by Nina Varela
“And what happens if I surrender?” Kinok said, and his voice was high and raw. “Imprisonment? Public execution? That’s not a choice, you stupid girl.” He whirled around to face his followers. “With time, I can transmute Tourmaline. I can promise you eternal life. Eternal power. Cities free of human filth. Remember why you’re fighting with me, remember why you chose me. Because Traditionalism—her father’s doctrine—is holding you back. We can do away with it, we can create a new society. We can all be kings.”
“You would never share the throne,” said Crier.
“Shut up, you wretch—”
“Scyre.” It was Councilmember Paradem who had spoken. “If even half of what she says is true, you have already broken your promises.”
“It’s not true!” Kinok said. “Oh, you’re just as much a fool as she is. You’re all so weak, so easily swayed, I should have known you’d turn on me. You’re supposed to be the superior Kind, but you’re no better than humans. Made of nothing but filth and fear.” He turned his back on them—and started for Crier. He moved fluidly, first in a walk and then a run, closing the space between them in mere seconds. He stopped barely ten paces from her and drew his sword, moonlight catching the blade. The same sword, some part of Crier registered, that had only three days ago bitten into Ayla’s skin.
“Kinok,” Crier said, heartbeat quickening. “You can still surrender.”
“Shut up,” he sneered. “Shut your mouth, you’ve said enough. You won’t give me a Tourmaline heart? Fine. I’ll cut it out of your chest myself. Right after I cut out your lying tongue.”
Behind her, Crier heard Hook and the others shifting positions, readying their own weapons. Preparing to defend her. She tensed up, terrified that Kinok would attack them first just to get them out of the way, but his eyes never left Crier’s face. Oddly, he didn’t even seem to notice her companions. They were right there, all five of them right at her back, and it was like their presence didn’t even register in his mind. Because they’re humans, Crier realized.
“Kinok, just surrender,” she tried. One last time, one more chance. “It’s not too late.”
“It is for you,” he said, and raised his sword.
He leaped forward and Crier stumbled back, arms flying up in a futile attempt to shield herself, because she couldn’t dodge him, the others were right behind her, she couldn’t risk one of them catching the blow—but it didn’t come. The blow, the cold bite of steel, didn’t come. Crier opened her eyes—when had she closed them?—and went still.
The blow hadn’t come because Kinok was—he was—Crier couldn’t make sense of it. Her mind was caught up in all the separate details: the shock in his eyes. His sword on the ground. The dark spot on his bloodred shirt. Pieces of information. Just pieces of information. Then he made a low, wordless noise and lifted one hand to his chest, brushing his fingers over the spot. The dark spot right over his heart. It was growing, spreading across his shirt, a blooming black rose. A spill of ink.
Faye, who was standing before him, raised her dagger a second time. She stabbed him in the heart again. And again, metal sinking into flesh.
She took a step back. Her arm moved in an arc. For one wild moment, Crier thought she was slapping Kinok across the face. But when Faye lowered her arm and the dagger slipped from her fingers, landing soundlessly in the soft grass, Crier saw the truth of what she’d done. The black line she had drawn across Kinok’s throat.
He fell to his knees. Crier wanted to look away but couldn’t. Or maybe it was that she felt like she shouldn’t, like this was a price she had to pay: bearing witness. Kinok made another noise. It was wet and rasping and awful, and Crier thought numbly: That noise will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Faye took a few steps back. Her face was shiny in the moonlight, wet with tears.
“That’s for my sister,” she said to Kinok. “That’s for Luna.”
Then she turned around and walked away.
For a long time, Crier could not follow her. She stood there in the meadow, in the sea of stardrops, in the dark. When she was newbuilt and still fragile, Crier had walked this meadow on the shaky legs of a newborn fawn, brushed her fresh-woven hands over the tiny white flowers, marveled that anything could be that small, that delicate, that easily crushed. Now this meadow cradled the body of her enemy, once her betrothed, his violet blood seeping back into the earth. From light you were born and to light you shall return. Was it true, even for him? Did she want it to be?
Was it terrible that she didn’t?
So much of her life had been a dream life, she saw now, a veneer of gold over decay. She’d been foolish, naive, accepting her father’s teachings without question, held aloft from the suffering of those around her. Those like Faye and Luna. Like Ayla.
And yet. That dream she’d had. Of changing the world, making it kinder, increment by increment, seed by seed, fighting for those who would come after her, for futures she would not live to see—that dream thrummed within her still, in her new and powerful heart.
This part of the fight had ended, quick and bloody, but there was still much work ahead. She turned, at last, ignoring the Red Hands in their confusion and shock, and began to walk side by side with Hook and the others toward home, toward Ayla, the beacon, the true wash of starlight.
Ayla, she had written once. I could stand anywhere in this world and I swear my line of sight would end on you. I swear I’d find you in the dark.
Much work to do. Good thing, then, that she wasn’t alone.
PEACE AND OPEN BORDERS BETWEEN RABU, VARN, TARREEN!
The Scyre Defeated!
The Mad Queen Victorious!
The People Have Spoken!
CONCERNING THE FORMATION OF THE HUMAN-AUTOMA COUNCIL FOR THE THREE NATIONS
Founded by Her Majesty Queen Junn of Varn; Lady Crier of Rabu; Storme, Head Adviser to Her Majesty Queen Junn of Varn; Benjy of Rabu; Ayla of Rabu, Apprentice to Midwife Jezen of Rabu; Brielle, Alchemist of Tarreen; Elan, People’s Leader of Tarreen
In keeping with the spirit of the peace, and the newly opened borders between the Sovereign State of Rabu, the Queendom of Varn, and the Collected Territories of Tarreen, certain players of politic and science from each of the three major nations of Zulla have formed an Alliance, to advocate for the Rights of all Humankind within Zulla . . .
THE TREATY OF THALEN
between
THE SOVEREIGN STATE OF RABU, THE QUEENDOM OF VARN, AND THE COLLECTED TERRITORIES OF TARREEN
The Protocol annexed thereto, the Agreement respecting the operation of Tourmaline mines in the collected territories of Tarreen, which will allocate certain amounts of raw Tourmaline, specified within, to the Sovereign State of Rabu and the Queendom of Varn, for the purpose of alchemical transmutation into the objects known as Tourmaline Hearts; for FIVE YEARS, beginning on the dawn of the Spring Equinox of Year Forty-Eight Automa Era and extending to the dawn of the Spring Equinox of Year Fifty-Three Automa Era, or until an Artificial Life Source is successfully synthesized,
respecting
THE CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF AUTOMAKIND
IN PEACE AND HARMONY WITH HUMANKIND.
Signed at the Queen’s Palace at Thalen, Spring Equinox, Year Forty-Eight Automa Era
—PAMPHLETS DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT ALL ZULLA, BY THE HUMAN-AUTOMA COUNCIL FOR THE THREE NATIONS, YEAR 48 AE
Traditionalism tells us we can learn from the humans of one hundred, five hundred, one thousand years ago.
Can we not learn from the humans of today?
—FROM NEOTRADITIONALISM AND THE LIBERATION OF HUMANKIND, BY CRIER OF FAMILY HESOD, 9648880130, YEAR 46 AE
Summer,
Year 48 AE
Epilogue
It was summer, and the air in Yanna smelled of salt.
As she half walked, half ran up the white marble steps of the Peoples’ Library, Ayla found herself biting back a smile. The sky was delphinium blue, the sun a high white coin, she’d just come from visiting Storme�
�bidding him a quick goodbye before he left for Thalen—and the streets of Rabu’s capital city were lined with paper lanterns. Tomorrow night Yanna would celebrate the summer solstice, and the city was already alive and buzzing with anticipation, music rising through the air like steam, or like wheeling seabirds.
Ayla pushed through the heavy wooden doors of the library. As always, the silence felt physical: the heavy, musty quiet of this place, as if the books themselves swallowed all sound. And as always, she headed straight for the spiral staircase. Half the second floor was dedicated to rows of reading chairs and study tables, and that was where Ayla knew she’d find—
Crier.
The smile became impossible to bite back.
Crier was hunched over a table in the far back, dark head bent over a massive book. She didn’t look up as Ayla approached, and didn’t react at all when Ayla hopped onto the table, swinging her legs. In this position, the hems of Ayla’s loose cotton pants rode up, and you could see that one of her legs was human, and the other was Made.
That was how it went if an Automa struck you hard enough to shatter bone and a Midwife was your medic.
That night in the music room, once Crier had left and Ayla was alone with Midwife Jezen, she had been given a choice. “You have to decide,” Jezen had said, touch cool and light on Ayla’s shin. Ayla didn’t remember what happened after this, but she did remember this. “You have to decide. I can save you but you have to tell me yes.”
“What happens if I say no,” Ayla had mumbled, eyes closing. She’d already passed out once, and she could feel the water rising up again.
“You will die. The bone is shattered, it’s broken the skin, there is bone marrow in your bloodstream and it will clot in your veins and kill you. If I take you to the Midwives’ tent right now, right now, Ayla, I can save your life, but you might not like how I do it. You have to decide.”
“Save my damn life,” said Ayla, and passed out.
Jezen had.
So Ayla’s right leg was Made from the knee down.
The first version had been grisly, the result of panic and desperation—a simple apparatus to knit Ayla’s veins together so she didn’t bleed out on the table. But in the weeks after, as Ayla began very slowly to heal, Jezen had dedicated herself to improving the Design of Ayla’s leg. She had worked until it was as complex and seamless as an Automa’s leg, perfectly balanced to hold Ayla’s weight, perfectly connected to her body, as if she had been born like this. When the leg was newbuilt, Jezen had offered to complete the transformation: to cover everything up with freshly woven skin, so it truly would be indiscernible from the rest of Ayla’s body. Ayla had said no. Covering it up felt too much like hiding a battle scar, like pretending nothing had ever happened. She didn’t want to pretend. So her right leg was Made from the knee down, and it looked like what lived just beneath an Automa’s skin. It was a limb of Maker’s iron, gleaming and metallic, nearly unbreakable.
Now, it reflected the sunlight streaming in through the high windows, flashing gold. Over the last month or so, Ayla’s visits to Jezen had changed from visits to a sort of . . . apprenticeship, almost. Like Siena before her, Ayla found herself wanting to learn more and more about Making. As she grew steadier on her new leg, she began to wonder: What else could Automa technology, the science and magick of the Makers, do for her Kind? And Jezen had said: Let’s find out.
With Crier’s help, they’d been trying to learn more about the mysterious H. Thomas Wren had stolen her work and buried her name; history had forgotten her. She’d been lost. But Crier believed she could be found.
“Hey,” Ayla said. “Hey, Just Crier.”
Crier made a small noise of acknowledgment and did not look up from her book.
Ayla sighed wistfully. “Remember the old days, when I’d walk into a room and you’d just stare?” she asked. “You couldn’t take your eyes off me, and I tried so hard to keep mine off you. If only I’d known your attention would be so fleeting.” She flung an arm across her face, the picture of melodrama. “I can’t believe I lost you to books. Well—maybe I can.”
The corner of Crier’s mouth twitched. She still didn’t look up.
“I told you once I’m not a book to be read,” Ayla continued. “I take it back. I’m a book. Read me.”
Crier looked up. “We are in the library,” she hissed.
“Then read me a story.”
Crier’s eyes narrowed. It was lovely, the expression on her face. It made Ayla want to do and say a lot of things, most of them soft. Mostly she was grateful all over again that Crier’s eyes had shifted back to brown. It had taken ages for the sheen of silver to go away entirely, mist dissolving in the morning sun. Yora’s heart had been even more powerful, more potent, than any of them could have predicted; Siena had Designed it for a creature who required much more energy than the average Automae, and besides, magick that did not rely on human sacrifice was purer, undiluted by evil. As Kinok thought, it could have powered a physical vessel for much longer than heartstone—but that kind of energy took its toll. The glow, the burn, the silver eyes. The Midwives predicted the vessel would remain alive, but at a cost: the pain of a soul on fire. Scyres and Midwives from Rabu and Varn alike plus human alchemists from Tarreen had worked together to create a more functional Tourmaline: deep blue hearts that powered Automae like heartstone, but without the use of blood. Without the weight of human suffering. Without the lightning strike of too much power all at once. Right now, the Tourmaline was mined from the caves of Tarreen as per the treaty, but the Makers aimed to create an artificial version. An infinite source.
Eventually, like the rest of her Kind, Crier had been given a new heart.
“Your third,” Ayla had said.
“Fourth,” Crier had replied, giving her a soft, significant look, and Ayla had yelled and fled the room and then come back to take Crier’s face in her hands and kiss her hard and then fled again, cheeks burning.
Anyway. It was summer and the air in Yanna smelled of salt and Crier’s eyes were brown again, and it was good.
“C’mon,” Ayla wheedled. “One story.”
“Why don’t you just find one and read it yourself?” Crier said.
“Just because I can read now doesn’t mean I want to do it all the time,” Ayla said. “Besides, haven’t I mentioned? I like your storytelling voice.”
Crier hummed. “You’ve mentioned.”
“This is me mentioning it again.”
“Careful,” said Crier. “I might get the impression you’re fond of me.”
Ayla made a face at her. “Wouldn’t want that.”
“No, never.” She smiled up at Ayla, everything about it warm and gentle in a way that still felt impossible sometimes. Still made Ayla nervous, sometimes, because in her experience the warm and gentle things didn’t last; they just burned. But she was trying. Always, she was trying. “What if instead of reading you an old story, I tell you a new one?”
Ayla raised her eyebrows, intrigued. “You’ll make it up?”
“I could.” Oh, she was being shy. “I’ve been . . . trying it out. In my head.”
“Tell me your story,” said Ayla, then sat up a little. “Wait—I almost forgot. Hook ’n’ Erren want to say goodbye before we leave the city again. We’re to meet them at the Dancing Fox. Hook said to bring weapons, just in case Bree insists on swindling innocent patrons out of their coin.”
“All right. Story, Dancing Fox, then home?”
“Then home.” They were set to depart the city at dusk, to reach the palace by midnight. The palace. Home. It wasn’t home, not forever, but there was still so much to be done—after Hesod’s trial and subsequent imprisonment, and the confirmation that there would not be another sovereign, Crier had taken it upon herself to turn the palace into a sort of patchwork house of science. The east wing was a hospital, the west wing a series of laboratories Ayla frequented, as they were researching ways in which certain properties of the Automae—faster healing, sharpe
r eyesight—could benefit human lives. Ayla’s leg had been a starting point. Midwife Jezen worked in that wing, and some days Ayla found herself visiting just to say hello.
The members of the new council often gathered in the north wing, which meant Ayla could see Storme and Benjy, both of whom had positions in Queen Junn’s court, Storme as the ever-loyal adviser and Benjy as a representative of Rabu. Ayla and Storme were still relearning each other, making up for the lost years, growing steadily closer. It was different with Benjy. There was a distance between them, small but noticeable, that had not existed before. There were things they had to relearn about each other as well. But they, too, were growing more together than apart. Ayla refused to lose him, and Benjy refused to let her, and they were both stubborn enough to make it work.
“Home,” Crier murmured.
Ayla felt something swelling inside her. A green thing, taking root. It was not an unfamiliar sensation. She tilted her head back, gazing up at the domed ceiling of the library far above their heads. It was covered in paintings that had survived the War of Kinds and all the fifty years since, the colors dusty and sun-faded but still visible, deep twilight blues and sea greens and the red of late sunset, of wine, of vermilion, of Ayla’s soft and human heart. She didn’t recognize any of the gods in these paintings, but Crier did. Crier probably knew every last one of them, their stories and symbols and the things you were meant to sacrifice in their name. Ayla thought to herself: Someday I’ll ask. Someday. In the coming weeks or months or years, whenever there was time, she’d ask. And Crier would look at her and smile.
“Now,” Ayla said, reaching out to take Crier’s hand. “Will you tell me your story?”
Crier looked at her, and smiled. Wide and bright as the whole damn sky.
Acknowledgments
Well! Here we are! We made it, folks!
Let’s get down to it. Sorry, Kieryn—this time it’s family first. Don’t kill me.
Mama and Papa, thank you thank you thank you for supporting me and loving me and believing in me from afar. I miss you, I love you, I really hope by the time you’re reading this the damn pandemic is over and I’ve already hopped on a plane home. I know how lucky I am to have parents like you; I do not take it for granted. I am immeasurably grateful for you, today and every day.