shyly, then added, “They—the people—think it means the Princess.”
“Christ,” Barty muttered. “All we need.”
“Perhaps it will help, sir,” Coryn suggested. “If the common people think—”
“It’s not the common people we have to worry about,” Barty growled. “Saviors are only useful to people who need saving. People who are fat and happy don’t want anyone meddling with the status quo.”
“But, sir, don’t you think—”
Elyssa listened to them bicker, only half hearing. True Queen. That was an old legend, much older than the Tearling; it went all the way back to pre-Crossing Anglia, to Arthur . . . the True King, the ruler who restored peace to the land and saved them all. No doubt someone had revived the old tale, to give people hope. They surely needed hope from somewhere; with a pulse of misgiving, Elyssa recalled what Lord March had said about the Crithe River, already drying up. Prolonged drought had brought down greater nations than the Tearling.
The True Queen, she thought again . . . the idea not detached now, but threaded with longing. If only I could do that, be that for them! If only I really could save them all!
Then she told herself to stop thinking like a child. She was well past nineteen, the Tear age of ascension, but her mother was not yet fifty, and healthy as a horse to boot. The Tear throne would be Elyssa’s one day, yes, but that day was as distant as dreams.
At the door of her chamber Elyssa dismissed Niya and went inside, relieved to have a few minutes to herself. She fell on her bed, curling her hands beneath her pillow, meaning to nap, to gather her strength for the inevitable moment when her mother’s summons came. But she found she could not rest. She kept seeing Gareth’s mottled skin, the ragged red wounds where his fingernails had been. Elyssa admired the Blue Horizon, for they wanted the same things she had always wanted: everyone taken care of, and justice for the low as well as the great. William Tear’s dream had failed, but it still lived, and Elyssa wanted it for her kingdom, wanted it with all her heart.
At times such as these, she missed Lady Glynn. Lady Glynn had a blessedly practical ability to get to the heart of the problem, and she had a knack for finding solutions in history books. Since her disappearance, there was no one for Elyssa to talk to about these things, about the broader vision she saw for her kingdom. Barty would listen, but his mind had too narrow a focus on Elyssa’s safety; he tended to dismiss all ideas, all courses of action, that would open her to greater danger. Her other guards were too young and, with the possible exception of Carroll, not serious-minded enough. Niya would listen; she always did. But she would not engage. Whatever Niya’s opinions of the future of the kingdom, she guarded them like a miser with his hoard. “I see it all the time,” Gareth had said, and Elyssa envied him. She wanted a better world too, but she could not envision it. After a few fruitless minutes spent trying to sleep, she got up and opened the door.
Niya was still waiting in the hall, talking with Elyssa’s Guard. Niya was not required to wait; technically, after being dismissed, she was free to go to her own room down the hall. But she always waited. As Elyssa emerged into the hallway, the maid and guards stopped gossiping and stood at attention.
“Highness?” Niya asked. “Did you need something?”
“Where have they put that man? Gareth?”
“In the infirmary, Highness.”
“Come on.”
The pack of guards followed them down the hall to the infirmary, a large room near the guard quarters. Elyssa had been quartered in there when she broke her leg riding, and Thomas had once been quarantined for pneumonia when he was little, but most of the time the room catered exclusively to the Queen’s Guard, and it showed. There was a pile of dirty laundry in the near corner. The far wall was clearly being used for overflow from the arms room; it was lined with fletches full of arrows, and several swords covered with nicks and scars leaned there, waiting for the armorer.
“Highness.”
Beale, her mother’s senior medic, bowed before her, and the other two followed. Coryn didn’t bow, but that was only because Elyssa had ordered her own guards not to.
“How is he?”
Beale shook his head, his mouth pinching in disapproval. He might be