Crier's War

by Nina Varela

  The law of falling. “Who said that to you?”

  When Ayla looked back at her, there was fire in her dark eyes. “Someone I will not see again,” she said. Another pause. “Is there something you wanted, Lady Crier? If you’re not going to punish me, why are we here?”

  Because you saw me cry.

  “I have grown tired of my current handmaiden,” said Crier. “I wish to replace her.” When Ayla just frowned, confused, she went on. “You have already helped me once. I want you to help me again. Be my handmaiden.”

  Ayla sucked in a breath. “What?”

  “You will report to my chambers at dawn and spend your days at my side. You will attend to me and only me. It is a position of power and honor. Handmaiden to the sovereign’s heir.”

  Crier knew that expression. Shock. But Crier did not care. Could not care. She had known Ayla for less than an hour total, and already she knew what she wanted. She wanted those dark eyes, that quiet, sharp-edged intensity, the evasive responses that she knew, she knew, would give her yet another sleepless night. Another night spent wondering and guessing and—dreaming. Or something close to it.

  Once again, Crier felt a kind of draw, a temptation to lean closer to Ayla, a kind of inner falling. She held still. It was a skill only Automae possessed, to hold still without trembling.

  “Why are you doing this?” said Ayla finally. “Why aren’t you reporting me for the necklace? Why do you want me at your side?”

  Ayla could not help her, Crier knew. She could not change her flawed Design. She could not save Crier from marrying Kinok. In fact, she could make everything worse. Crier knew that.

  And yet, there was this: the push. The pull.

  The inner falling, like a kind of law.

  “Your necklace. My . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say the human word: tears. She looked down her nose at Ayla, squaring her shoulders. “We both have secrets. And when someone knows your secrets, do you not prefer to keep them within arm’s reach?”

  Ayla was silent.

  “I will expect you tomorrow at dawn,” Crier said, and turned away.

  It began with this: All things possessed a certain prima materia, a pure, intangible substance older than the Universe Itself; the Metaphysical material from which such a borderless object as the human Soul is woven. If humankind is formed from such material, from organ to bone to flesh to even the intangible Soul, then surely the Maker can transmute human life.

  —FROM THE MAKER’S HANDBOOK,

  BY ULGA OF FAMILY DAMEROS, 2187440906, YEAR 4 AE

  6

  She’d been so close.

  For the second time in so many days, Ayla had had Crier right on the edge of a cliff. And yet Crier was still alive. As she headed back across the palace grounds to the long, low building where all the servants slept, Ayla felt at war with herself. Half of her was raging, screaming in frustration: she’d been so damn close. She could have let Crier fall, either by never grabbing her wrist in the first place or by looking her in the eye, saying This is for my family, and letting her go. Watching as her body tumbled down to the rocks and the devouring ocean below. Today, she could have pushed Crier over the edge. There had been plenty of moments during their conversation when Ayla could tell Crier’s guard was down; she wouldn’t have seen it coming; she could be dead right now. But she wasn’t.

  The other half of Ayla was trying desperately to justify her own inaction. Yes, she could have let Crier fall. Could have pushed her. But—over the years, whenever Ayla had pictured her revenge, she’d always pictured blood. A knife to the heart, to the throat, Crier’s dark, unnatural blood on her hands. Visceral. Satisfying. As cruel and violent as the raids on Ayla’s village had been. Why else had she waited so patiently, for so long? Why else had she gone the lengths to work her way up, to steal the knife, to practice for hours in the gardens at night?

  It wasn’t enough to just let Crier die in an accident, and it wasn’t even enough to push her off the sea cliffs. Neither of those deaths felt like justice. And even then . . . something about the conversation with Crier had sparked—not curiosity, not desire, but . . . maybe a mixture of the two. Lady Crier had secrets. It wasn’t something Ayla would have ever expected, and a big part of her wanted to learn more. To infiltrate the palace, using Crier as her in. She’d always thought that the most she would be able to do was kill Hesod’s daughter. But what if she could destroy him even more completely? Kill his daughter and burn his kingdom to the ground?

  The midday sun was too bright in her eyes, searing. She hurried along the narrow dirt path that connected the servants’ quarters to the palace, separated by about a half mile of land. Hesod preferred to have the stables in view of the main home, and the human housing out of sight, hidden from visiting officials. Today, it was an advantage. Rowan was coming to say goodbye to Ayla and Benjy before she headed south to join the latest uprisings, and the servants’ quarters were the safest place to meet. During the day, when all the servants were working elsewhere, the guards only patrolled the area every few hours.

  Ayla picked up her pace. Revenge wasn’t the only thing on her mind—unwittingly, Lady Crier had given Ayla a vital piece of information about the Iron Heart. A piece of information that could change everything, for her and for the rebels. For Rowan, in the coming days. Ayla was itching to tell her and Benjy what she’d learned.

  She slipped through the door of the servants’ quarters and kept her head down as she walked between the rows of cots, even though the quarters were abandoned at this time of day. She headed straight for the back, where there was another, smaller door.

  Ayla took a deep breath, relishing the clean air while it lasted—and opened the door to the latrines.

  As always, the smell hit her like a sucker punch, foul memories rising like bile, black spots popping up behind her eyes. The latrines were small and cramped, stone walls and a handful of chamber pots and then two slabs of wood that concealed the deep holes into which all the servants tossed their waste. The wooden covers did absolutely nothing to block off the stench. Eyes watering, Ayla yanked her collar up to cover her nose and forced herself to actually go inside.

  Benjy and Rowan were huddled in a corner of the latrines, handkerchiefs tied over their noses and mouths, sunlight streaming through the rafters and setting Rowan’s silver hair alight. Benjy’s eyes widened when he caught sight of Ayla and he bounded over to her, looking equal parts relieved and annoyed.

  “Where in all the hells have you been?” he demanded, his voice slightly garbled by the handkerchief. “First you don’t show up to morning meal, then you don’t report to Nessa, and one of the scullery maids said she’d seen you in the gardens with Crier? And now you’re late, and Rowan’s got to get on the road, and if I’m not back in the orchards in under an hour I’ll probably be flogged—”

  “Perhaps if you want an explanation, you should let the girl speak,” Rowan broke in. She pulled Ayla into a quick, rosemary-scented hug, her hair tickling Ayla’s cheek. “Hello, birdy. It’s not like you to be late—did something happen?”

  “Yes, and you’re not going to believe it,” said Ayla. Whispering, because you never knew who might be listening, she told them everything that had happened since she was summoned to Lady Crier’s bedchamber that morning. About the walk through the gardens. About Crier’s strange, persistent questioning of Ayla’s motives. About the offer (no, not offer; order) that Ayla become Crier’s personal handmaiden.

  “I never imagined I’d get a chance like this,” she admitted, meeting Rowan’s steady gaze. “I dreamed of being assigned to something inside the palace, but—I thought I’d be in the kitchens, or a nameless maidservant . . . I’m a handmaiden. The handmaiden to Lady Crier herself. It’s got to be a sign.”

  “A sign of what?” asked Benjy.

  “A sign that—” Ayla dropped her voice even lower. “Killing Crier wouldn’t be true revenge. Not the way I’ve always wanted it. If I want to destroy Hesod, really destroy him .
. . I have to kill everything he cares about.”

  He huffed, frustrated. “What do you mean?”

  “Killing his daughter is one thing, but for Hesod? For men like that, Automa or not, there’s nothing so dear to them as power. Blood and gold and precious stones—it all comes in second to having a seat on the council, command over an army. To having control. The only way to really destroy Hesod is to take away his power.”

  “So it’s still about revenge for you,” said Benjy, almost annoyed. “Not revolution.”

  Ayla stared at him. How did he not understand? She turned to Rowan, beseeching. “You understand, right?”

  “I do.” Rowan reached out to ruffle Benjy’s hair, smiling when he squirmed away, and then she ruffled Ayla’s for good measure. “Benjy, love, this is revolution. The sovereign is the head of the great beast. We all have our own reasons for wanting to cut off the head. All that matters, in the end, is that someone does.”

  “Besides, it’s not just Hesod I’ll be in close quarters with,” Ayla added. “Rowan, how much do you know about Kinok?”

  Rowan frowned. “The Scyre?”

  “Not just a Scyre.” Ayla leaned closer, excited. She’d never quite grown out of the wild urge to impress Rowan, to make her—proud, maybe. Something like it. “He used to be a Watcher.”

  “What?” said Benjy. “That’s—that’s impossible. Watchers don’t leave the Heart. Ever. They pledge their entire lives to protecting it.”

  “I don’t know how he was able to leave his post, but he did. And now he’s here, and he’s set to marry Lady Crier.”

  “And he still has connections to the Heart,” said Rowan. There was something hushed about her voice, something almost reverent.

  “He’s got more than connections,” said Ayla, biting back a wicked grin. “He’s got knowledge. Of how it works, how to get there. Trade routes. Maybe even . . . weaknesses, vulnerable points. Who knows!”

  Benjy opened his mouth to say something else, but Rowan cut him off. “Stars and skies, birdy,” she said, her brown eyes lit up in the sunlight. She looked less like a sparrow and more like . . . like a warrior, fierce and brilliant and flush with hope. Like the warrior she had been in past uprisings; like the warrior she would be again. The revolutionary, the leader. “Ayla, my love,” she said. “This is incredible, this is—this is the best chance we’ve had in years. You can be our eyes and ears on the inside, love. Stationed right at the heart of the spider’s nest, imagine that. And—personal handmaiden to Lady Crier? Gods, it’s like they want a coup.”

  “So you think I should use my position,” said Ayla, unable to keep the triumph out of her voice, even as she saw Benjy’s scowl deepen. “You think I should be a mole.”

  “Yes,” said Rowan. “Yes, gods, of course. Though”—here her voice changed a little, grew harder—“it will be dangerous. Ayla, you have to focus on the Scyre. He’s the one with knowledge about the Iron Heart. Maybe he’s even got a map of the Aderos Mountains, or of the trade routes, a ledger of all the heartstone traders, something, anything. Whatever you can find, it’ll be valuable.” She grinned, sharp and bright, and cupped Ayla’s face in both hands, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You clever girl. Oh, you clever, fearsome girl.”

  Ayla grinned back, but her mind was already spinning. Was it possible? Was there a chance that Scyre Kinok really did have a map of the Aderos Mountains—a map that could lead them to the Iron Heart itself?

  If he did . . .

  No more white dresses hanging over the marketplace like ghosts.

  Because humans wouldn’t have to kill Automae to set themselves free. The Automae would die, all at once. During Ayla’s first year working under Sovereign Hesod, the orchards had nearly been wiped out by an infestation of locusts. It was an unusually hot spring: the kind of spring where the end of winter felt less like a rebirth, like shaking the weight of snow off your shoulders and emerging lighter for it, and more like a slow descent into boiling water. The air was thick and wet as steam. Sometimes it ached even to breathe. When the locusts came, settling over the orchards like a living, buzzing shadow, even they seemed a little exhausted by the heat. They ate slowly: first the budding fruits, then the blossoms, then the leaves. They ate nonstop for days. All the servants were panicking, because no one knew what to do about the loss of the fruit harvest. And what happened when the locusts stripped the fruit trees bare? Would they fly away, or would they just migrate to the gardens? The fields of barley and sea lavender? Would the entire year’s crop be devoured?

  It was Nessa—the head servant—who saved them. Nessa who got the idea to spray the locusts with clouds of poisoned water. It wouldn’t hurt the trees—and besides, most of them were already naked and dead-looking—but it began to kill the locusts the second it touched their shiny green skin.

  Within a single day, the trees were empty. The dirt below their branches was littered with millions of dead, silent locusts, their bodies piled ankle-deep. Ayla was one of the servants assigned to clearing them away. Barefoot, she waded through the orchards, filling her basket over and over again with corpses and then loading the baskets onto a cart, dragging the cart out to the bluffs, tossing the contents of each basket over the edge and into the waiting sea. The locusts’ tiny iridescent wings caught the sunlight as they fell; with each basket, Ayla felt like she was pouring out a cascade of glittering gemstones.

  One day’s work and all the locusts were dead; the orchards were saved.

  That was what would happen if the Iron Heart was destroyed, if the Automae were deprived of heartstone dust. One day’s work. A living shadow lifted.

  Ayla blinked. Realized Rowan was still watching her, waiting for her response. Benjy wasn’t looking at either of them. He was staring at the dirt floor, jaw working.

  “I’m going to work for Lady Crier,” said Ayla. “I’m going to spy on the Scyre and learn everything I can about the Iron Heart.”

  “What about your revenge?” Benjy mumbled.

  “I won’t be rash,” she promised. There was no point in telling Benjy that the fire in her hadn’t diminished—had grown, even. This killing fire inside her—he didn’t need to know just how long and cruel it had been burning. Just how charred and scarred she was. Somewhere in the back of her mind, her brother’s voice echoed. Act only when the odds are on your side, Ayla. Gamble with bread and coins, not your life. “I swear to you, Benjy,” she said. “I won’t do anything to Hesod or Crier until I’ve found enough information to destroy the Iron Heart. I won’t let my revenge compromise the Revolution.”

  Rowan patted her cheek, beaming. “That’s my girl.”

  And even though her eyes were still watering from the terrible stench of the latrines, even though the idea of serving Crier disgusted her, even though part of her wasn’t sure she’d be able to find any information on the Heart at all . . . For the first time since that day, Ayla had a plan. Not just the nebulous, half-formed notion of I want to hurt Hesod. I want to take away his family like he took away mine. But a real plan. Something so much bigger than Crier, Hesod, Kinok, even herself. It felt like—like this was what she was meant to do.

  Her heart was lit up with something quick and hot. A lightning storm inside her.

  Somewhere along the line, she’d forgotten how it felt to begin.

  Planning to spy on the Scyre was a lot easier than actually doing it. Ayla was far too occupied with the bustle of the household and its needs—most importantly, Crier’s—to get away for even a second. Her new schedule, it turned out, was just as demanding as her work in the fields had been.

  This morning, for the first time in her four years as a servant to the sovereign, Ayla didn’t report to the stables or the orchards at dawn. Instead, she joined the thin stream of humans heading up from the servants’ quarters to the palace itself, and—after an Automa guard checked her face, gripping her chin hard as he verified her identity—she passed through the huge wooden doors.

  It felt like sneaking into a
dragon’s cave.

  Ayla hurried through the vast, twisting hallways, ceilings arching high above her head, trying to memorize the layout, which felt far more complicated than it should, given she knew the palace was divided into four wings. The north wing was the most heavily guarded—she knew that simply from observing the guards as she worked on the palace grounds. That was probably where the sleeping quarters were, and maybe the sovereign’s study or his war room. Would Kinok sleep there as well, or were guests relegated to a different area of the palace? The kitchens and the great hall were in the east wing, every floor but the first with a vast view of the Steorran Sea. The grand ballroom was in the west, and the south held the guards’ quarters, extra harvest and weaponry stores, solaria, large rooms where the Red Council sometimes met. But the wings were huge—all four of them were three stories high and large enough to hold dozens of spacious rooms. They could be hiding anything.

  Ayla’s job was to figure out where Kinok’s quarters were—and how to get in.

  Tonight, the engagement ball would be held in the grand ballroom in the west wing. That was where Ayla had to report first, and she barely had two seconds to take in the sheer grandness of the room—the entire apple orchard could have fit comfortably within its cavernous walls; the ceiling was so high that Ayla had to tip her head all the way back just to look up at it; the walls were dripping with candles and sheer gold curtains; the marble floor was polished to a glass-like shine and cleared for dancing.

  “You!” A housemaid she didn’t recognize was barking orders. “You’re the new handmaiden, are you?”

  “Yes,” Ayla said. She was already dreading whatever task she was about to be assigned.

  The housemaid smirked. “Polish the dance floor.”