The Fate of the Tearling

  “What do I care?” Katie asked, but inside, she felt a chill. She thought of the packed church she had seen at Row’s last few sermons, the glut of people pouring out onto the porch.

  How many? she wondered. Three hundred? Four?

  “You could help me, Katie.”

  “No.”

  “Think about it. God has made these people malleable. They’ll believe any damned thing that comes out of Brother Paul’s mouth.”

  “Or yours.”

  “Or mine. We could make so much use of that!”

  “To do what, Row?”

  He grabbed her hand. If she had been talking to the new Row, charming and false, a few moments ago, she saw now that he was sincere. That made it worse, somehow. She would rather hear this from her enemy than from her old friend. She wanted to yank her hand back, but then she stilled as Row pulled a silver chain from beneath his shirt. Sapphire glimmered in the afternoon light.

  “Where did you get that?” she demanded. “It’s Jonathan’s!”

  “No, it’s mine. I made my own.”

  “How?”

  “You always thought William Tear was perfect,” Row said with a chuckle. “But he’s not.”

  That was no answer, but Katie’s brow furrowed all the same, for she sensed an artful mixture of truth and lies in Row’s statement, sensed that there was an answer there, if only she could riddle out what he meant.

  “It works for me,” Row told her. “Just like it works for Jonathan. I see things. I know things. I know that the great saint is dead.”

  Katie jumped up, knocking over her chair, and leaned over to grab his shoulders, slamming him back against the headboard.

  “You’ll keep your mouth shut, Row.”

  “Think about it, Katie,” he repeated, ignoring her. “Tear is gone. The Town we always talked about, the Town where smart people like us would lead, and the rest would follow. We could make it ourselves.”

  Katie wanted to protest that she had never thought any such thing, but she had, she remembered now. She had thought so many awful things when she was young. It hurt to remember them. Row dislodged her hands from his shoulders, and belatedly, Katie realized that, starved or not, he was much stronger now. Katie saw devilment in his eyes . . . but not the harmless sort she remembered from when they were young. He tucked the silver necklace and its sapphire back underneath his shirt.

  “What about all the nonbelievers, people who don’t belong to your church? You think they’ll sit happily by?”

  “They’ll be gone.”

  The flat certainty of this answer made her cold, for she sensed violence in it, a vast, nascent shadow whose contours she could barely glimpse.

  “And what about me, Row?”

  “Ah, Rapunzel. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” He grinned crookedly, just like the old Row, and for a moment Katie’s guard wavered, all of her suspicion suddenly buried under nostalgia. They had been so close once, the two of them!

  “What do you say, Katie?”

  Despite everything, for a moment she was tempted to say yes, for even now, Row’s vision still had the power to sway her: the place they had talked about for years, a true meritocracy, with none of Tear’s ambiguous ideas to get in the way. She and Row had planned it together, built it like a castle inside their heads.

  But I’m a different person now, Katie realized. All the resentment I used to feel, it doesn’t bind me now. I can let it go.

  But could she? All the contempt she felt for the people in the Town—fools with so little sense of self that they needed to believe in an invisible God who would peek inside people’s bedrooms—that contempt suddenly overwhelmed her, and she could see Row’s vision spread out before her: a town where such people were relegated to disenfranchisement, where their own foolishness was quarantined so that it could hurt no one. How wonderful it would be to live in a town where weak minds were punished, where people like Row and Jonathan—

  Now who’s being a fool? her mind demanded. Jonathan? You really think there’s room for Jonathan Tear in Row’s paradise?

  That brought reality back with a thud. Katie might not know how Row meant to implement his grand plan, but she knew Row. He had always hated the Tears, hated the idea of them even more than the people themselves. Jonathan was not William Tear, perhaps, but he was far too dangerous to be allowed in Row’s kingdom.

  Katie stood up from her chair, feeling long-buried sorrow twist her insides. All those years ago, she had known that one day she would have to choose. But she hadn’t known that it would have to be today.

  “I can’t go with you, Row,” she told him. “I serve Jonathan Tear.”

  Row’s face tightened, but only for a moment, and then that spurious good humor reappeared.

  “Ah, yes, the infamous fighting force.”

  Katie’s mouth dropped open.

  “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out, Katie? There are no secrets in this town. I’ve always known Tear was a fraud, but you didn’t, did you?”

  “He wasn’t a fraud!” she shouted, outraged. “It’s for Jonathan! It’s to guard Jonathan!”

  Row smiled indulgently, as though she were a child. “That’s what Tear told you, certainly. But think about it, Katie. It may look like a guard, but what Tear was really training up is a police force. A secret police force, answerable only to his son. What sort of utopia needs secret police?”

  “You think I don’t know that you’re jealous of Jonathan?” she demanded, and had the pleasure of watching Row’s face darken. “You’ve always been jealous of him! You’ve always wanted what he has!”

  “And what about you?”

  “I serve the Tears,” Katie repeated stubbornly. “I serve Jonathan.”

  Row threw back his head and laughed. “See, Katie? You’re one of the faithful too!”

  Katie grabbed him again, meaning to yank him from the bed. In that moment she hated Row, hated him utterly, because she could already feel his words digging into her mind, making her think twice, making her doubt. But after another moment she released him and backed away. Jonathan was there, always, and it would not serve Jonathan if she picked a fight with the Christers’ favorite son now.

  Row stretched again, but this time he swung his legs out of bed and got up. He was wearing nothing beneath his sheet; Katie did her best to look away before it dropped, but she failed, and the brief glimpse she got made her feel like she was burning inside. Then she was ashamed. This was her oldest friend; what had happened to the two of them? When had everything changed?

  “How’s that messiah working out for you, Katie? Spotted any feet of clay yet?”

  “You stay away from Jonathan. Don’t even come near him.”

  “I won’t need to, Katie,” Row replied, grinning . . . but now the grin seemed not appealing, but reptilian. She turned away, but a moment later her entire body spasmed as Row slid a hand between her legs.

  “You look all you want, Katie.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “It must be exhausting, devoting all your time to a second-rate William Tear. Why not trade up?”

  Katie’s fists clenched. Beneath the excitement that had gathered in her belly, she felt a titanic wave of anger building, that he should think her such a fool, that he should treat her like one of the hundreds of other women in town who had already succumbed. They might not be friends anymore, but surely she deserved better than that?

  “Tear’s paradise will collapse beneath Jonathan’s feet, Katie, just as I knew it would. And who will people turn to in the wreck, if not God?”

  She fled then, ducking clumsily out of Row’s room, banging her shoulder on the frame as she went.

  “Think about it, Katie!” Row called after her. “You’re on a sinking ship! Come over to mine, and just see how far we sail!”

  Katie stumbled down the hallway, her eyes full of tears. On her way down the steps, she bumped into Mrs. Finn and several other women, but she could not even bring herself to e
xchange pleasantries, could only shoulder past the women with a muttered apology, moving faster with each step. By the time she reached the bottom of the porch, she had broken into a run.

  “Lady.”

  Mace’s voice. That was good, for even here, at the end of the world, she would have liked to see Mace one last time.

  “I know you hear me, Lady. Will you wake up?”

  Kelsea didn’t want to wake up. She could feel William Tear’s sapphire at her chest, almost like a companion that had accompanied her on strange journeys, but she was beginning to think that she had never needed the jewel to see into the past, for they were all with her now: Tear, Jonathan, Lily, Katie, Dorian . . . even Row Finn.

  “Lady, if you don’t wake up, I’m going to have you baptized.”

  Her eyes popped open, and she saw Mace sitting beside her bed, holding a candle. Around him was a darkened room. She sat up quickly.

  “Lazarus? Is it you?”

  “Of course it’s him.” Coryn appeared out of the gloom. “As though you could mistake that set of shoulders for anyone else.”

  Kelsea reached out to Mace, but he did not take her hand. They stared at each other for a long moment.

  “I’ll see myself out,” Coryn muttered. “Glad you’re well, Lady.”

  When he opened the door, Kelsea saw a piece of hallway lit by torchlight. Then the door closed, and she and Mace were once again staring at each other. Kelsea was reminded, suddenly and painfully, of that day on the bridge. The chasm between them had been vast, but it felt even larger now. She read distrust in his eyes, and it hurt far more than anger.

  “Where are we?”

  “In the house of a woman who was loyal to your mother. Lady Chilton.”

  “We’re not in Gin Reach.”

  “No, Lady. About a day’s ride north, in the southern Almont. You’ve been in fugue since we found you, three days ago.”

  “Three days!”

  “It was a long one, Lady, and worrisome for the Guard. We should let Pen in here soon, lest he begin to chew on the furniture.” Mace smiled, but the smile did not meet his eyes.

  “You haven’t forgiven me, Lazarus.”

  He remained silent.

  “What did you expect me to do?”

  “Tell us, dammit! I would have gone with you.”

  “Of course you would have, Lazarus. But I thought I was going to die. Why would I ask anyone to follow me there?”

  “Because it’s my job!” he roared, and his voice seemed to shake the timbers of the tiny space. “It’s what I signed on for! The choice was mine, not yours!”

  “I needed you to stay behind, Lazarus. I needed you to run the kingdom. Who else would I have trusted to get it done?”

  At this, Mace’s anger seemed to fade. He looked down at the floor, his cheeks coloring.

  “You chose wrong, Lady. I failed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Keep is under siege.”

  “By whom?”

  “The Arvath, with a legion of Mort. Our people are holed up inside, but they won’t hold out forever. New London is under the rule of the mob, but the mob, too, is directed by the Arvath.”

  Kelsea’s hands tightened on the covers. Her knuckles were white, but she hoped that Mace wouldn’t notice. The thought of the Holy Father in her Keep—sitting on my throne!—was like a dark hole inside her. The entire city, the entire kingdom, at the mercy of Anders’s poisonous god . . . the thought made her insides seethe, but in this moment, Mace’s doubt seemed even more pressing.

  “It was as much my fault as yours, Lazarus,” she said softly. “Some days I wonder whether I shouldn’t have let the cages roll.”

  “You were trying to do the right thing, Lady. It’s not your fault that it went so wrong.”

  That made her think of Simon, of their long conversation in the dungeons. Whether the topic was physics or history, it made no difference; trying to do the right thing so often ended in wrong. Kelsea shrank from the idea, for she felt it as the first step on the road to paralysis, an inability to make any decision at all for fear of unforeseen consequence.

  “But me,” Mace continued, “I left. We all left to get you out. We left the kingdom wide open, so the Holy Father could steal it.”

  “You can’t have it both ways, Lazarus. Either the grey cloak stays on always, or it comes off for greater exigency. It was my fault, perhaps, for asking you to be both Queen’s Guard and Regent. I’d imagine the two would often be at cross-purposes.”

  “Do not coddle me, Lady.”

  “Done is done, Lazarus. We both fell down, but you once told me there was nothing to be gained by dwelling on the past. The future, now, that’s everything.”

  She extended her hand again.

  “So what say we forgive each other, so we can keep moving forward?”

  For a long moment, Mace merely stared at her hand, and Kelsea waited, feeling, again, as though she stood before a precipice. The Red Queen’s face surfaced briefly in her mind, then disappeared. It had been a long journey from that edge to this, but something told Kelsea that the journey wasn’t done, and how could she go anywhere without Mace? Guard, voice of doubt, voice of conscience . . . she needed all of these things. Her throat constricted as Mace reached out and took her hand.

  “Wide as God’s ocean,” she whispered. “You remember?”

  “I remember, Lady.” He looked away, blinking, and Kelsea took the opportunity to stretch her arms and shoulders, which were still sore from Brenna’s bonds. The news about the Holy Father roiled in her chest. She would have liked to go back and fix her own mistakes, but the roots of this problem went far deeper, all the way back to the fledgling settlement, the beginnings of the Tearling, where everything had begun to go wrong.

  Tear was able to shuttle through time, she thought defiantly. And there had been times, deep in her fugues, when Kelsea felt as though she were almost doing the same, not just seeing but traveling, as though she were actually there, in Lily’s world, in Katie’s. But she did not control it. Something was still missing.

  “Lazarus, there was a man in the cell beside me, an engineer.”

  “Simon, Lady. We have him.”

  Kelsea smiled, relieved to hear some good news. God only knew what good a printing press would do the Tearling now, but still she was glad that Simon had gotten out.

  “Where is he?”

  “Downstairs. We can barely get Hall to concentrate on anything lately.”

  “Twins,” Kelsea replied, nodding. “I see now.”

  “Why did you want him, anyway?”

  She explained about the printing press, expecting Mace to make a scathing remark about books or reading. But he listened quietly, and when she was done, he remarked, “That’s valuable, Lady.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where is the real Lazarus?”

  His mouth twitched. “I have been . . . reading.”

  “Reading what?”

  “Your books, Lady. I’ve read nine of them now.”

  Kelsea stared at him, genuinely surprised.

  “They’re good, these stories,” Mace continued, his cheeks stained with light color. “They teach the pain of others.”

  “Empathy. Carlin always said it was the great value of fiction, to put us inside the minds of strangers. Lazarus, what of my library?”

  “Still in the Queen’s Wing, Lady, and under siege as well.”

  Kelsea’s hands balled into fists. The idea of the Holy Father touching her books—for a moment, she thought that she would be sick all over the bedspread.

  “Anyway,” Mace continued, clearing his throat, “I see the value of such a press. If we ever get past this, Arliss and I will help Simon acquire his parts.”

  Kelsea smiled, moved. “I missed you, Lazarus. More than I missed the sunlight, even.”

  “Did they harm you, Lady?”

  She grimaced, thinking of the jailor, the beating. Then she was ashame
d. There had been plenty of other people in that dungeon. As a queen with something to trade, Kelsea had enjoyed a privileged position. Those others had had nothing.

  My suffering was real, she insisted.

  Perhaps. But do not let it blind you to those who suffer worse.

  “No permanent harm, Lazarus,” she finally replied. “I will put it behind me.”

  She looked around the room, at the candlelit shadows that flickered on the wall. Somewhere, very distant, she heard people talking.

  “Lady Chilton’s house, you said? I don’t know her.”

  Mace sighed, and Kelsea saw that he was framing his words very carefully. “She is not . . . well, Lady. It will not be a risk-free accommodation.”

  “What’s wrong with her? Is she mentally unstable?”

  “That would be a kind word for it, Lady.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “Because we needed a place to wait out your fugue, and Lady Chilton was willing to take us in. We couldn’t stay in that damned border town; too much attention. This house is large enough to house the people we brought with us, and there are plenty of supplies. Lady Chilton was well prepared for siege when the Mort came through. Mostly, though, we’re here because she owes me a great debt.”

  “What sort of debt?”

  “I saved her life once. She still remembers it.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Her malady is not our business, Lady. She has promised to stay in the upper floors, away from you. I hope to be out of here by tomorrow.”

  Kelsea was still uneasy at this, but she had no options to offer. She looked down at herself and saw that she was still wearing the filthy clothes she had worn out in the desert.

  “I need some clothes.”

  Mace gestured toward the dresser. “Lady Chilton has loaned you a dress.”

  Thinking of the desert reminded Kelsea of the rest of that strange night as well, and she asked, “Is Ewen here?”

  “Yes, Lady. We met up with him in Gin Reach, and a very strange tale he told us too.”

  “Strange, but true.”

  “Ewen torments himself with the idea that he’s not a real Queen’s Guard; ‘mascot’ was the word he used. I sent him to Gin Reach only as a precaution. Never thought anything would happen to him there.”