The Fate of the Tearling (The Queen of the Tearling #3)(4)

The priest had been missing for more than a month, and the trail had gone cold. The Fetch’s people were spread out over northern and central Mortmesne, but he would need to get some of them back. Lear and Morgan, perhaps Howell. The Fetch had spent a long time crafting the rebellion that now raged across Mortmesne, but the crown was paramount. They would all need to hunt for it. And then there was the girl—

He sensed eyes on his back, turned, and felt the chill of the wind penetrate more deeply into his bones. The slope behind him was covered with small children, white faces and dark eyes. Bare feet.

“God,” he murmured. The night seemed filled with phantoms, and he heard Jonathan Tear’s voice, centuries away but very close.

We won’t fail, Gav. How can we fail?

“We did fail,” the Fetch whispered. “Great God, we failed so badly.”

He turned and continued down the slope, too fast for caution, almost running now. Several times he nearly lost his balance, but he could not get down soon enough. As he reached the bottom of the slope, he broke into a sprint, tearing across the foothills toward the copse where he had tethered his horse.

On the hillside far above, the children waited silently, a still comber that covered the wide slope. They breathed steadily, a hoarse rattle that echoed against the rocks, but no plume of air was visible between their lips. Row Finn stood at their forefront, watching the tiny figure below. Once upon a time, Gavin had been the easiest man in the world to manipulate. Those days were long gone, as was Gavin himself, his real identity subsumed and steeped in the mythology of the man they called the Fetch. That man would be real trouble, but Row remained sanguine as he surveyed the pale ocean of children around him. They always did as they were told, and they were eternally, unrelentingly hungry. They waited only for his command.

“The crown,” he whispered, feeling a great excitement course through him, excitement he recognized from long ago: the hunt was beginning, and at the end there lay the promise of blood. He had waited almost three hundred years.

“Go.”





Book I





Chapter 1




The Regent




Examined in hindsight, the Glynn Regency was not really a regency at all. The role of a royal regent is simple: guard the throne and provide a barrier to usurpers in the rightful ruler’s absence. As a natural warrior, the Mace was uniquely suited for such a task, but the warrior’s exterior also concealed a shrewd political mind and, perhaps more surprisingly, a devoted belief in the Glynn Queen’s vision. In the wake of the abortive second Mort invasion, the Regent did not sit quietly, waiting for his mistress to return; rather, he bent all of his considerable talents toward her vision, her Tearling.

—The Early History of the Tearling, as told by Merwinian



For a brief period, Kelsea had made a practice of opening her eyes whenever the wagon hit a bump. It seemed as good a way as any to mark the passage of time, to watch the landscape change in small flashes. But now the rain had stopped, and the bright sunlight made her head ache. When the wagon jolted her awake again, from what seemed an endless nap, she worked to keep her eyes tightly closed, listening to the movement of horses all around her, the jingle of bridles and the clop of hooves.

“Not so much as a piece of silver,” a man on her left grumbled in Mort.

“We get a salary,” another man replied.

“Our salary’s tiny.”

“That’s true enough,” a third voice broke in. “My house needs a new roof. Our pittance won’t cover that.”

“Stop griping!”

“Well, what of you? Do you know why we’re going home empty-handed?”

“I’m a soldier. It’s not my job to know things.”

“I heard something,” the first voice muttered darkly. “I heard that all of the generals and their pet colonels, Ducarte on down, are getting their share.”

“What share? There’s no plunder!”

“They don’t need plunder. She’s going to pay them directly, from the treasury, and leave the rest of us hanging out here in the wind!”

“That can’t be true. Why would she pay them for nothing?”

“Who knows why the Crimson Lady does anything?”

“That’s enough of that! Do you want the lieutenant to hear?”

“But—”

“Shut up!”

Kelsea listened for another minute, but heard nothing more, and so she tipped her head back into the sun. Despite her persistent headache, the light felt good on her bruises, as though it were permeating her skin to heal the tissue beneath. She hadn’t been near a mirror in quite some time, but her nose and cheeks were still swollen to the touch, and she had a fairly good idea of how she looked.

We’ve come full circle, she thought, stifling a dark chuckle as the wagon hit another bump. I see Lily, I become Lily, and now I have her bruises to match.

Kelsea had been captive for ten days: six spent tied to a pole in a Mort tent, and then the last four chained in this wagon. Armor-clad men on horseback surrounded her, precluding any thought of escape, but the horsemen weren’t Kelsea’s real problem right now. The problem sat on the far side of the wagon, staring at her, his eyes narrow slits against the sun.

Kelsea had no idea where the Mort had found this man. He was not old, no more than Pen’s age perhaps, with a meticulously groomed beard that wrapped like a strap beneath his chin. He didn’t have the bearing of a head jailor; in fact, Kelsea was beginning to wonder whether he had any official capacity at all. Was it possible that someone had simply tossed him the keys to Kelsea’s bonds and put him in charge? The more she considered it, the more she was sure that this was exactly what had happened. She had not had even a glimpse of the Red Queen since that morning in the tent. The entire operation had a distinctly improvised feeling.