but a desk and chair. The desk held a stack of paper and a jar of pens, as well as about ten candles. The walls were not bare, as in Kelsea’s cell, but hung with drawings. Kelsea lifted the candle higher, then stilled.

  Not drawings, but schematics. Every inch of each sheet seemed to be covered with measurements and directions. Most of the work was too far from the light to be clearly seen, but even near the bars, Kelsea could make out several designs. A siege tower, measuring well over sixty feet. A double-layered device with some sort of locking mechanism in the middle. Two different types of bows. The desk itself, which sat near the bars, was covered with a half-finished plan that Kelsea could not make out. She held the candle as high as she could, hissing as a bit of hot wax dripped on her hand, and was rewarded with a clear view of the schematic pinned over the desk: a diagram of a cannon, identical to those she had seen in the Mort war train. Kelsea’s breath halted as the implication of all of these drawings sank in: she had found the Red Queen’s weapons designer.

  But what in God’s name was he doing down here? The bald man spoke perfect Tear. It was a good bet that he was a slave, and if so, he must be one of the most valuable slaves that the Red Queen could claim. So why on earth would she keep him in the Palais dungeons? Why open him up to brutality, to rats, to the pneumonia that must surely beset this damp, drafty place in winter? An engineer this gifted should be living the most pampered life a Mort slave could imagine.

  The empty cell provided Kelsea with no answers. She stood before the bars for a moment longer, making sure there was nothing she’d missed, and then crept down the hallway.

  The next cell boasted not even a pallet. A young woman, Kelsea’s age, was curled up on the bare floor, fast asleep. She was naked, and even in the thin candlelight, Kelsea could see her shivering. Her arms were covered with red welts that looked like puncture wounds. Kelsea’s anger, which seemed to have died with the jailor, bloomed again, deep in her stomach.

  How can you do this? she asked the Red Queen inside her head. You’re not stupid, you know right from wrong. How can you live with yourself?

  But it was Carlin who replied.

  Don’t waste your time, Kelsea. Some people are simply broken.

  Surprisingly, Kelsea found that she did not want to think this of the Red Queen. She did not like the woman, but she had come to respect her. The child Evelyn had not had an easy life.

  If you make apologies for the Red Queen, you should have made them for Thorne . . . perhaps even for your jailor, as well. None of them could have had happy childhoods.

  Kelsea shrugged this off. The death of the jailor would not weigh on her. The world was better off without him. As for Thorne—

  A door banged open at the top of the staircase. For a moment, Kelsea stood paralyzed. Escape was now impossible, if it had ever been an option at all, but she mustn’t let them know how close she had come. She might face some sort of punishment for killing the jailor, but there was nothing to be done about that now. Her legs unlocked and she scampered down the corridor to her cell. The candle guttered as she ran, and she took the last few steps by feel, grabbing hold of the open door and slipping inside. The jailor’s key was still hanging in the lock, and for a moment she debated taking it out, then decided against it. The fact that the jailor had let himself in would only bolster her story, and Kelsea had a suspicion that the jailor’s death would not trouble the Red Queen overmuch anyway.

  As torchlight spilled down the hallway, she moved to the back of her cell and stood very still, waiting. As she looked down at the jailor’s body, relief filled her, the emotion so much an echo of Lily’s memories that Kelsea almost felt that the world had doubled back on itself. No matter what happened, at least she wouldn’t face the jailor, ever again.

  The torch appeared, and beneath it was the tall form of Emily, the Red Queen’s page. She took in the scene in one quick scan, then set the torch in its bracket and hurried into the cell.

  “Poor timing,” she murmured in Tear. “Simply poor timing.”

  She looked up at Kelsea, a hint of impatience in her gaze. “You are unharmed?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Well, help me then. We must get him out of here.”

  “What?”

  “If the Red Queen finds that you’ve killed your jailor, she will increase your security. We cannot have that now. Not so close to the date.”

  “The date of what?”

  “Help me!” Emily hissed. “Take off your dress.”

  “There’s too much blood.”

  “We can clean up afterward. But we mustn’t leave a trail. Let me have your dress.”

/>   After another moment’s indecision, Kelsea pulled her dress over her head and tossed it to the other woman, who began to swaddle the jailor’s neck. Reflexively, Kelsea covered herself, before she realized how little modesty mattered in this moment. She dropped her hands and simply stood there, shivering, in her boots and underclothes. Emily pulled the jailor’s key ring from the lock, removed the key to Kelsea’s cell, and then tucked the ring into her pocket.

  “Grab his legs.”

  Kelsea took the jailor’s legs and helped Emily haul him off the ground. The page was much stronger than Kelsea, carrying more than her share of weight. Kelsea stared at her, honestly confounded. Was it possible that she remained loyal to the Tearling?

  “Not a sound,” Emily murmured. “The cell to your right is empty, but the rest are occupied. The prisoners may not be asleep.”

  “What about light?” Kelsea whispered.

  “I have mapped this dungeon well. Just follow my lead, and don’t make a sound.”

  More questions sprang into Kelsea’s mind, but she swallowed them and followed Emily out of the dungeon. They turned right, and Kelsea saw that Emily had been correct: the cell on her other side was empty. The light waned as they turned a corner, and finally they were traveling in total blackness. Beneath Kelsea’s fingers, the jailor’s legs were still warm, and with each step Kelsea became more and more tormented by an irrational certainty: he was not dead, only asleep, and at some point she would feel his hands slide over hers, hear his voice only inches away.

  Pretty.

  “Who’s there?” a man screamed to Kelsea’s right, so close that she veered left, stifling a cry, and nearly dropped the jailor’s legs. Sweat had broken out on her brow. She could hear other people in their cells, coughing and crying, and her mind called up the Security compounds she had seen in Lily’s time, vast black labyrinths of suffering.

  We’ve learned nothing, she thought again. We all forgot.

  Ahead, Emily cleared her throat, bringing Kelsea to a halt. She felt the other end of the jailor’s body begin to drop, and lowered his legs to the ground. Metal clinked beneath her: Emily, depositing the jailor’s key ring on his body. She was very cool under pressure, this woman; she reminded Kelsea of Andalie. A moment later Emily grabbed her arm, guiding her back the way they had come. Kelsea wondered what Mace would say if he could see her now, wandering the Palais dungeons in her underwear. She was truly cold, her teeth chattering behind her clenched lips. She thought of the naked woman down at the far end of her hallway, shivering on the bare floor. Kelsea would need some clothes, and quickly.

  They turned a final corner, and Kelsea saw that they were back on her hallway. Looking down, she found her hands and arms covered with tacky patches of drying blood. But the corridor was clean.

  “Get back in there,” Emily murmured, shooing her into her cell. She held the stained remains of Kelsea’s dress in her hand. “I’ll bring back cleaning supplies and a new dress for you.”

  “Then what?”

  “It will be as though he never entered your cell.” Emily held up the silver key to Kelsea’s cell. “He was not supposed to have this key. I will dispose of it.”

  Kelsea hesitated, reminded again of Andalie’s terrifying efficiency. Emily began to swing the cell door closed, and Kelsea grabbed the bars, holding it open.

  “Who are you? Do you serve the Tear?”

  “No. I serve the Mace.”

  Emily jerked the door from Kelsea’s hands, locked it behind her, and disappeared down the corridor.

  “Wake up, you pathetic sot.”

  Javel bleared his way back into reality. It was a slow process. There were so many sensations to ignore: headache, backache, the heavy, empty feeling in his stomach. The Mort brews were much stronger than those of the Tear. He almost remembered trying something the bartender had laid on him, a very brief period of the mindlessness that drink always gave him, and then nothing more. He became aware of wetness on his cheek: a line of drool.

  “Wake up, damn you!” Something slapped the back of his head, and Javel’s headache intensified, becoming almost blinding. He groaned and batted the hand away, but then his hair was seized and he was yanked bodily upward, the pain in his head making him screech. He found himself staring at Dyer.

  “You. Stupid. Fuck.” Dyer shook him with each word, his voice a low hiss. “We’re here to do a job, a discreet job. And here I find you passed out.”

  Javel’s mind was a muddle. What was he doing in a pub? He’d been sober for months. Did he really have to start over now, at the bottom of the ladder?

  Allie.

  Memory came tumbling back, painfully clear. Allie had brought him here. Allie, in a whore’s dress and makeup, no longer herself but someone else. She wanted no part of him. They had been in Demesne for months, chasing a ghost. Javel wished Dyer would go away so he could order another drink and start the carousel all over again. At least another drink would ease the headache that threatened to crush his skull.

  “What ails you, traitor?”

  “Allie,” Javel mumbled. “My wife. She . . .”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Dyer grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to the floor, and Javel realized that he had spent the night on a barstool, his head on the counter. It would not be the first time, but oh, he thought he had put those days behind him.

  “My wife—” But he hesitated at that. Could he even call Allie his wife anymore? “She was dressed like a—”

  “A whore?” Dyer asked. He looked at Javel frankly, no sympathy in his gaze.

  “Yes,” Javel whispered, thankful that he did not have to say the word out loud. But a moment later his eyes flew open as wetness dashed across his face. Dyer had doused him with water. Dimly, Javel noticed the publican behind the bar, watching them with the disinterested gaze of a man who has seen everything.

  “Let me get this straight, Gate Guard. You found your wife in a Mort knockhouse.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “She said to leave her there. She said she was happy. She said—” Javel swallowed, for this last was the worst to admit. “She said she wanted no part of me.”

  “My God.” Dyer hauled him toward the door, tossing a few marks on the counter as he went. The publican didn’t even blink, merely nodded and cleared the money from the surface in one smooth motion.

  Outside, the sunlight seemed to cleave Javel’s skull. He moaned, clutching his head.

  “Shut up, you waste of space.” Dyer yanked him along. They passed the apothecary, and Javel restrained the urge to spit in the doorway.

  “She was laughing,” he told Dyer. He didn’t know why he was talking to this man of all people, a Queen’s Guard who would have liked to watch him swing for treason. There was no one else to listen. “She was happy.”

  “And that makes you angry?”

  “Of course it does!” Javel shouted. “Why shouldn’t I be angry?”

  Dyer grabbed him by the neck and slammed him into a wall. In the moment before pain flooded in, Javel wished he were dead.

  “Since you’re a fucking idiot, Gate Guard, I will explain it to you. Your wife was taken more than two hundred miles in a cage. When she got to this city, she was stripped naked, searched, and placed on a platform in front of the Auctioneer’s Office. She may have stood there for hours, while strangers debated her worth and children catcalled her for being a Tear. If she was purchased by the knockhouse outright, as the Auctioneer’s documents seem to suggest, she was expected to perform on command, and if she didn’t, she was likely beaten, or raped or starved. Six years.” Dyer’s voice deepened and roughened. “Six years, and where were you all that time? Working your day job and drinking your pay away at night.”

  “She’s still my wife.”

  Dyer shook him, hard, rapping his head against the brick.

  “Your wife is doing what she has to. Did it never occur to you that pretending to be cheerful about it makes her life easier here?”


  “Cheerful!” Javel snarled. “She’s pregnant! She’s going to have another man’s child!”

  “I really don’t know where you get the gall, Gate Guard.” Dyer released him, his voice disgusted. “Your wife was shipped to Mortmesne while you stayed behind, a free man, and you think you have the right, any right at all, to question how she survived?”

  “I love her,” Javel repeated brokenly. “She’s my wife.”

  “She seems to have moved on.”

  “But what about me?”

  “You should do the same. Let her go.” Dyer’s gaze was still pitiless, but when he spoke, his voice had softened a bit. “The Queen saw something in you, though for the life of me, it escapes my vision. Your purpose here is gone, but you might still be useful to us. To her.”

  “To Allie?”

  “To the Queen, jackass.” Dyer shook his head. “The Captain is coming, and when he arrives we will break the Queen out of the Palais or die trying. We need more men.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  Dyer held up a sealed letter. “These are the Captain’s latest orders. He wants to send a messenger back to New London to bring more guards, but none of his people can be spared. Galen and I cannot go either.”

  Spared, Javel thought bitterly.

  “The Captain will arrive in four days. We will need reinforcements no more than two days after that. Therefore, we need a messenger who can ride like the wind.” Dyer stared at him, measuring. “I watched you on the way here. You’re a fine rider, when you’re off the slop. If you leave early tomorrow, you could make it.”

  Javel frowned, calculating time, though it hurt his head. He would have to reach New London in no more than three days. Not long, but it might be long enough.

  “You’ll need to stay out of the pubs along the way, of course.”

  “What about Allie?”

  “Well, that’s the choice before you, Gate Guard. Serve the Queen, or serve your own nonsense. The Captain has put your fate in my hands, and I can leave you here to drown, if that suits you better. It certainly suits me.” Dyer looked over Javel’s shoulder, his eyes narrowing. “Either way, we’ve spent enough time loitering on this street.”