Iron Heart

by Nina Varela

  Halfway through her journey, Hana was caught in a snowstorm and became hopelessly lost. She stumbled for days across the ice fields, starving and freezing, and she sang:

  “Sister Winter, Sister Winter,

  I am lost and scared to sleep.

  I have kept my lantern glowing

  But the dark is very deep.”

  Hana was so small, and the tundra was so big. Winter didn’t hear her.

  Finally, Hana was too weak to keep going. She lay down in the snow, weeping for her mama, and she sang:

  “Sister Winter, Sister Winter,

  Hear me knocking at your door.

  Hear me whispering your name.

  Hear my footsteps cross your floor.”

  She settled deeper into her snow bed. She looked up at the night sky and tried to think of good things: Mama and Papa and their little cottage, their hearth fire, their mud-cobbled lives. The taste of bread and honey. Winter’s barefoot dancing, the flash of her grin. Hana thought of all those things, and the cold sank into her bones, and she sang:

  “Dearest Winter, sweetest Winter,

  I feel your kiss now at my core.

  I will sleep with you till morning,

  Then I’ll sleep forevermore.”

  Hana sang until her throat was raw and her skin webbed with frost and her mouth too cold for words. Slowly, the heat left her body. The blood froze in her veins. Her heartbeat faded to a moth-wing flutter, and then silence.

  Snow fell down to cover her body like pyre ash. The Northern Wind, who had sung along with Hana so many years before, swept over her and played with her black hair one last time, and then carried on westward to the mountains.

  The Northern Wind told Winter what he’d seen out on the tundra.

  He braced himself for her howling, earth-splitting rage.

  But Winter was already gone. She could cross entire ice fields in the span of a breath, and she was leagues away.

  She found Hana’s body easily. The girl was dead, but a tiny spark had survived in the core of her, the last pinprick of heat in a cold hearth. You did not burn so bright for so long without such a spark. Winter didn’t know much about humans—the soft golden years she’d spent with Hana were only brief moments compared to all the millennia that had come before—but she knew that. She had seen that spark once or twice before in the kindest, warmest souls.

  Winter, of the snowbank breast and icy dark heart, whose touch made green things wither with frost, knelt down beside Hana in the snow. She cupped Hana’s face in her hands and pressed her frozen mouth to Hana’s forehead. She let her breath fan out across Hana’s body.

  In the purple dusk, between the snow and the rising moon, the spark in Hana’s heart flickered and flared.

  Without opening her eyes, Hana sang:

  “Dearest Winter, sweetest Winter,

  I hear you knocking at my door.

  I hear you whispering my name.

  I hear your footsteps cross my floor.”

  Winter took her hand.

  Together they crossed the tundra to the Steorran Sea and fetched the medicine that would save Mama’s life. Together they crossed all the way back. Together they helped Mama drink the medicine, and they helped Papa when he broke his shinbone, and they helped sow the fields and tend the garden and reap the summer harvest for years to come. Winter still brought snow down to blanket the mountains, and she still brushed the barley and cabbages and all the wildflowers with her killing touch, but her heart had shifted. There was a darkness in death, but Winter knew from Hana that it wasn’t emptiness or shadows or the absolute black between the stars. Death was dark soil. Death was a soft and ancient womb.

  After a great many years together, it was finally time for Hana to die. She was ready for it. She lay in her bed and waited. Her starlit heart burned steady.

  Winter held her as she died.

  Winter carried Hana’s body out of their house, past the garden and the barley fields. Past the river that had long since carried Mama’s and Papa’s ashes. Past the foothills and up into the mountains. She laid Hana down in a cradle of stone.

  The mountains wrapped their arms around Hana.

  They were one.

  That persistent spark, all that was left of Hana, sank deep into the stone. It was not her, but it was the old ache of her. The bright of her. The spirit of her, which would glow until even the mountains died.

  And Winter sang:

  “Dark-heart lover, death-part lover,

  Lay you with me in the snow.

  May you miss me dear each summer

  May your bones be stone below.”

  13

  They pushed on through the forest slowly. Ayla knew Crier was doing everything she could to stay strong and steady, to stay awake. At last, they saw a grand manor house in the distance, and Ayla’s pulse kicked up as they got closer. What if the house belonged to one of the Automae who’d taken Nightshade? This could be a place to sleep for the night . . . or it could be a great way to lock themselves up with a monster.

  But the same was true for any nearby estate, and Crier was flagging quickly. They’d just have to risk it.

  The estate was small, as estates went, with only a few outbuildings. There was a grassy courtyard lined with trees, the same short twisted trees that dotted the shrubland and the hills of Varn. Beyond that, the manor house, which was vast but simple, built from sand-colored stone. Ayla could see a carriage house and what looked like a garden, fruit trees bowing their naked limbs.

  Ayla and Crier paused at the edge of the courtyard. Ayla tried not to fidget under Crier’s gaze. She felt strange in her own skin again, like she’d felt the first day at the queen’s palace, when her trio of handmaidens scrubbed off seven years of grime. Here, on this morning, she wasn’t flushed and soft and gleaming, but she had cleaned herself as best she could and braided her hair into a tight plait. Back at the river, she’d tried to tame the wispy curls at her temples, but that was a losing battle. “What else stands out?” Ayla had asked, kneeling at the water’s edge, cleaning the dirt out from under her fingernails. “What else would someone remember about me?” The goal was to be as unremarkable as possible.

  “Your freckles,” Crier had said promptly, and blinked three times very fast.

  “There’s not much I can do about those.” Ayla had sighed. “Maybe . . . Maybe I go alone, and you can just wait nearby—”

  “No,” said Crier. “If anything, it’ll be the other way around.”

  “Have you gone mad? You’re not going alone. You’re a terrible liar.”

  Crier raised an eyebrow. “I suppose neither of us will stay behind, then. What is our cover story?”

  “Uh. I don’t know. I guess we could be noblewoman and handmaiden, that’s probably easiest.”

  “No. Not my handmaiden again.”

  “Who says you were the noblewoman in that scenario? Maybe you were gonna be my handmaiden.”

  “That’s acceptable,” said Crier.

  Ayla coughed. “I— Okay, no, nobody’s a handmaiden. Different story. We’re traveling alone together because we’re—because we’re wives.”

  They stared at each other. “It is more common in Varn,” Crier said, her voice completely devoid of inflection. “Between the Kinds.”

  “It makes sense.”

  “Yes, that is true.”

  It was only later that Ayla realized two friends traveling alone together would have also made sense, but by then too much time had passed, and changing the story at the last minute would have just been awkward.

  “All right,” she said now, facing Crier in the cold morning sunlight. “You ready?”

  Crier nodded.

  They were met by a human servant as they crossed the courtyard. He bowed in deference, and it took Ayla a second to realize he wasn’t just bowing to Crier. He was bowing to her, too. In Varn, she could be an elite. She, a human, could blend into the gilded spaces. She was profoundly grateful for the clothes she’d been gifted by
Queen Junn. They weren’t flashy—just wool pants that tapered at the ankle, a wool shirt with a subtle brocade, fur-lined boots—but they were noticeably fine, even when covered with mud stains no amount of river water could wash out.

  “My wife and I were attacked by horse thieves,” Ayla said to the servant, mimicking the Rabunian court accent, which clipped along like hooves on cobblestone. She didn’t even stumble over the word wife, which she thought was very impressive of her. “They stole all our belongings—including my wife’s heartstone supply.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ayla saw Crier straightening her shoulders, raising her chin. She was unmistakably Automa, and unmistakably regal. There was just something about her presence, even now, even bloodstained, barefaced, waning with hunger. “We’re wives,” she announced.

  Ayla wanted to hide her face in her hands, but reined it in.

  “Of course,” the servant murmured, eyes flicking between them. “I will inform the Lady Shiza of your arrival, mistresses . . . ?”

  “Clara,” said Ayla. “My wife is called Wender.”

  That night, they dined with Lady Shiza, a Varnian noblewoman.

  She was old enough that age was just beginning to show on her face, faint lines at her mouth and brow, a slight papery quality to her skin. Her hair was cropped short, her hands dripping with silver jewelry, at least three delicate rings on each finger.

  “To company,” Shiza said, raising her goblet once she, Ayla, and Crier were seated around the long table. The silver on her wrists and fingers glinted in the candlelight; the silver goblet reflected starry dots of yellow. “To drinking well. To iron and diamonds and the Child Queen, Phoenix of the Eastern Sea.”

  “To the queen,” Ayla and Crier echoed, and all three of them drank. Liquid heartstone for the two Automae, dark wine for Ayla. She’d also been given bread and a bowl of spiced pumpkin soup. She hadn’t eaten since the foraged mushrooms, and it took all her self-control to eat slowly, politely, to not shove the bread into her mouth and swallow it whole. The wine was warm and bitter, with the dry, almost metallic aftertaste of a tannin-rich tea. Even one mouthful burned, warmth spreading through Ayla from head to toe, settling in her belly.

  “What business brings you to my country?” Shiza asked, beckoning one of the servants over. The divide between human and Automa was not as wide in Varn as in Rabu, but the servants were still human. She motioned at him to top off her goblet. “You were attacked by horse thieves. Did it happen nearby?”

  “No,” Ayla said smoothly. She and Crier had come up with this story, but she didn’t trust Crier to do the lying. “We were traveling along the shores of Lake Thea, just across the border on the Rabunian side, when we were attacked. It was night and they set the carriage on fire. In our panic, we ran for the forest to take shelter. We crossed the border without realizing.”

  Shiza cocked her head. “No trouble from the border guards?”

  “We believe they were drawn to the carriage fire.”

  “Luck was on your side, then. What news do you bring from Rabu? What of the latest chaos—the canceled wedding, the runaway bride, the rise of Scyre Kinok?”

  “The rise?” Ayla said, playing dumb. “I’ve heard about the wedding, but not that. What’s the honorable Scyre Kinok up to, then?”

  “You haven’t heard?” said Shiza. “Scyre Kinok and his followers have been marching west for days now, toward the mountains. But—come, tell me of the wedding. I love a disastrous wedding.”

  From the corner of her eye, Ayla saw Crier’s hand twitch where it lay on the table. Keep it together, she thought, as if Crier would be able to hear her. She didn’t know what would happen if Shiza started gossiping about the broken engagement, the runaway bride.

  “Oh, I really don’t know anything about that,” Ayla said, waving a hand. “I don’t listen to court gossip. But I’ve been hearing whispers of . . .” She floundered, trying to think of a way to describe the monsters, the Shades, without offending their host. The Shades had once been Automae, after all. “A . . . new threat? To the north?”

  “Are you referring to the creatures with the black eyes?” Shiza asked. “Yes. I know very little. But I have seen blue smoke rising over the trees a few leagues to the west, almost every day for weeks now. I hear the smoke comes from some sort of weapon.” She brought her goblet to her lips again, drinking deeply. When she lowered it, her lips were stained red. “Those woods used to be hunting grounds. All the animals have fled. First because of the creatures, and now the blue smoke keeps them away. The blue smoke—and whatever substance creates it.” Her brow creased, and she stared down into her near-empty goblet as if it held answers, like the magick scrying pools in faerie stories. “I wish I knew more.”

  So do I, thought Ayla.

  Shiza’s face smoothed over again. She peered at Ayla. “You know nothing of the Scyre’s wedding, and you don’t listen to court gossip.”

  “I—” Ayla felt cold. Did Shiza suspect them? Had she recognized Crier? Shiza’s face was blank as fresh parchment, only her eyes piercing. “Yes. It simply does not interest me, but perhaps I can try to remember something.”

  “No need,” said Shiza, and Ayla’s heart was a rabbit racing through the underbrush, waiting for Shiza to expose them, to call for a servant, a guard. “But I don’t entertain guests as often as I would like, and I find myself deprived of vapid conversation. Please. If you can’t tell me about the Scyre’s wedding, tell me about your own.”

  Ayla might have preferred to run for her life.

  “My own wedding,” she said. She glanced at Crier, who had chosen this moment to become wholly focused on the plate of bread that had been set out for Ayla. “Our wedding. Of course. Well, it was very beautiful. Wender spared no expense.”

  At the mention of her fake name, Crier looked up. “It is true,” she said helpfully.

  “It was . . .” Ayla had only ever attended one wedding, when she was five years old. All she remembered was laughter, bright colors against winter snow, a banquet for the whole village, people bringing whatever they could spare. Stewed fruit and roasted fish, sweet white bread, hot buttered tea. Dancing, a lot of dancing. Snow kicked up around fur-lined boots. “It was in spring,” she said. “When all the fruit trees were blooming, and there were petals everywhere, like a blanket of snow. We got married in the morning and spent the rest of the day feasting and dancing and, and drinking and receiving gifts.”

  “In the human tradition, then,” said Shiza.

  Ayla nodded. “We both agreed it would be more fun. Right, Wender? Wender dearest?”

  “Right,” said Crier. “We wanted to dance. Not just the waltz.”

  “You drank enough wine to feel it a little,” said Ayla. “You tripped over my feet.”

  “You almost knocked over an entire table of desserts,” Crier retorted, raising an eyebrow.

  “But I didn’t. You danced with all one hundred guests, then you tried to climb one of the fruit trees. In the dark. I had to pull you down by the ankle.”

  “It was a plum tree,” said Crier. “I wanted a plum.”

  “I got one for you,” said Ayla, cheeks hot.

  Crier inclined her head. “You did,” she said. “We shared it.”

  “Everyone was, um. Everyone was wondering where we went.”

  “You wore flowers in your hair,” Crier said. Her voice was soft. Her eyes were softer.

  It was quiet for a long moment. Then Shiza said, “But . . . who was in attendance? Anyone I might know?”

  “You can take this one,” Ayla told Crier, and went back to her soup, ignoring the drumbeat of her heart, the warmth beneath her skin.

  Shiza offered them a room for the night, and it would have looked suspicious to refuse. After Shiza and Crier had finished their heartstone, and Ayla had forced down another goblet of bitter wine, Shiza bid a servant girl to lead them upstairs. Ayla and Crier waited outside the doorway as the girl made up the bed and lit a fire in the hearth. The bedchamber
Shiza had given them was big and comfortable, with a canopied bed and a set of tall windows facing out over the estate grounds, lost to darkness this late at night. A writing desk sat in one corner, a wardrobe in the other. The hearth fire lit up the whole room, yellow light dancing on the walls, shadows flickering over the white plaster ceiling.

  Crier sat on the lip of the hearth, warming her hands. “Thank you,” she said to Ayla, eyes downcast.

  For what? Ayla wanted to ask, but she was afraid of any answer that wasn’t For helping me find heartstone. After a moment of hesitation, she joined Crier at the hearth, sitting cross-legged on the cold stone floor. Now that they were alone together, Ayla wished for another piece of bread or bowl of soup; not because she was still hungry, but because eating would give her something to do with her hands. Something to focus on that wasn’t the girl in front of her. Something to think about that wasn’t the last time they’d been alone in a room like this. Elderell. The Green River Inn.

  Ayla climbed onto the hearth, relishing the heat after two days of sleeping on the frozen ground. She brought one leg up to her chest, wrapping her arms around it, chin resting on her knee. She could feel Crier’s eyes on her. They needed to talk about what Shiza had told them, the blue smoke rising to the west, but now that they were alone Ayla could think of nothing but Elderell. Nothing but Crier’s hands. Nothing but that kiss. Was Crier having the same thoughts, reliving the same memories? For the first time Ayla allowed herself to think beyond the moonlit bedroom, beyond the knife, the chime; she allowed herself to wonder: Did Crier regret the kiss? Did it mean anything to her, or had she cast it from her mind immediately and never given it a second thought? Did Automae . . . feel things like that? Could an Automa girl feel that tug in her lower belly, that fishhook pull, making her want more, want harder, want deeper, want sweeter? Want hands in her hair, on her waist, on her hips, want—? Don’t go there, Ayla told herself, but she couldn’t help it. Yesterday afternoon in the river, she had seen the whole of Crier’s body, and the yearning that drummed through her wasn’t anything she’d felt before, and her own reaction wasn’t anything she’d felt before, the oceanic pulse between her hips, the things she wanted. Skin on skin, fingers intertwined. She’d tracked the drops of water trailing down Crier’s throat, her collarbone, the curve of her back, down her bare legs when she climbed back up onto the riverbank, and looking hadn’t felt like enough. Did Crier feel the same? Could Crier feel the same? Maybe Ayla already knew the answer. The way Crier had touched her in Elderell, hands flying from Ayla’s arms to her face, fingers raking through her hair, lips parting . . .