The Queen of the Tearling

  “I just thought—”

  “They don’t train doctors in magic, Pen, only healers, and most of them are frauds anyway. We just have to wait.”

  Kelsea could hear each of them breathing above her, Mace heavy and Pen shallow. Her senses had sharpened; emerging from the depths one layer at a time, she could hear a man singing softly and the whinny of a horse some distance away.

  “Did she bring the flood, sir?”

  “God knows, Pen.”

  “Did the old Queen ever do anything like that?”

  “Elyssa?” Mace began to laugh. “Christ, I watched Elyssa wear both jewels for years, and their most extraordinary feat was getting stuck in her dress. We were in the middle of a reception for the Cadarese, and it took us thirty minutes to untangle the damned things with her modesty intact.”

  “I think the Queen brought the flood. I think it took everything out of her.”

  “She’s breathing, Pen. She’s alive. Let’s not look beyond that.”

  “Then why doesn’t she wake?”

  Pen’s voice was filled with something close to grief, and Kelsea realized that it was time now, that she couldn’t make them wait any longer. Breaking through the dark warmth in her head, she opened her eyes. Once again she found herself in a blue tent; time might almost have doubled back to that morning when she’d woken and seen the Fetch sitting there.

  “Ah, thank Christ,” Mace muttered above her. Kelsea’s eyes were drawn first to a bright red patch at his shoulder. His uniform was torn and stained with blood. Pen, kneeling beside him, had no visible wounds, but Kelsea still found Pen the graver case; his eyes were circled dark, the rest of his face ghost-white.

  Both of them reached to help her sit up, Pen for her hands and Mace behind her back. Kelsea expected to have a headache, but as she sat up, she found instead that her head felt wonderfully clear, miles wide. She reached up and found both necklaces, still around her neck.

  “Don’t worry; we didn’t dare touch them,” Mace told her dryly.

  “I hardly dare touch them.”

  “How do you feel, Lady?”

  “Good. Too good. How long did I sleep?”

  “A day and a half.”

  “Are you both all right?”

  “We’re fine, Lady.”

  She pointed to Mace’s wounded shoulder. “I see someone finally got through your guard.”

  “There were three of them, Lady, and one was switch-handed. If Venner finds out, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “What about the women?”

  Mace and Pen looked at each other uncomfortably.

  “Speak up!”

  “Three lost,” Mace replied gruffly.

  “But you saved twenty-two, Majesty,” Pen added, throwing Mace a dark look that, mercifully, he missed. “Twenty-two women. They’re fine, and so are the others. They’re on their way home.”

  “What of the Guard?”

  “We lost Tom, Lady.” Mace wiped his forehead with one palm. It was a commonplace gesture, but very expressive in Mace’s case; Kelsea thought it was the closest he would let himself come to grief. But she hadn’t known Tom well, so she wouldn’t shed tears.

  “What else?”

  “It only stopped raining early this morning, Lady. We were waiting for you to wake up, but I had to make some decisions.”

  “Your decisions are usually acceptable, Lazarus.”

  “I sent the caravan back. There were a couple of children left motherless, but a woman from their village said that she would look after them.”

  Kelsea grabbed his arm, clutching just beneath the elbow. “Is he all right?”

  Pen’s brow furrowed, but Mace gave her an irritated look; he knew exactly who she meant. She braced herself, anticipating a lecture, but Mace was a good man; he took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh. “He’s fine, Lady. They all left yesterday, shortly after dawn.”

  Kelsea’s heart sank, but that was nothing Mace needed to know, so she stretched, eliciting several satisfying cracks in her back. As she pushed herself to her feet, she caught the two guards giving each other a hard glance.

  “What?”

  “There are things to deal with outside, Majesty.”

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  Weather could change everything. They’d camped in Thorne’s spot, right at the base of the valley that formed the Argive. The entire pass was washed in sunlight, and Kelsea saw that the ravine that had seemed so forbidding at night was actually extraordinarily beautiful, a stark, spare beauty built of bare land and white rock. The walls of the pass gleamed like marble above Kelsea’s head.

  Her guard was seated around the remains of Thorne’s campfire, but upon her approach they stood up, and to her surprise, all of them bowed, even Dyer. Kelsea’s black army uniform was streaked and stained with mud, and her hair was undoubtedly a fright, but they didn’t seem to care about that. They stood waiting, and after a moment Kelsea realized they weren’t waiting for orders from Mace. They were waiting for her.

  “Where are the cages? The caravan?”

  “I sent it back the way it came, Lady. The prisoners couldn’t walk all the way home and most of the mules survived, so we busted off the tops of the cages and turned them into rolling wagons so they could ride comfortably. They should be well into the Almont by now, heading home.”

  Kelsea nodded, finding this a good solution. Splintered pieces of the roofs and bars still littered the bottom of the pass. At the far side of the ravine, a line of smoke curled into the air. “What’s on fire over there?”

  “Tom, Lady,” Mace replied, his voice tight. “No family, and it’s what he would have wanted. No ceremony.”

  Kelsea looked around at the group, marking a second man missing. “Where’s Fell?”

  “I sent him back to New London, Lady, with several women who looked like they could use a shopping trip in the big city.”

  “That’s tasteful, Lazarus. They could have died, and you sent them back to spread propaganda.”

  “It is what it is, Lady. And Fell needed to get indoors anyway; he took some sort of lung illness from the wet.”

  “Is anyone else injured?”

  “Only Elston’s pride, Lady,” Kibb piped up.

  Elston gave his friend a ferocious glare and then looked down at his feet. “Forgive me, Majesty. I failed to take Arlen Thorne. He got away clean.”

  “You’re forgiven, Elston. Thorne’s a tough mark.”

  Bitter laughter erupted from the ground. Looking through several sets of legs, Kelsea saw a man, bound at the wrists, sitting beside the campfire.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Stand, you!” Dyer growled, prodding the prisoner with his foot. The man rose wearily, as though he had a ton of granite between his shoulders. Kelsea’s brow quirked, something rippling in her memory. The prisoner wasn’t old, perhaps thirty or thirty-five, but his hair was already mostly grey. He looked at her with vacant apathy.

  “Javel, Lady. A Gate Guard, and the only survivor who didn’t escape. He didn’t try to run.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do with him?”

  “He’s a traitor, Lady,” Dyer told her. “He’s already confessed to opening the Keep Gate for the Graham heir.”

  “On Thorne’s orders?”

  “So he says, Lady.”

  “How did you extract that information?”

  “Extract? Christ, Lady, we didn’t have to do a thing. He would’ve screamed it in the town square if he could.”

  Kelsea turned back to the prisoner. In spite of the sun’s warmth, a nasty shiver went down her spine. This man looked just as Carroll had looked in the clearing: all hope gone, and something inside him already dead. “How did a Gate Guard get mixed up with Thorne?”

  Mace shrugged. “His wife was shipped six years ago. I’m guessing Thorne offered to get her back.”

  Kelsea’s memory was tugging harder now, and she moved closer, signaling to Coryn and Dyer to back off. The pris
oner was clearly no threat to anyone; indeed, he looked like he wanted to do nothing more than fall down dead where he stood.

  “He’s a traitor, Lady,” Dyer repeated. “There’s only one fate for a traitor.”

  Kelsea nodded, knowing this was true. But out of the blur of that night, which now seemed centuries ago, her mind suddenly dug up a vivid picture: this man, an axe in his hand, swinging wildly at the bars of the cage. She waited for a moment, listening, waiting for Carlin to speak up, to tell her what to do. But there was nothing. She hadn’t heard Carlin’s voice in a long time. She considered the prisoner for a moment longer, then turned to Dyer. “Take him back to the Keep and put him in a cell.”

  “He’s a traitor, Majesty! Make an example of him, and the next bastard Thorne asks will think twice!”

  “No,” Kelsea replied firmly. Her sapphires gave a light throb, the first thing she’d felt from them since waking. “Take him back, and go easy on him. He won’t try to flee.”

  Dyer’s jaw clenched for a moment, but then he nodded. “Lady.”

  Kelsea had expected Mace to disagree, but he remained oddly silent. “Can we go now?”

  “A moment more, Lady.” Mace held out an arm, watching while Dyer led Javel away, behind a boulder. “We’ve business to settle here. Business of the Guard.”

  Elston and Kibb leaped across the grass and laid hold of Mhurn, who’d already begun to bolt at Mace’s words. Elston lifted him bodily off the ground, letting him struggle against the air, while Kibb began to bind his legs.

  “What—”

  “Our traitor, Lady.”

  Kelsea’s mouth dropped open. “Are you certain?”

  “Quite certain, Lady.” Mace picked up a saddlebag from the ground and dug through its contents until he produced a leather pouch, carefully rolled and sealed, the way one would pack diamonds or other valuables. Unrolling the pouch, he rifled through it and held one hand out for her inspection. “See here.”

  Kelsea moved closer, peering at the substance in his palm. It was a fine white powder, almost like flour. “Opium?”

  “Not just opium, Lady,” Coryn remarked from the campfire. “High-grade morphiate. Someone took a lot of care to cook this stuff. We found needles as well.”

  Kelsea whirled around, horrified. “Heroin?”

  “Not quite, Majesty. Not even the Cadarese have been able to synthesize heroin. But they will one day, I have no doubt.”

  Kelsea closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. When William Tear had sailed from America to create his kingdom on a hill, he’d managed to eradicate narcotics for a brief time. But the drug trade had clawed its way back; humanity would never stop wanting to ride that particular carousel. Heroin . . . it was the worst development Kelsea could imagine.

  “How did you find out?”

  “Arliss. He and Thorne compete in several markets. Not an ounce of narcotic moves through New London without going through Thorne’s backyard, Lady. It’s the easiest thing in the world, to suborn an addict by cutting off his supply.”

  “You had no idea of his addiction?”

  “If I had, Lady, he would have been gone.”

  Kelsea turned and approached Mhurn, who still dangled within Elston’s massive arms while Kibb bound his wrists.

  “Well, Mhurn, anything to say?”

  “Nothing, Majesty.” He refused to meet her gaze. “Nothing to excuse.”

  Kelsea stared at him, this man who’d smuggled an assassin into the Queen’s Wing, who’d stuck a knife in her back, and found herself remembering that night by the campfire, the tears in his eyes during the ugly scene with Lady Andrews. Carlin had no sympathy for addicts; an addict, she’d told Kelsea, was innately and strategically weak, since his addiction could always be used to break him. Carlin’s voice might have fallen silent in Kelsea’s mind, but she still knew what Carlin would say: Mhurn was a traitor, and he deserved execution.

  Barty had been more lenient about such failings. Once, he’d explained to Kelsea that addiction was like having a crack in your life. “It’s a deep crack, and deadly, Kel, but you can build guards around it. You can put up a fence.”

  Staring at Mhurn now, Kelsea felt no anger, only pity. It would be nearly impossible to conceal such an addiction, since Mace saw everything. Mhurn must have been in constant withdrawal almost every day of his life.

  “Do you confess to treachery, Mhurn?”

  “Yes.”

  Kelsea looked around and saw that the rest of the Guard had closed in around them, their gazes cold. She turned back to Mhurn, anxious to forestall them, to prolong his life. “When did you become addicted?”

  “What does it matter, at this late date?”

  “It matters.”

  “Two years ago.”

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Mace roared, unable to contain himself. “A Queen’s Guard with a drug habit? Where did you suppose that would end?”

  “Here.”

  “You’re a dead man.”

  “I’ve been dead since the invasion, sir. It’s only the past few years I’ve begun to rot.”

  “What a load of shit.”

  “You’ve no idea what I’ve lost.”

  “We’ve all lost something, you self-pitying ass.” Cold fury laced Mace’s voice. “But we’re Queen’s Guards. We don’t sell our honor. We don’t abandon our vows.”

  He turned to Kelsea. “This is best handled out here, Lady, among ourselves. Give us permission to finish him.”

  “Not yet. Elston, are you getting tired?”

  “Are you kidding, Lady? I could hold this faithless bastard all day.” Elston flexed his arms, causing Mhurn to groan and struggle. There was an audible snap as one of his ribs broke.

  “Enough.”

  Elston subsided. Kibb had finished tying Mhurn’s hands and feet, and now Mhurn merely dangled from Elston’s arms like a bound doll, his blond hair hanging limply in his face. Kelsea suddenly recalled something he had said that night out in the Reddick Forest: that the crimes of soldiers came from two sources—situation or leadership. The other prisoner, the Gate Guard, had picked up an axe in the last extremity and tried to right his wrong, but Mhurn had not. His was a difficult situation, to be sure, but was Kelsea’s leadership also to blame? From Mace, she knew that Mhurn was a gifted swordsman, not quite of Pen’s caliber, but impressive. He was also one of the most levelheaded of the guards, the one Mace trusted when something needed to be done tactfully. It was a terrible loss of a valuable man, and try as she might, Kelsea could feel no anger, only sorrow and the certainty that this tragedy could have been avoided somehow, that she had missed something crucial along the way.

  “Coryn, do you know how to inject him with that stuff?”

  “I’ve injected men with antibiotics before, Lady, but I know little of morphia. I might as easily kill him.”

  “Well, that’s neither here nor there now. Give him a decent dose.”

  “Lady!” Mace barked. “He doesn’t deserve that!”

  “My decision, Lazarus.”

  Kelsea watched with covert interest as Coryn went to work, lighting a small flame and heating the white powder in one of his medical tins. As it liquefied, the morphine collapsed into itself like a tiny building. But when Coryn had filled one of his syringes, Kelsea turned away, unable to watch him give Mhurn the injection.

  “All done, Lady.”

  Turning back, she marked the hard angles of Mhurn’s face, softened now, and the hazy look in those cold, beautiful eyes. His entire body appeared to have gone limp. How could a drug work so quickly?

  “What happened to you in the Mort invasion, Mhurn?”

  “You heard me tell it, Majesty.”

  “I’ve heard two versions now, Mhurn, and neither was complete. What happened to you?”

  Mhurn stared dreamily over her shoulder. When he spoke, his voice had a disconnected quality that made Kelsea’s stomach clench. “We lived in Concord, Lady, on the shores of the Crithe. Our village was isolate
d; we didn’t even know the Mort were coming until a warning rider came through. But then we could see the shadow on the horizon . . . the smoke from their fires . . . the vultures that followed them in the sky. We fled our village, but we weren’t quick enough. My daughter was sick, my wife had never learned to ride, and at any rate we had only one horse. They caught us halfway between the Crithe and the Caddell. My wife was bad, Lady, but Alma, my daughter . . . she was taken by Ducarte himself, dragged along in the train of the Mort army for miles. I found her body months later, in the piles of dead left by the Mort after they withdrew from the Keep Lawn. She was covered with bruises . . . worse than bruises. I see her always, Lady. Except when I’m on the needle . . . that’s the only time I’m blind.

  “So you’re wrong, sir,” he continued, turning to Mace, “if you think I care how I die, or when.”

  “You never told us any of that,” Mace snapped back.

  “Can you blame me?”

  “Carroll would never have taken you into the Guard if he’d known you were so fucked in the head.”

  Kelsea had heard enough. She reached down and pulled out her knife, the knife that Barty had given her so long ago. Barty had been a Queen’s Guard once; would he have wanted this?

  Mace’s jaw dropped as she straightened. “Lady, any of us would gladly do this for you! You don’t have to—”

  “Of course I do, Lazarus. This is a traitor to the Crown. I’m the Crown.”

  Mhurn looked up, his dilated pupils gradually focusing on her knife, and he smiled hazily. “They don’t understand, Lady, but I do. You’ve done me a kindness, and now you mean to do me an honor as well.”

  Kelsea’s eyes filled with tears. She looked up at Elston, seeing his huge form as a blur. “Hold him steady, Elston. I won’t be able to do this twice.”

  “Done, Lady.”

  Kelsea dashed the tears away, grabbed a handful of Mhurn’s blond hair, and yanked his head upright. She spotted his carotid artery, pulsing gently at the corner of his throat. Barty always said to avoid the carotid, if possible; an imprecise cut would end up covering the cutter in blood. She gripped her knife tightly, suddenly sure that this was what Barty would have wanted: for her to do a clean job. She placed the edge of the blade flat against the right side of Mhurn’s throat, then drew it across in a quick, sharp movement. Warm crimson spurted over her knife hand but Kelsea ignored it, holding Mhurn’s head up long enough to see the widening red smile, the blood beginning to sheet down his throat. His blue eyes stared dreamily into hers for another minute, then she let go of his hair and backed away, watching his head sink slowly toward his chest.