Crier's War

by Nina Varela

  “Wait,” Ayla said suddenly. “I know something. I learned something just last night.” She avoided Benjy’s eyes. He still didn’t know the truth of what had happened last night. That she’d slipped out not to iron a dress but to confront her brother. And that it had ended with her curled up in Crier’s bed. It was only a matter of time before that secret got out. “The Scyre has something in his possession that might help us. Will help us. It’s a compass. Apparently, it’s very important to Kinok, and I think that’s because it’s not just any compass—it’s special. Instead of pointing north, it points to the Iron Heart.”

  Benjy’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?” he asked, at the same time Rowan said, “Are you sure?”

  “Crier said it was special, she said even the Red Hands seemed jealous of it,” Ayla told them, and then immediately regretted it when Benjy’s gaze turned suspicious. She continued before he could say anything. Imply anything. “Why else would I be spending so many late nights with her? She’s so naive, she’ll spill any secret if you get her talking for long enough.” It didn’t feel true, the way she was framing it, but it did feel necessary. “A compass that could lead us to the Heart. Think about the power of that. And it’s in Kinok’s study.”

  Quickly she explained about the failed interrogation in Kinok’s study—neatly sidestepping the reason she’d been interrogated; she told them it was just Kinok being paranoid about his future wife’s closest servant—and her own discovery of the hidden safe. “I think if there’s anywhere he could be hiding the compass, it would be there. Even if it’s not the compass, it has to be something else just as valuable.”

  Rowan nodded. The light was back in her eyes, the spark of excitement over a new mission. “We have to get into that safe. Then, once we have what we need, we destroy the Scyre and rescue Faye.” She smiled, ruffling Ayla’s hair the way she’d been doing since Ayla was small and starving. “You did well, my girl.”

  Ayla bit back a proud, silly grin.

  “It’s been nearly an hour,” said Benjy. “The guards will be checking the servants’ quarters soon. We should get back.”

  “Yes,” said Rowan. “I can get away again next week—same time, same place. We’ll come up with a plan for getting into the safe as soon as possible. We’ll need a distraction. There’s something in the air, something on the horizon. I can sense it. There’s no time to spare.”

  Ayla and Benjy nodded. “We’ll be there.”

  Rowan nodded, and the three of them parted ways.

  Winter,

  Year 47 AE

  17

  What if Queen Junn hadn’t received her letter?

  It was all Crier could think about in the week since Ayla had been caught in her bed, and then released by Kinok without so much as a word of reprimand or concern on his part—in the week since she’d sent the coded missive to Queen Junn, pledging her secret allegiance.

  Well, it wasn’t all she thought of. It required a strength she didn’t know she had to avoid Ayla’s eyes all week, to not replay the way she’d turned toward Crier in her sleep. Though Ayla would never admit it, and though Crier had no proof of it, she believed it—Ayla had at least started to trust her. Had started to open up to her.

  But now—the risks were too high. Everyone was watching her next move. She couldn’t afford to let Ayla come under Kinok’s scrutiny again. Which meant she couldn’t give him any reason to. She couldn’t pay extra attention to Ayla. Couldn’t allow the darkness of her gaze to call out to Crier like it had so often in the last month.

  And in the meantime, the need to slow Kinok down, to intercept his efforts and delay her marriage, was only growing in urgency. She’d sent Queen Junn information in the hope that it would show her loyalty—that in return, Junn would offer a strategy for the alliance she’d talked about. A way to eliminate the “problem” of Kinok for good.

  Now: she’d been lying awake for hours, thoughts circling like vultures. Had Queen Junn even received it? She must have—unless the letter had been intercepted.

  If the letter hadn’t been intercepted—if it was in Queen Junn’s hands—what was the queen going to do? Was it wrong of Crier to name Foer, Councilmember Laone, Councilmember Shasta as Kinok’s supporters? What if she’d misunderstood Rosi’s words? What if she’d put Rosi in danger by naming her fiancé? What if Queen Junn decided Crier wasn’t helpful enough and cut off communication, and Crier was once again alone?

  She was just about to hit hour number three of panicked, pointless thought when she heard footsteps in the corridor outside her door. Lots of them, quick and human.

  Voices, barked orders. Someone sending for a carriage?

  Crier didn’t wait for Ayla to arrive—dawn was still a quarter hour away—and didn’t even change out of her nightgown before hurrying out of her room and calling after the first servant she saw. “Has something happened? What is the carriage for?”

  “The sovereign is leaving for Bell-run, my lady. Short notice.”

  “What—today? Why?” The small town of Bell-run was a day’s ride to the west. Her father usually visited only once or twice per year, perfunctory, just to show his face to the people.

  “Yes, my lady. This morning. As soon as possible. Been some killings in the night,” said the servant, hushed, in the way humans had when they spoke about the dead.

  Killings. A mass execution? A quashed rebellion? “Who was it?” Crier demanded. “Who’s been killed? Human rebels?”

  “No, my lady.” The servant shifted. “They were Automae.”

  “. . . What were their names?” A sick feeling of disbelief was beginning to move through her, making her sway.

  Maybe some part of her already knew. But she had to hear it aloud.

  “Two were Red Hands, my lady. Councilmembers Laone and Shasta. The other was the lord of a southern estate. Lord Foer.”

  Stars and skies.

  “Pardon, my lady?”

  She’d spoken aloud. “Nothing,” Crier managed, and turned away before the servant could say anything else—or worse, catch the look on Crier’s face and call for a physician.

  I killed them, Crier thought dully, moving in a trance back down the hallway. I named them, and now they are dead.

  Queen Junn might have given the order—because of course it was Queen Junn, there was no way this was a coincidence. Crier had given three names to her, and now the owners of all three names were dead.

  But it was Crier who had caused this.

  She couldn’t believe how quickly Junn had acted. With no warning, no hesitation—just swift deliverance.

  It meant the queen must have mercenaries all over Rabu.

  Crier’s temples were pounding; she felt starved of oxygen even though her intake was unchanged.

  Oh, gods, Rosi. Rosi’s fiancé was dead and it was Crier’s fault.

  Well, what were you expecting? she asked herself furiously, pausing for a moment to rest her forehead against the cool stone wall of the corridor. Did you think the Mad Queen would send Kinok’s supporters a kindly worded letter? Did you think she’d be forgiving?

  She thought of the story of Fox, Wolf, and Bear. How none of them could trust the others.

  Crier looked down at her own hands and imagined, for a moment, her fingers dipped in violet blood.

  Minutes later, Crier sat in the chair across from her father, the two of them alone in his study, and tried not to let the guilt and horror show on her face.

  Murderer. That’s what she was.

  Luckily, Hesod was lost in his own thoughts, surfacing only to bark orders at the servants who kept arriving at the door. Ready the carriages, curry the horses, pack clothes and heartstone for three days’ ride, prepare a party of guards and footservants, send word ahead to the estates of the deceased. They were going on a mourning tour. It was like the victory tour Hesod had taken in the weeks after he was crowned sovereign, but instead of victory in the air there was nothing but death, and shock, and Hesod’s simmering anger. He was t
aking the deaths of his Red Hands personally.

  If he ever found out Crier’s role in their murders—

  No. He wouldn’t find out.

  He couldn’t.

  “Daughter.”

  Crier started. Hesod was watching her closely from across the desk. She tried to seem blank, nothing but dully empathetic and concerned for him. “Yes?”

  “I leave for the South in an hour to pay my respects to the estates of Councilmembers Laone and Shasta and Lord Foer. You will remain here while I am gone and keep up with your studies and your normal duties. That is all.”

  Maybe a month ago, Crier would have accepted this without question. But something about spending so much time around Ayla—who questioned everything from Kinok’s motives to Crier’s preferred bathing oils—made her sit up a little straighter, and shake her head.

  “No,” she said. “I have a relationship with Rosi, Foer’s promised wife. Foer’s death will be weighing on her. I—I must go see her and make sure she is all right.”

  Hesod regarded her coldly. “After everything that happened last week on the night of Junn’s visit, what makes you think I trust you to manage part of this tour?”

  “This is a way for me to rebuild that trust,” Crier insisted, even though his words stung. “You can spend more time with the Red Hands’ families—they are higher ranked than Foer, are they not? I can go alone to Rosi’s estate and comfort her myself.” She leaned forward. “I want to prove myself to you, Father. I made a mistake, being so lenient with—with the handmaiden. I know I disappointed you. Let me make amends.”

  He was still hesitating.

  “I only wish to perform what is my duty to, to the state, Father,” she went on. “Foer’s estate, where Rosi had taken up residence during their courtship, is barely a day’s ride south, near the border of Varn and the border village of Elderell. I can be gone for less than forty-eight hours, if that’s what you want. How would it look for me to ignore my closest companion right now?”

  “Fine,” Hesod said. “You may go. But if anything goes wrong, daughter, anything at all . . .”

  “Nothing will go wrong, Father,” Crier said. “I promise.”

  As Crier left her father’s study, she caught the first servant she saw. “Send for the handmaiden Ayla,” she ordered the girl. “Tell her she is to meet me by the stables immediately.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  The girl scurried off and Crier stalked through the halls back to her bedchamber, taking a precious few minutes to dress herself—her hands fumbling, unused to tying the laces herself. Then she threw two days’ worth of clothes into a trunk.

  She felt wild, heart skittering, reminding her for a moment of the tiny, rapid heartbeats she’d heard radiating up from a rabbit’s den all those weeks ago, during her Hunt.

  She really was going to comfort Rosi. To force herself to witness the effects of what she’d done, in the wake of Foer’s murder. But she had another, ulterior motive for traveling south.

  The village of Elderell.

  A place Councilmember Reyka had mentioned a few times over the years, though she’d never said why such a tiny speck of a village was significant to her. Crier had asked once, and Reyka had said only: “I’ve business there.”

  Now, Crier couldn’t help but wonder if that business had something to do with her disappearance.

  Grabbing her traveler’s bag, Crier made her way out of the palace and toward the stables, where there would already be a carriage waiting for her. The morning sun was hidden behind thick gray clouds, the smell of winter rain hanging in the air.

  Ayla was already waiting outside the stables when Crier arrived. She looked equal parts wary and furious.

  “What’s happening?” Ayla demanded the second Crier was within earshot. “Why did you—?”

  Crier grabbed her wrist, gently but firmly, and pulled her off to the side. She leaned in close, and even through the fog of worry, her eyes caught on the freckles dusting Ayla’s nose. The shape of her full, pretty mouth. There it was again, that indignance, that anger that was so harsh and yet that made Ayla who she was. That fierce vibration in her that Crier felt drawn to again and again . . .

  “Hush,” Crier hissed, partially to herself. “Please. Wait here. Keep your head down, don’t make a scene.”

  Ayla’s mouth dropped open, but Crier turned and quickly moved toward the carriage. It was waiting at the mouth of the stables, a black beetle shell pulled by two fine old horses. The driver, an aging manservant with skin like cracked leather, was already perched on his seat at the front, reins in hand.

  “Do you need help with your trunk, my lady?” he asked.

  “No,” said Crier. “Are we set to depart immediately?”

  He nodded and tugged at the reins; the horses pawed at the ground, flicking their ears impatiently. “At a moment’s notice, my lady.”

  Crier loaded her trunk into the carriage and then darted back to the side of the stables. Ayla was still standing there, anger in every line of her body, but there was no time to explain anything. Crier didn’t want any of the stableboys—or worse, her father—to see Ayla, to know that Crier was bringing Ayla along with her to the South. Her father hadn’t expressly forbidden it, but probably only because he thought there was no way Crier would dare.

  Well, she dared.

  After all, she knew she couldn’t leave Ayla here alone. She might have bought Ayla some time, a respite of safety, but how long would it last if she wasn’t there to watch out for her?

  “Come,” Crier muttered. “I’ll tell you everything in a moment, just come with me and keep quiet.”

  Ayla looked confused, but Crier took her hand and led her forward before she could reply. To her surprise, Ayla’s hand clutched around her own. And despite herself—despite everything—a thrill went through her.

  The second they were both seated, Crier drew the curtains and rapped her knuckles on the thin wall separating them from the driver. “Go, go!”

  The carriage lurched forward, and they were off.

  As Kiera, the First, got older and stronger, she required more and more blood—and so, by the fifth year, the queen was dying.

  So great was the queen’s love for Kiera that she would have gladly sacrificed herself to give Kiera even one more day of life . . . but Wren had fallen deeply in love with Queen Thea. Blinded by this human weakness—this love that grew inside him like a twisted, rotted thing—he planned to save the queen by killing Kiera. But the queen discovered his plans before he had a chance to act, and Thomas Wren was imprisoned.

  Desperate to save the queen, Wren continued his work as a Maker even while imprisoned.

  And this, above all, must never be lost to the waves of Time: no matter how much Queen Thea claimed to love her Automa daughter, it was she—not Thomas Wren—who murdered Kiera in the end.

  —FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE AUTOMA ERA,

  BY EOK OF FAMILY MEADOR, 2234610907, YEAR 4 AE

  18

  Ayla’s thoughts rattled louder than the carriage wheels.

  She was stuck in an enclosed space with Crier for the foreseeable future, furious about being virtually kidnapped and even more furious about the fact that she was so damn hyperaware of Crier’s presence, of their knees bumping every time the carriage lurched, of the smell of her hair, the scent of her clean, perfumed skin, the cut of her jaw and the smooth column of her throat—

  Ayla pressed her forehead against the carriage window and refused to look at Crier. Because every time she did, she found it difficult to stop looking.

  Maybe she wasn’t even all that angry with Crier. Maybe she was just angry at herself. Here was the object of her revenge. And yet every day that ticked by and she couldn’t kill Crier, every day that she used the lady to try and gain access to information instead, was another day that she felt herself . . . weakening. Softening. Warming. It was the only way to describe it, as if her will were a wide lake in the sun, slowly evaporating at the edges until one
day there’d be no will, no force, no drive, no anger left. She’d be empty.

  And all because of Crier, because of the way she made her feel, the way the sensation of being looked at and thought about—thought about kindly, with a tenderness and curiosity that Ayla simply could not abide. It shook that thing that had made Ayla who she was for so long. That survivor instinct. That hunger for Crier’s blood on her hands, to make things equal. Justice. Revenge. It had been the only force keeping Ayla alive, and now this fluttery anxious sweetness that brewed in her was ruining that, was taking it away from her.

  She didn’t know what to do.

  They had to move forward with their plans soon, before Ayla crumbled entirely.

  But now, that was all ruined, too, because today was the day she and Benjy had agreed to meet Rowan, and now Ayla was going to be gone for, what, another three days? And who knew the next time she’d be able to sneak away to meet Rowan?

  She felt desperate, and alone, and had no one to ask for advice. She couldn’t—gods forbid—talk to Benjy about this. And even Rowan, who’d been almost a mother to her . . . it would be far too great a betrayal to even admit what was going on inside her head—inside her heart.

  She wanted to punch something. She wanted to shatter one of the windows and fly out into the road, to run into the woods, to escape. To run forever. To be free of this—whatever it was. This closeness. Crier’s eyes. Her knees. Her thoughts. It was as if Ayla could feel Crier’s thoughts, like soft caresses in darkness, and . . .

  Stop thinking about her. Ayla closed her eyes, trying to tune out this feeling, to focus instead on sorting through everything she’d discovered and learned over her weeks at Crier’s side. It felt like sifting sand through her fingers, looking for flakes of gold. She’d seen so much, and still there was so little she understood. Information like stars. She was trying to form a constellation.

  She thought about the green feather from Storme. What did it mean? Was it sort of like a secret password, proof of her trustworthiness, something she could show to the queen’s guard if she ever needed an audience with her brother? She thought about the sun apple crates filled with vials of black dust: What did it do? Was it anything like heartstone? She knew only that it came from Kinok.