The Invasion of the Tearling (The Queen of the Tearling #2)(18)
Kelsea began to protest that she hadn’t been sleepwalking, but then closed her mouth. Something nagged at her memory, something that would shed light. The woman in the Almont! Kelsea had never even learned her name, but six weeks ago she had watched, through the woman’s eyes, as Thorne took her two children. That had not been a dream either; it had been too clear, too sharp. But what Kelsea had just experienced was even sharper. She knew this woman, knew the terrain inside her head as well as that inside her own. Her name was Lily Mayhew, she lived in pre-Crossing America, she was married to a wretch. Lily was no figment of Kelsea’s imagination. Even now, Kelsea was able to picture a whole host of sights she had never seen, wonders lost centuries before in the Crossing: cars, skyscrapers, guns, computers, freeways. And she could now see chronology, the timing of political developments that had always eluded pre-Crossing historians like Carlin, who had no written record to work with. Carlin had known that one of the biggest factors precipitating the Crossing was socioeconomic disparity, but thanks to Lily, Kelsea now saw that the problem had been much uglier. America had descended into true plutocracy. The gap between rich and poor had indeed been steadily widening since the late twentieth century, and by the time Lily was born—2058, Kelsea’s mind produced the year with no trouble at all—more than half of America was unemployed. Corporations had begun to hoard the dwindling supplies of food for sale on the black market. With most of the population either homeless or in unrecoverable debt, desperation and apathy had combined to allow the election of a man named Arthur Frewell . . . and that was a name that Kelsea had heard before, many times, from Carlin, who spoke of President Frewell and his Emergency Powers Act in the same tones she used for Hiroshima or the Holocaust.
“Lady, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Pen. Let me think.” Memory had suddenly assaulted Kelsea: sitting in the library, five or six years ago, while Carlin’s voice echoed waspishly against the walls.
“The Emergency Powers Act! A lesson in creative naming! Honest legislation would have simply called itself martial law and been done with it. Remember this, too, Kelsea: the day you declare martial law is the day you’ve lost the game of government. You may as well simply take off your crown and sneak away into the night.”
According to Carlin, the Emergency Powers Act had been created to deal with a growing—and very real—threat of domestic terrorism. As the economic divide widened, separatist movements proliferated across America. The better world . . . Kelsea had seen that in her vision, blue letters more than thirty feet tall. But what did it mean? She wanted so badly to know. To see. She looked down at her two necklaces, expecting to see the stones shining brightly, as they had when she awoke from that terrible vision in the Almont. But they were dark. The last time she remembered seeing them illuminated had been that night in the Argive Pass when she had brought the flood. For the first time, Kelsea wondered if it was possible that the jewels had somehow burned out. They had worked a great and extraordinary miracle in the Argive, but it seemed to have drained everything from them. Perhaps they were no more than ordinary jewels now. The idea brought relief, followed quickly by fear. The Mort were massing on the border, and any weapon would help, even one as inconsistent and unpredictable as her two jewels. They could not burn out.
“You should go to bed, Lady,” Pen told her.
Kelsea nodded slowly, still turning the extraordinary vision over in her mind. Out of habit, she ran a hand over the row of books, taking comfort in their solidity. Sleepwalking or not, she was not surprised that this was where she’d ended up. Whenever she had a problem to consider, she invariably found herself in the library, for it was easier to think when she was surrounded by books. The clean, alphabetized rows provided something to stare at and consider while her mind wandered away. Carlin, too, had used her library as both solace and refuge, and Kelsea thought Carlin would be pleased that she found the same comfort here. Pinpricks of tears stung her eyes, but she turned away from the bookshelf and led Pen out of the library.
Andalie was waiting for Kelsea in her chamber, though the clock showed that it was well after three in the morning. Her youngest daughter, Glee, was asleep in her arms.
“Andalie, it’s late. You should have gone to bed.”
“I was awake anyway, Lady. My Glee has been sleepwalking again.”
“Ah.” Kelsea slipped off her shoes. “A cunning sleepwalker, I hear. Mace says he found her wandering in the Guard quarters last week.”
“The Mace says many things, Lady.”
Kelsea raised her eyebrows. The tone had been judgmental, but she could not interpret the remark. “Well, I don’t need help tonight. You should go to bed.”
Andalie nodded and left, carrying her small daughter with her. Once she was gone, Pen bowed and said, “Good night, Lady.”
“You don’t have to bow to me, Pen.”
Humor sparked in Pen’s eyes, but he said nothing, only bowed again before retreating into his anteroom and drawing the curtain.
Kelsea took off her dress and tossed it into the clothes hamper. She was glad that Andalie had gone so easily. Sometimes Andalie seemed to feel that it was her duty to help Kelsea get undressed. But Kelsea didn’t think she would ever be comfortable being naked in front of others. Andalie had hung a full-length mirror on the wall beside Kelsea’s dresser, but if she was trying to quietly cure Kelsea of her physical shyness, she had picked the wrong tack. Even this simple device created myriad challenges: Kelsea wanted to look in the mirror, but she didn’t want to, and she always ended up looking, and then hated herself. Her reflection did not please her, especially since moving into the Queen’s Wing, where it seemed she was surrounded by beautiful women. But even stronger was distaste for her mother, Queen Elyssa, who had reportedly spent half of her life preening in front of the glass. So Kelsea had made a compromise: whenever she passed the mirror, she would glance at herself quickly, just long enough to determine that her hair was all right and that she hadn’t wiped ink on her face during the day. Anything more than a peek would be vanity.