by Nina Varela
Ayla snorted. “I suppose he’s the leader?” she started to ask, but the words died in her throat. Because there, weaving through the crowd, half a head taller than all the humans and even some of the Automae, was Benjy.
Without a second thought, Ayla ran for him. Once he caught sight of her, he began to run at her too, his funny, fawnlike run, all limbs. They met in the middle, bodies colliding, and the scent of his skin and hair and clothes was so familiar Ayla wanted to cry. He lifted her off her feet, spinning her around, and she didn’t even protest. “Benjy,” she said the moment he put her down, looking up into his face as she’d done a thousand times over the years, ever since he hit ten years old and shot up like a weed. “You’re here.”
“Course I am,” he said, grinning. The last time they’d seen each other they’d argued, but who cared? Who cared? “You know me. Can’t keep me away from a good fight.”
“Reckless,” she said. She took a step back and noticed for the first time he was wearing the uniform of Queen Junn’s guard—complete with a sheath at his hip and a shiny badge on his chest. More than that, he looked solid, stronger, older. No longer the harmless, deathless boy rebel. This was Benjy the warrior. “I see you kept up with your training.”
“Turns out I’m not just scrappy. I’m pretty damn good with a sword.”
“Never thought I’d see you in a queen’s colors,” she said, not unkindly.
“Ah.” He looked away, jaw working. “I . . . That’s . . . Well. It’s kind of a long story. Turns out the queen’s been trying to take down Kinok and the sovereign for ages. I didn’t like it at first, but—she and your brother have done some damn good work. You know I always wanted to be part of the Revolution. Well, now I am.”
Once it would have bothered her, after all the grief he’d given her about Crier. It still sort of did, to be honest. But. “You can tell me everything later,” Ayla said, and meant it. “Though I have to say, it’s hard imagining you with a sword.”
“That reminds me.” He reached for his belt, where there was a smaller sheath hanging alongside the sword. He drew out a dagger and offered it to her, the blade winking in the lamplight. “This is for you. I didn’t know if you’d have a weapon or not.” His face turned grim. “The queen’s riders have spotted Kinok and his forces. They’re coming for us, and they’re coming quick. They’ll reach the palace before midnight.”
Ayla took the dagger, hefting it in her grip. Testing out the balance, the weight. “But we won’t let that happen. Right, Benj?”
Benjy nodded. “Remember,” he said. “Aim for the heart.”
After parting ways with Benjy, who had to go report to his captain, Ayla left the grand ballroom. She hesitated in the hallway just outside the doors, thinking. She needed to find Crier quickly; she didn’t have time to wander the whole palace. If she were Crier, where would she go? Her old bedchamber, maybe? The library?
No—Ayla knew where.
She started off down the hallway. Moving in the heavy, unwieldy armor was like slogging through waist-deep mud. Ayla was out of breath by the time she reached the far end of the eastern spoke, half jogging down a dark corridor, counting off the doors as she went. There. The door covered with carvings of musical instruments. The music room. Crier’s sanctuary. Ayla still remembered the moment Crier had tossed her the key to the music room, an offering, a gift and a secret and a promise all at once. Privacy, silence, a hiding place, given over with no expectation of anything in return. Was that the first time some small part of Ayla had begun to trust Crier? Was it that early on?
The door was unlocked, the knob turning easily under Ayla’s touch. She pushed it open, and there was Crier. She was sitting on the low bench beside the massive golden harp, and on the surface it could have been the first time Ayla had visited this place, months ago, even the dust undisturbed. Crier must have been lost deep inside her own head—she didn’t seem to notice Ayla’s presence, didn’t even look up until Ayla let the door fall shut behind her, latch clicking into place.
On the surface this Crier could have been the Crier of months ago, except she was wearing plain clothes, not a delicate silk gown. Her hair was loose, tumbling down her back like black water. Her throat was free of jewelry. Her eyes and lips unpainted. And Ayla knew her laugh like fishermen knew the tides. She knew the crooked pull of Crier’s mouth, and the shape of her fingers, and how it felt to slide their hands together and hold on. She knew Crier was the answer to a lot of questions, and not one of them was How can I hurt him? She knew Crier was brave and brilliant, stubborn at the worst moments, funny in a way that wasn’t obvious unless you knew to look for it. She knew Crier wasn’t a book or a map or anything else that could be read once and known in its entirety. Nothing finite like that. There was no beginning to her, no end, no parameters; her body was not the truth of her; Ayla knew that Crier herself was something as wide and endless as the ice fields or the black sea or the evening sky, just as the first stars were beginning to appear. Those first pinpricks of light.
I like knowing there’s certain laws in the universe, Ayla’s father had said once, a very long time ago, before everything. You can’t count on much. Can’t trust most things to stay solid. But there is always some sort of force at work. Even way out there past the sky, so far away that we can’t even imagine it, things work the same. Your mother would explain it better. Everything is just bodies in motion, bodies in orbit, just like here. Pushing and pulling. You know what that’s called? The law of falling.
Crier looked up. “Oh,” she said, blinking at Ayla. Late-afternoon sunlight was drifting in through the windows, turning everything dusty and gold. That window—the same window Ayla had climbed through, followed by Benjy and four other servants, the night she had tried to kill Crier. The night she had failed. “Oh. I didn’t even— Is something happening out there?”
“Not yet,” said Ayla. She didn’t move. She felt carved from wood, like she was just another one of the instruments, still and silent and formed by a gentle hand.
“I have something for you,” said Crier, and Ayla realized Crier was holding something in her lap. A small bundle wrapped in cloth.
Ayla went to her, claiming the last few inches of bench. The inflexible leather chest plate made it difficult to sit down, digging into her hip bones if she hunched over even a little. She leaned into Crier’s side and peered down at the cloth bundle, which Crier was cupping in both hands like it was a baby bird, something fragile and alive. “For me?” Ayla asked in a murmur. “What is it?”
Crier held it up, letting the cloth fall away, and Ayla’s breath caught in her throat.
It was a deep blue stone about the size of a clenched fist, the surface smooth and polished. Ayla had seen this stone before. Not in real life, but in memory, Siena’s memory, this blue stone like a cut of night sky in Siena’s hand. Ayla stared down at it, speechless. Tourmaline. True Tourmaline, not in its rawest form like the stone that formed the blue powder bombs, but alchemized Tourmaline. Maker’s Tourmaline. Yora’s heart.
There were tiny symbols etched into the surface. Concentric circles: the four elements, then gold. It was repeated all over the stone, except in one place.
“How . . . ?” she rasped.
“It was in my father’s trophy room,” said Crier. “With all his other artifacts of war. It was mixed in with a collection of human jewelry, covered in dust. It must have been there for years. Perhaps ever since the raid on your village. I’m sure he thought it was just another gemstone. Another little trinket.”
Ayla couldn’t speak. She couldn’t look away from the stone. Was that a flicker of movement in the very center, the heart of the heart? A tiny pulse, the faintest bluish glow, even after all these years without a body, all these years spent just gathering dust? Was Yora’s heart still beating?
“It belonged to your grandmother,” Crier whispered. “And now it belongs to you. It is your heritage, Ayla. Take it, and do with it what you will.”
This is a bo
mb, Ayla thought, staring down at it. This could be a bomb. If she wanted, she could turn it into the deadliest powder bomb yet and take out an entire battalion, take a hundred leeches in an instant, turn the tides of this war, that’s for my village, that’s for my parents. She could destroy half the palace if she wanted to, with Hesod inside.
Crier winced, lifting a hand to her forehead. When she noticed Ayla’s questioning look, she explained, “I . . . haven’t had heartstone. Since the Iron Heart. I’m . . . I’m beginning to feel the effects.”
No heartstone since—Ayla swallowed. Not good, not good. Kinok was coming, and Crier was his number one target. If there was any fighting, if she was in harm’s way for even a moment, and she hadn’t had heartstone in days . . . She wouldn’t heal. She’d be as shaky and vulnerable as a starving human. She’d be in danger.
Ayla could use Yora’s heart to destroy half the palace.
Or.
“Crier,” she said. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” said Crier.
“Do you want this war to end?”
Crier’s brow furrowed. “Yes. Of course.”
“All right.” Ayla let out a shaky breath. She looked up at Crier, their faces so close together she could see the flecks of gold in Crier’s eyes, the inhuman smoothness of her skin. This person Ayla had come to know so well. This person she trusted with her life, with everything in her. This person she would follow into a black labyrinth, a battlefield. How did I not know? she wondered, searching Crier’s face. If anger is a powder bomb, this is a hearth fire. This is—
“I have an idea,” said Ayla, voice sounding faraway to her own ears. Was she leaning closer? Was Crier? Their noses were almost brushing, she could feel Crier’s breath on her lips, she was breathing in the scent of her, salt lavender and sea. “It’s dangerous. It might not work.”
“I’m in,” said Crier.
“Oh, hell,” said Ayla, and kissed her.
The first time they’d kissed, it had been: Wild. Hot and messy and desperate, hands clutching at clothes and tangling in hair, gripping so tight it hurt, mouths working furiously, bodies crashing into each other, Ayla’s back hitting the wall, Crier’s fingernails digging into the soft skin behind her ears, both of them gasping from shock or pain or anger or a combination of all three and then a hundred other white-hot, electric feelings flaring between them and disappearing just as quick when reality flooded back in. The first time they’d kissed, Ayla had wrenched away from it and hated herself for days, weeks; she’d replayed it over and over in her head and hated herself for that, too. She’d tried so hard to forget how it felt: Crier’s fingers in her hair, Crier’s taste like a drop of honey on her tongue, the hollow sound of their teeth knocking together, how it only made her want to press in deeper. She had tried so hard to forget, only to find that forgetting was impossible.
This, though.
This, right here, right now.
If their first kiss had been unforgettable, the words for this one hadn’t been invented yet.
Ayla kissed Crier, and this time she focused on memorizing everything she hadn’t cared about last time. The shape of Crier’s mouth. The fullness of it beneath her own. The way Crier drew in a slow breath through her nose as if trying to calm herself. The way she went Automa-still, as if afraid any sudden movement would bring Ayla to her senses, as if this wasn’t the best choice Ayla had made in her whole damn life, as if this didn’t make more sense than anything. For a moment, neither of them moved. The kiss was soft, close-mouthed, a brushing of lips, a flicker of breath. Then Ayla just—broke. She pulled away just far enough to take a breath and then pushed in again, pressing a second kiss to Crier’s mouth, firmer this time, a question or an answer or a reaffirmation or everything at once, it didn’t even matter, because Crier’s lips parted in a wordless yes, and the kiss bloomed into something hot and bright, something Ayla felt in every inch of her body, toes curling in her boots. Now Ayla was reaching up, sliding her shaking hands into Crier’s hair. Now she was shifting to straddle the bench so she could face Crier head-on, get the angle just right. One of Crier’s arms curled around Ayla’s back, drawing her somehow closer. They melted into a series of deep, lush kisses, hot and dizzying and endless, lips moving together, Crier’s mouth opening beneath Ayla’s, the taste of her like summer rain. Ayla pushed into her over and over again, taking her mouth, already addicted to this, to her, to Crier, everything about her, taste and scent and the warmth of her skin under Ayla’s hands. In the end it was Crier who drew back, shuddering. Overwhelmed. Her mouth was swollen, the shine of Ayla’s kiss on her lower lip. She swallowed hard; Ayla’s eyes tracked the movement of her throat.
“Oh,” said Crier.
Ayla cracked up. There was a war on their doorstep and she was laughing, doubling over, forehead thunking onto Crier’s shoulder. “Oh,” she echoed, still laughing, and nuzzled her face into the crook of Crier’s neck. Crier’s hand was still resting on her back, warm even through the thick wool armor. “Oh indeed.”
“Shut up,” Crier said, sounding flustered. “I don’t think I’ll be able to form full sentences for a week.”
“That was a sentence.”
“Shut up!”
“I don’t know if I’ll be good at this,” Ayla whispered. She straightened up, gesturing between them, so there was no confusion. This. This this this. “But,” she continued shakily. “If we survive today. If we make it out alive. I want to—try. With you.” She cleared her throat. “If you—if you want that, I mean. With me.”
“I want that,” said Crier, and leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. Her eyes were closed, brows furrowed as if in concentration. Her mouth was still wet, kiss-bruised, and something about that made Ayla want to—have her, just have her. “Ayla. I’ve wanted that for a long time.”
“Okay,” Ayla breathed. “Then—”
Somewhere outside the palace walls, a war horn sounded.
They pulled away from each other, equally wide-eyed. “Damn,” said Ayla, twisting around to look out the windows of the music room, though of course she couldn’t see anything but sky and orchard. “I thought they wouldn’t be arriving till nightfall.”
“Kinok lives to defy expectation,” Crier said tightly. “The idea you mentioned. What was it?”
Ayla ran a hand through her hair, trying to clear her head. Focus, she had to focus. “Kinok’s followers,” she started. “They’re with him because he convinced them he can find an alternative to heartstone, right? They don’t know heartstone is harvested from human blood, but they always knew the Iron Heart was vulnerable. They knew it was your Kind’s biggest weak spot, and if it were ever overrun by humans, or the caravans sabotaged, anything like that, you’d all starve. That’s how he’s been selling them on Tourmaline, that’s how he tricked them into poisoning themselves with Nightshade. And now Kinok has destroyed the Heart. His followers have to stay with him, because he’s the only one who can save them. The only one who can save your entire Kind. The only one who has the answers, who’s searching for Tourmaline. Or so they think. Right?”
“Right,” Crier said.
“So . . . so what do you think would happen if someone showed them Kinok doesn’t have the answers?” Ayla said. “If someone showed them we already found Tourmaline, and we’re the only ones who know how to use it?”
Crier frowned. “But we don’t know how to use it.”
“This is the part where it gets dangerous,” Ayla told her. She reached out for Crier’s hand, interlacing their fingers. “I do know how to use it. How to activate it. I can prove it works, that your Kind can use it as a new life source. I know I can. It’s dangerous, but if you go out there right now you won’t heal. You’re already weak; you could die, Crier. Please, if you won’t take heartstone, let me save you with this. I swear to you I will not hurt you. I swear you’ll be okay. Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” said Crier without hesitation.
“Okay. The only thing is I can�
�t do it alone. We’re going to need someone with experience.”
“What kind of someone?”
Ayla met her eyes. “We’re going to need a Midwife.”
It was like a reenactment of the memory she’d seen in the locket.
Firelight, yellow and alive. The bundles of drying herbs hanging from the rafters cast odd shadows on the walls, like hands reaching down from above. Ayla was sitting on the lip of the hearth, fire a wall of heat at her back, and she was not alone. There were two figures in the middle of the room. She couldn’t see their faces, but she knew one of them had to be Siena. The other was clad all in white. A Midwife.
But this time, Ayla stood in Siena’s place.
They didn’t have a physician’s table, so Crier was lying on the floor of the music room, Ayla and the Midwife she’d fetched from the physicians’ tents—who had introduced herself as Jezen to Ayla, and to Crier had said, “Good to see you again, lady, even in times like this”—kneeling on either side of her. When Ayla had explained what they were about to do, Jezen had shook her head hard.
“No,” she’d said. “That’s—that’s unprecedented. We have no idea how that would affect her vessel. She could die.”
“It’s not unprecedented,” said Ayla, even as the words she could die rang through her head. “It has happened once before. I saw it.”
“How—?”
“We don’t have time,” Ayla said. “I’ll explain everything later, but for now, we don’t have time.”
And Jezen, grim, had nodded.
Now, kneeling over a wide-eyed, silent Crier, Ayla willed her hands to stop shaking. They had to stop shaking, she had to be steady for this. One slip-up, one moment of clumsiness, and—
Don’t think about that.
They had cut open the front of Crier’s shirt, just enough to expose her collarbone and the top of her chest. It was terrible that Crier would be awake for this, but Jezen had assured them opening the seam in her chest wouldn’t be painful—it was Designed without nerve endings. The dangerous part would be the few moments in which Crier didn’t have a heart at all.