“The dark thing? In some ways. He used to speak of it, after—” Here the Red Queen paused, casting a furtive glance in Kelsea’s direction. “He used to say that he had forced his own survival. Almost bragging, I think. He used to teach me things.”
“How long were you up in the Fairwitch?”
“Two years. Long enough for all who knew me to think me dead.” Kelsea saw a brief flash of hatred in her eyes. “But you know this, Glynn. You know all about me.”
“Not all. I don’t see clearly. It’s like skimming a book. Why did your mother send you into exile?”
“She didn’t. I ran away.”
“Why?”
“None of your fucking business.”
Kelsea blinked, but persevered. “Did you learn magic from Finn?”
“Some. Enough that, when the time came, I was able to create my own. But not enough to ward off disaster.” The Red Queen frowned, and Kelsea noticed that she was rubbing her bandaged wrist again, working at it with her fingers.
“Does it hurt?” Kelsea asked.
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.
Unraveling, she thought again. The Red Queen blinked, and this time, Kelsea couldn’t deceive herself; the woman’s pupils were tinged with red.
“Yes,” the Red Queen replied. “A bath and bed. That would be nice.”
The first village they came to was little more than a hamlet, a town as grim as the landscape surrounding. As they started down the narrow sand track that seemed to pass as the main road, Kelsea spotted a small weather-beaten sign driven into the sandy earth:
Gin Reach
The houses here were little more than functional piles of wood, and no one had taken any trouble to make them prettier. Only one building had glass windows and a bright, pleasant awning; Kelsea was hardly surprised to see that it was the town’s pub. She thought she felt eyes staring down upon her, but when she looked up, she found that all of the second-story windows were shuttered. The wind had picked up, blowing sand against Kelsea’s face. A storm was coming, and the entire town appeared to be battening down the hatches.
The town’s inn turned out to be a large house boasting three guest rooms. The keeper assured them that he had only one guest; the two of them would have their privacy, a remark followed with a distinctly lecherous wink. The Red Queen didn’t seem to care, dropping down coin for two hot baths to be brought to their room. After the luxury and callousness Kelsea had seen littering the Palais, she would have expected the Red Queen to do poorly at a small-town inn. But she seemed fine, giving an easy riposte when the innkeeper tried to flirt, and this made Kelsea wonder again at what she had missed inside the Red Queen’s mind, the complex life she must have led.
When they undressed for their baths, the Red Queen removed her bandages and Kelsea saw that the marks on her wrist had disappeared. Kelsea’s unease doubled; the punctures she had treated had been deep and nasty, and if this was no natural healing, then what was it? As they bathed, each lounging in her own steel tub, Kelsea watched the Red Queen from the corner of her eye. She showed few signs of fatigue; indeed, despite the cold weather they had been traveling under, the Red Queen looked physically strong, stronger than she had since they set out from Demesne.
What am I afraid of? Kelsea wondered, as the
y climbed into their beds. She couldn’t say, but her skin was prickling, as though an invisible animal waited just behind her, ready to pounce. She felt eyes on her again, but when she glanced at the Red Queen, she found her turned away, resting comfortably on her side in the other bed. Kelsea tried to stay awake, but exhaustion overtook her, and she finally gave up trying to keep watch and blew out her candle. A terrible storm was upon the town, thunder that shook the building to its foundations, and Kelsea slipped easily into a dream of the Argive, the train of cages that had sat just on the border. If Kelsea and her Guard had come even a day later, the caravan would have gone, vanished into Mortmesne.
That was a moment, the dream-Kelsea thought, a moment in time, just like the death of Jonathan Tear. If I had missed that moment, what would have happened? Where would we be now?
But the dream of the Argive was gone, morphed seamlessly into another. Kelsea stood on the high scaffold, and before her was Arlen Thorne, driven to his knees. All around them, the mob raged, a cacophony of screaming voices. Thorne looked up, and Kelsea saw that he was in his final extremity, his face a mask of blood.
I’m sorry! Kelsea tried to scream, but before she could, a hand grabbed her ankle. She looked down and saw Mhurn at her feet, grinning wide, his face upturned, exposing the wide red smile she had cut into his neck. His hand began to work its way up her calf, and Kelsea did the only thing she could do: jumped off the scaffolding and into the sea of upturned, screaming faces awaiting her. At the last moment before she landed, she realized that they were all Mhurn and Thorne, waiting for her, and she gasped herself awake.
A woman stood over her in the dark.
Before Kelsea could even draw breath to scream, a hand jammed over her mouth. There was great strength in this woman; she held Kelsea’s shoulders easily, pinning her to the bed.
I was wrong, Kelsea thought bitterly. Whatever the Red Queen had become, Kelsea should never have taken her eyes off her, just as Mace would never take his eyes off a known enemy. She had allowed herself to be lulled by companionship and mutual interest, lulled into forgetting that there was more than a century of hatred sitting between Mortmesne and the Tear, between red and black.
The Red Queen bent down, her face nearing Kelsea’s, and Kelsea heard the whistle of the woman’s breath at her ear, thought she could feel the bite of teeth against her throat.
“You will suffer, bitch,” the Red Queen hissed in the darkness. “You will suffer for my master.”
Kelsea froze in sudden recognition. The threat had been real, but she had mistaken the source. Not the Red Queen at all, but—
“Brenna,” she whispered.
Ewen was not good with new places. He had lived in New London all of his life, but several times he had gotten lost in strange sections of the city. Da said Ewen had no compass inside. But after two weeks in Gin Reach, Ewen thought that even Da would be satisfied. He knew every inch of the town’s four streets, and could even recognize who lived in some of the houses.
He and Bradshaw had caused a stir when they arrived; Bradshaw said it was because they had money to spend. This confused Ewen, for Gin Reach held very little to spend money on. Once a week, a sour-looking man drove a covered wagon down the main track and stopped in front of the pub. While the publican and his assistant removed bottles and barrels from the wagon, the townspeople came out of their houses to bargain with the sour man for food, clothing, or a few novelties such as paper or fabric or medicine. The town had a small, grim farming patch out behind the southern stretch of houses, protected from the desert with fencing and canvas tarp, and most of what people seemed to barter was the food they grew: root vegetables, leeks, and potatoes, things that needed little light. But the only places to spend actual coin in Gin Reach were the pub and the inn.
When Ewen saw the witch, he almost didn’t recognize her. The woman Ewen remembered had been white as bone, ageless, with eyes like daggers. She might have been twenty years old, or fifty. But the woman he saw now was red-cheeked and looked to be in the prime of youth. Her hair, which had been the color of sun-faded straw when Ewen last saw her, was a rich, healthy gold. She was much changed, yes, but he still recognized the witch beneath, standing in the doorway of the inn. She didn’t see him, for at the sight of her Ewen dove for cover into a narrow alley between two houses.
That night, he and Bradshaw had a long talk about what to do. Bradshaw said that Brenna’s powers were well known, that she could control even strong men with a glance. Neither of them felt comfortable about trying to capture her, not even the two of them against one. But Bradshaw insisted that the Mace must be told, that one of them must stay in Gin Reach while the other took the message.
Ewen did not want to stay here. Every moment that day, trailing her from the inn, he had felt as though Brenna would turn around and spear him with her eyes. He had not dared to follow her as she wandered into the desert, for there was no cover out there, and anyway, even Ewen knew about the Dry Lands. Da used to say that the desert liked to show a man hidden pictures, things that weren’t there, draw him away and get him lost. Men would die of thirst, simply chasing the pictures in their heads. Ewen waited in front of the inn until Brenna returned at sunset and disappeared inside, and then he fled back to the basement room he shared with Bradshaw, feeling like a mouse dismissed by a hawk. No, he did not want to stay here, keeping an eye on Brenna.
But the alternative was worse. They had been in Gin Reach for two weeks, and by now General Hall might have been forced to move. If the regiment was not where they had left it in the southern Almont, Bradshaw said, then the messenger would have to go all the way to Mortmesne and make contact with the Mace.
Mortmesne! The most terrible of all lands, a place of darkness and fire and cruelty. He did not want to stay alone in Gin Reach, but even less did he want to visit an evil kingdom. Bradshaw insisted that Mortmesne was not so bad as all that, but Ewen did not want to find out. Even the mention of the journey was enough to make him sick to his stomach.
“Well, one of us has to go,” Bradshaw said firmly. “And if it has to be me, then you’ll need to be very careful here, Ewen. The witch can’t spot you, or you’re cooked. Understand?”
Ewen nodded halfheartedly. Bradshaw left, and in the days since, Ewen had become a spy. This was not easy work, for each day he would have to come up with a new and creative way to watch the inn, not only so that Brenna did not notice but so that the townspeople didn’t begin to talk. He often went to the pub, which was only a bit down the street from the inn and had a good view of its entrance. But this was not easy either, for Ewen didn’t drink. Long ago, Da had cautioned him against ale, warning that it would only get him into trouble, and he had absolutely forbidden Ewen to drink any spirits. The latter was no hardship; Ewen had tasted whiskey at Christmas once, and thought it tasted like bad vinegar. But Da’s strictures did present problems now, when Ewen was trying to spend all day in a pub. Even he knew that no one spent all day in a pub unless he was a drunk. He thought about getting an ale and sipping it slowly, but in the end he could not. Da was dead, yes, but that had made his rules more powerful, not less. Ewen could not break them.
He told the publican that he was waiting for a friend to arrive in town, and after some discussion, they agreed that Ewen would drink water and pay ale prices. Ewen worried that the man would talk about their strange arrangement, but his worries were needless; unless the discussion involved money or alcohol, the publican didn’t seem to want to talk at all. He was content to have Ewen sit at the end of the bar, drinking glass after glass of water, only getting up occasionally to use the filthy toilet at the back of the pub. It was very boring, this spy work, and on the second day, Ewen brought his lead and paper and began to sketch the people around the bar, the street outside. He knew his sketches were not very good, but the publican, at least, seemed to appreciate them; after several hours of apparent disinterest, he sidled over to watch Ewen draw. After several more hours, he asked Ewen if he might draw something
as well. Ewen gave him a piece of paper and a short stub of lead. He wondered if anyone ever drew in Gin Reach. There wasn’t much inspiration here; the surrounding landscape was as bleak as anything Ewen could have imagined. He drew the people, the buildings, the sky, but his eyes were never far from the door of the inn.
Twice more, Brenna left the inn and wandered up the main track, then continued out of town into the desert. Her steps were almost aimless, but not quite, and by the third day Ewen had begun to wonder just what she was doing here, why she didn’t move along like most of the other travelers, who stopped in Gin Reach merely to outfit themselves before they attempted to cross the Dry Lands. Brenna did not visit the few shops that existed for this purpose, nor did she try to buy anything else, not even food. Indeed, except for her strange forays into the desert, she didn’t leave the inn at all. This Ewen thought he understood; robbed of the white sickness that she had suffered before, Brenna was a fairly pretty woman, and when she walked down the street, men turned their heads. She still retained her forbidding aspect; no one tried to speak to her, and no one dared follow her out into the desert. But she certainly attracted attention, and Ewen sensed that this was not what she wanted. She was waiting for something, being careful. Ewen could only monitor her in the daytime, and he had no idea what she did while he slept.
On the fourth day after Bradshaw’s departure, two more travelers arrived at the inn. They were heavily cloaked, but Ewen sensed no threat from that, for many travelers in Gin Reach seemed to want to keep their business to themselves. Brenna did not emerge to meet the newcomers, so he dismissed them from mind and returned to his drawing.
That night, there was no sleep for anyone. A storm had welled up above the desert, a storm unlike anything Ewen had ever seen before. Brilliant lightning cracked the sky from horizon to horizon, and the thunder was so strong that it shook every building on the street. Ewen, who was afraid of thunder, knew that he would never sleep through such a storm, certainly not alone in their basement room. He stayed late at the pub, and apparently the rest of the town had the same idea, for every table in the place was packed. The publican was so busy that, when Ewen ran out of water, he plopped a full pitcher on the bar and hurried away without even asking for coin.
The Fate of the Tearling Page 30