Iron Heart

by Nina Varela

  “Oh,” said Crier, worried. In an instant she summoned everything she’d ever read about combat: hand-to-hand, long range, sword fighting, wrestling, guerilla warfare, flipping through the hundreds of books in her mind, combing the pages for anything useful. She was naturally strong and fast, but she had no practical skills. How was it that she could speak fourteen languages but didn’t know how to wield a dagger? A glaring oversight. “I—I don’t know if I’ll be very good at that. But I can try.”

  “He was joking again,” said Bree, but she nudged Crier in the way of humans, elbow to elbow. It felt like camaraderie, like the two of them were sharing something familiar and warm.

  Crier dared to smile at Bree. She smiled back, a crook of the mouth, and Crier felt another door open inside her, revealing this newest room.

  So Crier, Hook, and Bree woke the horses and rode, and everything started out all right.

  The horses, weary, moved much slower than Crier would have, and were much more visible than a single Automa. Crier kept her ears pricked, kept scanning the darkness, the shore, the bluffs, the black water, for any sign that they’d been spotted, but she heard nothing, saw nothing, and the sand beneath the horses’ hooves turned coarser, darker, pebbles and broken shells, and the mile tripped by.

  The Queen’s Cove was small—it wasn’t even marked on most maps of Lake Thea. In practice, it was small enough that Crier nearly rode right past the mouth of it, even though she’d been tracking in her head the distance they’d traveled. She tugged gently on the reins, wheeling her horse around, and waited until Hook and Bree caught up before leading them single file into the cove: through the bottleneck, where two cliffs of stone converged with only a narrow gap between them, creating an inlet.

  When they passed through to the other side, Crier realized why this place was called the Queen’s Cove. Unlike the beach outside, the sand here was white as salt. The inlet was shaped like a keyhole, and standing here at the mouth, the dark water looked like a face, the white sand a crescent-moon crown, the black rocks beyond that a tangle of wild black hair.

  Did you make it here, Leo?

  Is this where you died?

  Only distantly aware of Hook and Bree behind her, Crier slipped off her horse. The ground crunched beneath her boots. Not sand, then—crushed white shells. It was ridiculous that Crier felt like she was walking across a carpet of crushed bones. She studied the great black walls of the cove, trying to think like Leo. If she’d come here to escape a raid, to reunite with her family on a night when nowhere was safe, where would she go? Was there a cave, maybe? Some sort of hiding place in the rocks?

  Suddenly, a scuffling noise. A tiny rain of pebbles from above.

  No.

  “What . . . ?” Hook hissed.

  Time slowed. Crier turned around and it felt like she was moving through water instead of air; a surge of adrenaline had taken over, her mind leaping ahead. Hook and Bree hadn’t dismounted. They were still hovering at the mouth of the cove, watching Crier as if waiting for instruction, because she’d led them here—she’d led them here—and they were following her cues.

  “Run,” said Crier.

  She watched Hook’s eyes widen. The whites of his eyes in the dark.

  There was a sudden pressure in her right shoulder, as if she’d been pinched by an invisible hand. She ignored it. She raced forward, closing the distance between her and her horse in a fraction of a second. She swung back up onto her horse, dug her heels in, “Run,” Hook and Bree seemed to realize what was happening, the bolt of a crossbow glanced off the rocks only a few feet from Hook’s head, “Run,” Crier kept saying, quiet and controlled, “Run, run.”

  A nightmare, to be attacked in the dark. It was hard enough for Crier to see, and she knew the two humans were basically blind. The three of them made it back out of the bottleneck, out of the cove and back onto the lakeshore, but—“On your right!” Crier gasped, catching a flicker of movement, a brief silhouette against the moonlit water. An Automa soldier, a border guard, quick as a jumping spider, there and gone. There. Another one. Two on the beach, a third shooting at them from the cliffs above. “Turn back!” Crier yelled, voice rough with fear, no longer caring what the guards heard. “Turn back!” To the guards, she cried out, “We mean no harm! We’re not crossing!”

  But even through the fear, she knew something was off. Why the crossbows? The border guards weren’t meant to kill on sight. They were meant only to capture. Their prey was common smugglers.

  Was it just cruelty for the sake of cruelty, then?

  Crier wheeled her horse around only to find another guard already waiting, blocking off the beach the way they’d come. They were surrounded. There was nowhere to run. A flash of metal in the moonlight—Bree had drawn her weapon, a short curving blade. She was bent low over the horse’s neck. The animal was panicking, rearing up on its hind legs, Bree clinging on with the hand that wasn’t holding the blade. Hook was shouting something: “We’re Rabunian,” over and over again.

  The snap of a crossbow release. Crier ducked, instincts taking over, and heard the bolt slice through the air where her skull had been an instant before. Somewhere to the left, Bree swore loudly. Crier straightened up just in time to see her hurl something at the guard blocking off their way back to camp—not the curved blade but a smaller weapon, a double-sided dagger. The guard sidestepped it, the dagger burying itself in the sand behind him, but that tiny distraction was enough for Hook and Bree to urge their horses forward, moving as one, efficient like they’d been that day on the riverbank, when they’d taken out the Shades. Crier kicked at her horse’s sides, go go go, and then a braying, gut-wrenching noise rang out across the beach. The scream of a wounded animal.

  Hook’s horse buckled beneath him. Horse and rider hit the sand hard, Hook managing to throw himself sideways just in time to avoid being crushed. But he’d clearly gotten the wind knocked out of him, or maybe even hit his head; he was conscious, gasping, but he wasn’t getting up, he was lying crumpled at the tide line, fallen horse panting beside him, half in and half out of the shallows, where the tiny waves foamed.

  The guard who’d shot at him raised their crossbow again, aiming it straight at Hook. This time, Crier knew they would not hit the horse. Her mind processed all of this, drew from the chaos two facts: Hook was about to die. Bree, his friend, his protector, could not save him.

  Crier leaped from the saddle. Distantly, she registered the pop of a metal bolt fired.

  She landed in a catlike crouch in the shallow tide. In front of Hook. There was a terrible sensation in her back, just a hand’s width away from her spine. It was similar to the pressure she’d felt in her shoulder earlier, like she’d been pinched, but this didn’t feel like a pinch. This felt like she’d been punched by a giant. Crier lurched forward under the force of it, just barely catching herself before she toppled onto Hook. Bracing herself with both arms. Pebbles and shells beneath her hands. The lake water was cold, lapping at her wrists. It felt like icy manacles.

  “Ayla?” someone was saying in a high, frightened voice.

  The sick pressure in her back was narrowing. Sharpening. Two points. The first, in the shoulder, wasn’t so bad. A twinge, a pulsing ache. The second—the second—

  Crier lost her balance. She felt very fatigued all of a sudden, as if she hadn’t slept for over seventeen days, which would be a new record for her. She was sitting in the cold water now. Her entire lower half was soaked. Was she still upright? Yes, but not of her own doing. Someone else’s arm was tight across her shoulders, holding her up.

  Someone—maybe the same someone—was saying something. Yelling something. “We weren’t even trying to cross. We’re Rabunian. We’ve done nothing wrong.” Loud in her ear. “You shot her. You shot her.”

  “You’re next, maggot.” Another voice. “Secure the Varnian. The blade. Watch out, we’ve got a wild one. Wicked arm.” Coming closer. “Check the girl’s face. Could be a disguise.”

  Closer sti
ll. Crier heard a sort of wet, rasping noise, and realized after a moment that it was her own breathing. That was unusual. What would cause that? Water in her lungs? The pressure in her back was turning to white-hot pain, like someone was holding a lit torch to her flesh. She squirmed, trying to get away from it. Stop burning me. She imagined her skin scorching, melting. What did Made skin look like when it melted? Stop. Please stop, it hurts.

  “Ayla, don’t move—no! Don’t touch her!”

  A rough grip on her chin, jerking her head back. Crier blinked up at the night sky, vision blurring into fractals, the stars smeared into long silver threads. She tried to breathe. The water in her lungs was rising. High tide. Something to do with the moon.

  “No—no, it can’t be—”

  “Captain?”

  Her back hurt. She coughed and tasted something dark and oily on her tongue.

  “We have to get out of here—she didn’t see our faces—”

  “Captain, what—?”

  “This girl is the sovereign’s daughter. You shot the sovereign’s daughter.”

  Some part of Crier knew that was significant, but the rest of her was so tired, and she slipped into unconsciousness the way a body, drowning, slips beneath the surface of the ocean and sinks down, down, down.

  Crier woke to a wash of red-gold light.

  She cracked one eye open and immediately regretted it, wincing. Sunlight. Blinding sunlight. She took a deep breath, bracing herself, and opened her other eye, letting both adjust. A blanket of white snow swam into focus, and Crier became aware of other things: She was lying on her stomach. The ground under her cheek was rough, sharp-edged. Not snow. Shells.

  Her back felt like one big pulsing bruise. The pain flickered to life at the edges of her awareness like fire devouring parchment, and Crier wished she could go back to being unconscious. There was one point in particular, just off her spine, where the pain was burning from beneath the surface of her skin, a deep ache. She cataloged the rest of her body, wiggling her toes and fingers. Her spine was not broken, then; she had control over all her extremities.

  “You awake?”

  She froze. It took a moment for the voice to register as Hook’s. “I think so,” Crier said, and started to roll over, but was stopped by a hand on her arm.

  “Careful,” Hook said. “Don’t move. Your back’s messed up bad.”

  “It hurts,” she whispered, feeling very young.

  “You got shot twice. Once in the shoulder, once lower down. The first bolt just glanced off your shoulder blade, the wound’s not too deep, but the second one’s nasty.”

  Crier blinked, trying to remember. It felt like her skull was full of water, heavy and dark, brain sloshing around in it. “Who . . . ?”

  “The border guards,” said a second voice. Bree. She sounded . . . angry? “Got you pretty good. Anyone else would be dead right now.”

  Something sharp and cold in her memory, a pinprick of fear. What happened? What was she forgetting? “How did we escape?” Crier asked. Slowly, she pushed herself up on one elbow so she could see them. Hook was crouched a couple feet away, staring at her, eyes wary. Behind him, Bree sat in the crushed white shells, spinning her double-sided dagger between her fingers. The twin blades winked in the sunlight. White shells—were they back in the Queen’s Cove?

  She bent her arm awkwardly to touch the wound in the middle of her back, gauging how bad it was. The flesh was warmer than usual, her body working to heal itself. Her fingers came away wet with violet blood.

  Her violet blood.

  Hook opened his mouth, but Bree cut him off. “How did we escape?” she sneered. “Wasn’t too hard, actually. The guards got a bit panicked when they realized they’d just shot Lady Crier. Gave us the upper hand.”

  “No,” Crier said automatically, even though she knew it was futile. “No, I’m—I’m not—”

  “Is it true?” Hook asked. Now Crier understood why he looked so wary. Her ally, her very first maybe-friend. Oh gods.

  “Of course it’s true,” Bree said. “I told you she couldn’t be trusted, I told you I thought I saw her eyes flash gold—”

  “Bree,” said Hook. “Give it a minute.” To Crier, he said again, “Is it true? Are you the sovereign’s daughter? Lady Crier?”

  Crier fought the urge to look away, to hide her face. She would not hide from this. What was it Ayla had said once? I’ll take it with my head up. “Yes. Though I no longer claim that title. I’m just Crier now.”

  “As if that matters,” Bree spat, eyes flaring. “As if that changes anything.”

  “Bree,” said Hook. “Not helpful.”

  “My sincerest apologies,” she said, but went back to sharpening her blade in silence.

  Hook sighed, dragging a hand over his face. Then he looked back at Crier, and where she had expected to see fury, or hatred, in his eyes, there was only—exhaustion. Regret, maybe.

  She asked, “Are you going to kill me?”

  He physically recoiled, eyes going huge. “What?” he said. “No. First of all, the only thing I kill in cold blood are monsters. Second of all . . .” He peered at her, and she felt studied, like she’d felt so many times with Kinok and the sovereign, but this was different. Under Kinok’s gaze she had felt like a specimen. Cross-sectioned, her insides laid bare in the worst way, for the Scyre to pick apart. Under the sovereign’s gaze she felt like her existence itself was a test and she was failing. Under Hook’s gaze, even now, she felt like a person. A person, messy but whole. “Second of all,” Hook said. “You saved my life.”

  Oh.

  “I won’t kill you,” Hook told her. “But our paths diverge here. I’m sorry, but—my people come first. Every leech in Rabu’s on the lookout for you. Your face is everywhere. I won’t have any of mine dying for the daughter of the leech king. I can’t. I can’t—lose anyone else.”

  She nodded, staring down at the crushed white shells, not trusting herself to speak. Hook got to his feet and Bree followed. Bree stalked off without another word, boots crunching toward the mouth of the cove, but Hook lingered.

  “Crier,” he said.

  Crier couldn’t look up. She couldn’t. Her throat ached, even though she had not been wounded there.

  Hook tossed a dagger at her feet.

  “Find Tourmaline,” he said. “Take the Scyre down. And—don’t die, yeah?”

  “Same to you,” Crier managed.

  And she listened to him walk away, until even her Automa ears could no longer pick up his footsteps over the wind and the whispering lake.

  She lay there for hours, waiting for the Automa healing to do its work, for her flesh to knit itself back together again. By nightfall she wasn’t fully healed, but she was able to move without getting dizzy. That was enough for now. The fear of another attack from the border guards forced her to her feet. She walked slowly in the dark, her back twinging with every step. Alone, helpless but for the dagger, she had no plan other than: find shelter.

  The guards, terrified they’d accidentally killed the sovereign’s daughter, must have fled. Crier crossed into Varn undetected. To the south, there was a juncture where Lake Thea fed into the River Merra. Get to the river, Crier told herself, thoughts wheeling like crows. The pain was worsening, and it had become difficult to focus on more than one thing at a time. So she focused on the one thing. Get to the river. Find shelter. The riverbanks would be lined with trees, a thick forest. Plenty of hiding places there. Get to the river. She could clean her wounds, too. She could wash the blood and grime off her skin. She could wade into the water neck-deep and let the cold settle into her bones.

  The moon had long since peaked when she finally reached the mouth of the River Merra. She heard it long before she saw it: the rush of moving water. Then she came to the tree line, thin saplings giving way to older trees, roots sunk into the dark, rich soil, the undergrowth much more alive than the forests to the north. Instead of drying pine needles and brambles, there was a carpet of newborn grass and
leafy little plants. The trees were green with moss all the way up to the first branches. Crier ran her fingers along the trunks, wet and spongy beneath her touch. Get to the river.

  There—a gap in the trees. An odd shimmer. Moonlight on water.

  Crier’s feet weighed a hundred pounds each. She was reminded of a story—something about a prince who traveled a hundred leagues on foot in shoes made of iron and lead. It was the only way he could save his lover, the prince of a neighboring kingdom. A witch’s bargain. Something like that. The trees parted and Crier staggered out onto the riverbank, a sharp drop-off, water tumbling below. So close. Her body didn’t require water to survive, but gods, she wanted to drink.

  Half delirious, she didn’t hear them coming until it was too late.

  Until she was staring down the shaft of an arrow pointed directly at her forehead.

  Bandits.

  BEWARE THE MAD QUEEN OF VARN

  The Mad Queen, the Bloodsucker, Junn the Monstrous. Keep your head down, traveler. The Mad Queen eats men whole; the Mad Queen will drink your blood like wine. Keep your face hidden, traveler. The Mad Queen rules from a throne of human skulls; the Mad Queen sleeps in robes of human skin. Keep eyes on your children, traveler. The Mad Queen will too.

  BEWARE THE MONSTER OF THE MINES

  Village Taker, King Killer. The Mad Queen took the throne with her bare hands; she sank her teeth into it; she will do the same to you. Be wary, traveler. The Mad Queen will grind up your bones and drink them like heartstone tea. Dark magick, blood magick. Be wary, traveler. Many wish to look upon her beauty. The Mad Queen is beautiful like a she-demon, a shimmering omen. If you see her, do not run. Pray.

  BEWARE THE BONE-EATING QUEEN!

  —PROPAGANDA PAMPHLETS DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT RABU AND VARN BY UNKNOWN SOURCE

  11

  The next day, the handmaidens didn’t show up to Ayla’s quarters. Neither did Lady Dear. Ayla waited until the sun was middling in the morning sky before accepting that she would have to forage for her own breakfast. Stomach rumbling, she opened the bedroom door—only to come face-to-face with Queen Junn.