Crier's War

by Nina Varela

  For the first time since discovering her sabotaged Design, the existence of Crier’s fifth pillar felt real. Immediate. It wasn’t a distant, humiliating fear—it was hurting her. There was no salve for this, no bandage. She wanted it gone. She wanted to cut it out of her. But there was nothing to cut. There was just the phantom lump in her belly, the imagined stone lodged in her throat. The whole world felt awful and sickening and abrasive, like the air itself was rubbing roughly against her skin. Even the tiniest noises—the whicker of the horses, the sound of a wooden wheel bumping over wet rock—made her temples throb.

  The second her company drove through the gates and into the courtyard, Crier leaped from the caravan. She landed hard, the mud sucking at her shoes and splattering her skirts, and she had never cared less.

  “Lady!” one of the guards shouted after her. “Lady, where should we—?” but she never heard the end of his sentence. She was already moving away from the palace and into the thickness of the night, needing to get away, needing to lose herself.

  She’d wanted to wander alone. To mentally prepare, perhaps, for the promised arrival of Queen Junn—the one spot of brightness on the horizon.

  But the last thing Crier had expected to find at midnight on the barren, rocky beach was a celebration. She’d seen the yellow glow of lanterns from half a league away and, curious, had picked her way along the rocky, sandy shore until she found the source: one of the caves that pockmarked the seaside cliffs was full of humans.

  And they were dancing.

  Crier crept closer to the mouth of the cave, unable to look away. The cave was massive, like a giant from the old human stories had taken a bite of the cliffside and left behind a hollow space the size of her father’s gardens. Crier had visited this cave before—had once spent an entire night here, watching the tides—but she’d always been alone, in the dark. Tonight, the cave was glowing. The jagged walls were lined with strings of paper lanterns. There was a fire pit in the center big enough to roast a warhorse, but the humans weren’t using it to cook. Instead, there was a circle of humans tossing what looked like wet, rotting driftwood into the flames. Sometimes, a piece of driftwood made the flames turn momentarily blue or green. Algae, Crier realized. Every time it happened, the humans cheered and drank. Around them, the rest of the cave was loud and chaotic with music. It was strange music, nothing but drums; a couple boys near the cave wall were sharing a drum that looked like a wine barrel with a bit of animal skin stretched over the top. They were flushed, laughing, slapping the drum with their hands. It was more excitement than rhythm, but somehow the humans were singing along. Crier strained her ears to catch the words—something about straw hats and sickles—and tried to figure out how all the humans knew the same song, the same dance.

  She wished she could see their faces, but they were all wearing masks. Most were plain—red and yellow and gold—but some were shaped like animals. Crier saw a lion, a wolf, a bird with a bright plume of feathers. A fox.

  There was something familiar about the fox. Not the mask, but the person behind it—whose body moved like crashing water. It was a girl, Crier was sure, and she was dancing near the fire pit, barefoot on the rocky ground. Most of the humans were wearing colorful dresses or tunics, but some were wearing the red uniforms of the sovereign’s servants. The fox was one of the latter, the bottoms of her red pants wet with mud and sea spray.

  Then the fox turned and Crier saw wild dark hair. She wasn’t surprised. Some part of her had known it was Ayla from the first moment she saw the fox dancing on quick, nimble feet. The thing that surprised her was the person dancing with Ayla. He was lanky, curly-haired, but that was all she could tell—he was wearing a mask woven from ribbons and straw. Like Ayla, he was in a servant’s uniform; his shirt was damp with sweat or seawater.

  The straw boy moved closer and put his hands on Ayla’s hips. She let him. Together, they spun in a messy circle, her hands in the air, his long fingers gripping her hips, her waist; she tossed her head back, laughing or yelling or singing, and her throat was a column of gold in the leaping firelight. The boy swayed forward. So did Crier, before she caught herself.

  Crier looked away. The other humans were dancing, some dancing much closer than Ayla and her straw boy: Crier saw half-naked bodies intertwined, skin shimmering with sweat, couples dancing less to the drumbeats and more to their own slow, private rhythm, eyes closed, heads tipped back. She saw two boys sharing a cup of wine. One girl pressing another against the cave wall, bodies moving strangely.

  Crier felt something—a pulse, deep in her belly. She squirmed, suddenly embarrassed for reasons she could not explain, and tore her eyes away from the two girls. It was fascinating enough to watch the rest of the crowd. So many bodies circling and crashing into each other like tides. Crier knew her father would not approve of this. If she were a good daughter, she would report it. Put an end to it.

  It seems I am not a good daughter, she thought, and for once it didn’t feel so devastating.

  Ayla disappeared for a while, swallowed up by the pulsating crowd. But soon enough she was visible again, now carrying a cup of wine in both hands, stumbling a little, tripping over the slick, uneven floor of the cave. Sand, rock, shallow pools. She was going to slice up the soles of her feet. With the face of a fox, tapered ears, and fiery orange fur, she made Crier think of the Hunt, of the foxes skittering through the underbrush. Had it really only been two weeks since then?

  Those foxes were wild, though. Wild, frightened, ready to run. Claws and teeth and matted fur. Sometimes that was Ayla. Most times it was not.

  Most times, lately, Ayla just looked soft.

  Crier didn’t realize just how far she’d strayed from her hidden vantage point until, as if sensing Crier’s gaze, Ayla turned around and looked directly at her. Dammit. Ayla jolted, wine sloshing from her cup in a pale arc. The straw boy nudged at her shoulder and she seemed to ask him something, pointing at her cup. He took it and melted away into the crowd. The second he was gone, Ayla began moving purposefully through the crowd . . . straight toward Crier. Dammit, dammit. Crier contemplated making a quick escape, but she knew it was too late. She’d been spotted. Instead, she slipped away from the mouth of the cave to hide in the shadows again, so at least nobody else would see her.

  The soft sound of bare feet on rock, and then Ayla appeared in the entrance to the cave, silhouetted against the lanterns and firelight, a single tooth in the mouth of some ancient leviathan. She looked from side to side, her face still hidden by the fox mask, and finally hissed, “I know you’re out there. I saw your eyes.”

  Crier took a breath. “Over here.”

  She was braced for Ayla’s anger, for low, furious demands—why are you spying on us? But instead she was faced with—

  “Don’t tell,” Ayla whispered, joining Crier in the darkness. They were hidden against the cliff face, in a patch of black sand among the tall, jagged rocks, an area ringed by tide pools. “Please don’t tell your father.”

  Fear?

  “I won’t,” Crier said automatically, and then felt even more embarrassed and a little out of control. “I mean. What would I tell him? What is this?”

  “Just a . . . celebration,” said Ayla. She pushed her mask up onto the top of her head, finally exposing her face. There was a thin sheen of sweat on her skin. “It only happens once a year after the harvest, and we didn’t steal anything, so really there’s nothing to tell.”

  “After the harvest—is tonight the Reaper’s Moon?”

  Ayla blinked. “You’ve heard of it?”

  “I live in Rabu, don’t I?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “I know your festivals. I’ve read all about them.” She should have realized earlier, frankly. The masks, the dancing, the timing—right on the cusp of winter.

  “Then you understand that this isn’t a crime,” Ayla said. Her eyes shone in the light from the crescent moon, her voice low and fierce but still loud enough to be heard over the drums,
the voices, the pounding ocean. “We’re just dancing, just for one night, we’re not doing anything wrong—”

  “I won’t tell,” she said again.

  “—and nobody needs to get hurt—oh. What?”

  “I won’t tell,” Crier repeated.

  “You won’t?”

  “No,” she said. “My father will never know. I—I promise.”

  In the dark, the noise of the ocean rushing all around them, the act of promising felt so heavy. Or maybe it felt exactly as heavy as it was.

  “You—” Ayla began, and then they both heard it at the same time: the crunch of a second set of footsteps, coming from inside the cave and drawing nearer. “Oh damn, that’ll be Benjy,” Ayla muttered. “Damn it all, he can’t see you here. We need to go.” She grabbed Crier’s sleeve and started off down the dark beach, dragging Crier behind her. They skirted the sharp rocks, wending their way down a narrow fisherman’s trail, hugging the cliffs. Every so often Ayla glanced over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed.

  She stopped beside a tide pool and dropped Crier’s sleeve immediately. It was much quieter this far away from the Reaper’s Moon party. Above them, the crescent moon, the glittering night. Around them, the sea, the rocks, the tide pools teeming with colorful life. Crier’s vision adjusted to the new darkness. There were strands of hair sticking to Ayla’s temples and neck. As Crier watched, Ayla looked from her own hand to Crier’s sleeve as if she too were surprised by her actions.

  Crier didn’t want her to be surprised. She didn’t want Ayla to regret leaving the party. “You seem nervous,” she said, probing, trying to figure out the tangle of Ayla’s human emotions.

  “I’m not.”

  “Worried?”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  Crier leaned closer, peering at Ayla’s moonlit face. “. . . Guilty?”

  Ayla flinched. “No. No, you were right, I’m just worried.”

  “About what?”

  “Always the questions,” said Ayla, but she didn’t sound annoyed. More like exhausted. “I guess I’m worried because my, um, my friend Faye, she’s another servant, and she’s been . . . sick.”

  “She has taken ill? That seems normal, especially with winter approaching.”

  “No,” Ayla said again. “I mean, like, sick up here.” She gestured to her head. “And I don’t know what to do about it, or how to help her, or anything.” She huffed, a short, frustrated noise, and crossed her arms over her chest defensively, as if physically blocking off the next question.

  Crier wanted to know more about this Faye. She wanted to know what Ayla meant when she said sick up here. But she did not want Ayla to run.

  She wanted to give her a reason to stay. So, she sat down right there on the wet, sandy rocks. Cold dampness instantly began to soak through her dress. “My father’s library has a collection of books on human mythology. Not just Rabunian—not even just Zullan. Stories from all over the world, dating back thousands of years. I’ve read them all.”

  Ayla sighed. But she joined Crier in sitting beside the tide pool, her toes dangling over the edge. She trailed a finger over the surface of the pool, ripples fanning out in perfect concentric circles, and for a long moment she did not speak.

  “Tell me one,” she finally said. She didn’t seem to realize—or maybe she just didn’t care—that she had just given an order to a lady.

  Maybe she could tell that it pleased Crier. That Crier wanted to tell a story.

  Maybe she just wanted to be sure Crier was distracted and would not report the celebrations to her father.

  Or maybe, maybe, she, too, wanted to stay.

  It was impossible, but Crier swore her Made blood grew warm as stories bobbed to the surface of her mind like detritus after a shipwreck, thousands and thousands of stories from Rabu, Varn, the jungles of Tarreen, the lands across the Steorran Sea. She had to tell the right story, to do this right, to keep Ayla’s attention for as long as possible.

  She thought of telling a story of Queen Junn of Varn. But no, that wouldn’t do—surely Ayla had heard the rumors everyone else seemed to believe—that Queen Junn was mad.

  No, she needed something else. A human story.

  “Once,” she began, “in a faraway kingdom, in a land of ice and snow, there lived a princess who was very, very sad. A war was brewing between her father, the king, and the neighboring kingdom. The princess, who loved her people more than anything, knew that a war would only bring death and destruction. She was desperate to stop the war before it began, but her father was blinded by anger and pride. He would not listen to her pleas to call for a truce. So the princess devised a plan: she drafted a peace treaty in her father’s hand and set off for the neighboring kingdom alone in the darkest hour of night.”

  “A peace built on lies,” Ayla said.

  Crier didn’t answer, but carefully, she removed her shoes and dipped her feet into the pool beside Ayla’s. The cold gripped her ankles, like an element from another world. “The princess rode hard for three days and three nights,” she went on, “without encountering any bandits, roadblocks, or bad weather. But on the fourth day, she had to cross through a mountain pass so narrow that it was named the Eye of the Needle. And because it was nearing winter—and because this is a story—she was exactly halfway through the Eye when a huge snowstorm struck.”

  Ayla cracked a smile. “Of course.” Her fingers twirled in the cold water, ripples swirling outward until they touched Crier’s ankles.

  “The princess was trapped,” Crier said quietly. “Snow-blinded and half frozen, she just barely managed to find a crevice in the mountainside large enough to shelter both her and her pony. And then, with nothing else to do, she sat down and waited for the storm to die.” She paused. “But it did not die.”

  Ayla was as silent as the storm was loud in Crier’s head. Her heart raced.

  “Three days later,” she plunged on, “the princess and her pony were freezing. The princess tried many times to light a fire, but her kindling was wet with snow and would not spark. Her bag of provisions had been lost in the storm. No food. No fire. She began to accept the fact that she would die here, cold and alone. Worst of all, her kingdom would go to war. She began to cry. Her tears froze on her cheeks, glittering like crystals.

  “Just a few moments later, there came a voice from outside the crevice. ‘Hello!’ it said. ‘What creature lives in this cave? Was it your shining coat that caught my eye?’

  “A second voice replied, ‘Do you have a brain between those ears? There’s no creature. It must be a precious gemstone sparkling so bright.’

  “‘No,’ said a third—this one deep, rumbling. ‘Clearly it’s just a reflection of the snow.’

  “‘Help,’ said the princess through numb lips. ‘Please help me.’

  “And three animals—a white winter hare, a reindeer, and a great big bear—poked their heads into the crevice. The princess was so weak from cold that she was not scared, not even of the bear. The hare said, ‘Why! So it’s you with the glittering pearls on your cheeks. Disappointing, I must say. What’s a thing like you doing out in this storm?’

  “‘I am trying to get though the Eye,’ the princess said, and told them the whole story. When she finished, the animals all looked at each other with fear. ‘That is worrisome,’ said the reindeer. ‘If there is war between the two kingdoms, your people will trample my forests.’

  “‘And march through my mountains,’ added the bear.

  “‘And hunt me for meat and pelt!’ moaned the hare.

  “‘Will you help me?’ said the princess. ‘I’m so cold and so hungry.’

  “‘Wait here,’ said the reindeer. ‘We will find you kindling for a fire and food for your belly.’ With that, the three animals hurried off into the storm.

  “By nightfall the princess was near death. Her lips were blue, her skin white and stiff, her fingers like stone, and even the sparkling tears on her cheeks had been scrubbed away by t
he icy wind. She leaned back against her pony, eyes closed, thinking only of the letter of peace in her pocket.

  “The reindeer was the first animal to return, proudly carrying a pile of dry kindling. ‘If you stop the war,’ he said, ‘remember what I have done for you.’

  “So the princess was able to light a fire and stay warm.

  “The bear returned next. He was too big to fit into the crevice but stuck his head in beside the reindeer and dropped a mouthful of bark and winter berries at the princess’s feet. ‘For your pony,’ he said. ‘If you stop the war, remember what I have done for you.’

  “So the princess fed her pony, but her own belly was still hollow. Together, she and the animals waited and waited for the hare to return. The reindeer and the bear began to grumble. The hare has always been useless, they said. He speaks so much and means so little. Maybe he’ll never return.

  “Many hours passed before the hare returned. Carrying nothing.

  ‘I’m so sorry, princess,’ he whispered, bowing his head so low that his long ears brushed the ground. ‘I looked everywhere for food. I found no fish, no mice, no birds. I even checked the hunters’ traps. They were all bare. I have nothing to give you. But you must live, princess. You must stop the war. You must.’

  “And he threw himself into the fire.

  “The princess screamed and tried to save him, but it was too late. The hare burned. His flesh became meat. Horrified and ashamed of what they had witnessed, the bear and the reindeer ran away into the swirling snow and were never seen again.

  “Even though the idea made her sick, the princess ate the hare. With every bite, she thanked him for his sacrifice. More glittering tears fell and froze on her cheeks. When the storm finally ended and she emerged from her shelter the next morning, she was never the same. Some people said it was as if her heart had wept and frozen over.”