Crier's War

by Nina Varela

  “And make himself look like a hero in the process,” Crier concluded.

  Ayla felt dizzy. The room was spinning. Crier’s face; her strong hands; the closed door; the box of green feathers.

  “You said he spread these lies through humans, not just Automae. Do you know who helped him?”

  Ayla paused, and swallowed hard. She felt sick, thinking of Faye’s panicked face, the words she’d muttered, which had seemed like nonsense at first, but now . . .

  It’s all my fault, Faye had said.

  Crier was looking at her with fascination. Ayla hesitated. To give up a name was a huge risk. And yet, it was the name of someone who had potentially betrayed Rowan, betrayed the Resistance.

  “Faye,” she whispered.

  “That kitchen maid? How?”

  Ayla’s breath shook as she spoke—the story coming together as she told it, all of its pieces finally falling into place. “The crime Luna was punished for was not her own. It was Faye’s. Faye even told me—it was all her fault. She’s racked with guilt about something. I couldn’t figure out what, but she said—‘sun apples.’ She was so—fixated, I had no idea why. Rambling about Kinok and his sun apples and something that had gone terribly wrong. But then I realized: it’s a code word. There are stacks and stacks of crates shipping out of the palace, all labeled ‘sun apples,’ but they’re filled with black dust. So they must be going to . . . his followers, I guess.”

  Crier stared at her. “Kinok is moving shipments of black dust under the guise of sun apples from the palace.”

  Ayla nodded. “And as for Faye . . .” She thought again of the girl’s fractured mind, the terror in her eyes, something more than, worse than, simple grief. “She must have done something to get on Kinok’s bad side—maybe she even tried to warn us, or escape. So he . . .” Her voice felt flimsy in her throat, but she forced out the rest: “Killed her sister. Killed Luna. And now he must be using her as a pawn. I can’t imagine she’s very useful—she seems half mad. But she could still deliver letters, maybe. Simple messages. She’s probably too terrified to even think of disobeying him.”

  “Ayla,” Crier said softly. In the dim light of the private room, the gold of her eyes looked almost green, like the feathers.

  Ayla cleared her throat. “What I don’t understand is what this black dust is, or why it’s so important to Automae.”

  Crier sat down on the bed. “He showed me some of his experiments, a few days back. It seems he’s been trying to find—to create—a replacement for heartstone. That’s all part of what ‘anti-reliance’ means to him. He wants us to be invulnerable. As for black dust, well. I guess he’s finally succeeded.”

  Invulnerable. Ayla knew what that meant. Invulnerable to human attack. For years, the rebellion had sought to expose the trade routes to the Iron Heart, and perhaps he feared they were getting closer, knew they wanted to destroy the Iron Heart. As always, he knew everything and was one step ahead.

  If Automae didn’t need heartstone anymore, they wouldn’t need the Iron Heart. Which meant the entire focus of the rebellion would have been a waste. And there’d be no way to take down Automae anymore. No more weak spot.

  “We have to find out who he’s working with,” Ayla said. “If we can get a list of all the people Faye sent ‘sun apples’ to, under your father’s name, we’ll have our list of Kinok’s conspirators.”

  “Ayla, that’s—that’s a very good idea, actually,” Crier said, standing up and grasping Ayla’s hand. “Will you help me, then?”

  Ayla yanked her hand away, instinctive.

  Crier’s mouth twisted. “Ayla.”

  “Let’s deal with these feathers,” said Ayla, not meeting her eyes. “We should clean them up before a servant comes in and—”

  “Ayla,” Crier said again, softer this time. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “For everything. For—for being so harsh with you, for pushing you against the door—I didn’t realize my strength—I—”

  “You’re an Automa. It’s your nature to overpower.”

  Crier looked as if she’d been slapped.

  For some reason, the hurt on Crier’s face enraged Ayla. How dare she express sorrow or remorse now? Her Kind had been treating humans horribly, had been responsible for so much death and suffering, ever since the War. And now she wanted forgiveness, she wanted Ayla to absolve her, not for the atrocities but for a shove?

  There would be no forgiveness. Not here. Not today. And not ever.

  Tenderly, cautiously, Crier lifted Ayla’s chin so that she was forced once again to look into her eyes. A quicksilver touch, two fingers at Ayla’s jaw, there and gone.

  “We are equals, Ayla,” she said. “We should be—we should be allies.” She took an odd little breath, lips parting, a flower opening at dawn. “We should be friends.”

  Ayla was honestly speechless for a moment. “Friends?” Her voice shook. “I’m your handmaiden. Your servant. And even if I wasn’t, I’m human. Your people kill mine for fun.” She felt like an open flame, she felt like she could devour anything she touched; it had been a long time since she was this angry. It felt almost good to return here, like coming home. This fire was her home, the element she thrived in—Crier’s words were the wind, awakening her, turning her into something blazing and burning.

  And despite herself, despite her fury, her hatred, the heat running through her—or perhaps because of all those—Ayla felt her heart pounding harder than it ever had before.

  “We are more alike than not,” Crier said quietly, insistently. She seemed to search for something in Ayla’s face, gaze flicking over Ayla’s wide eyes, her brows, the half snarl of her mouth.

  “We’re not,” Ayla choked out, wanting to silence Crier, wanting everything to be different. Because part of her, the center of that angry flame, knew exactly what Crier was saying.

  Knew what Crier was feeling.

  This thing that had been rising between them for weeks now. In the tide pool, in Crier’s bed. In the songs rough against her throat and the rose scents rising from the bath. The cold seawater and the warmth of her touch. Ayla felt it like a fishhook inside her: a sharp pain, a constant tug, and she was helpless. Something so much bigger and more powerful than herself was pulling her forward. Pulling her in.

  “We are.” And Crier’s fingers touched Ayla’s wrist, the movement quick but gentle, as if feeling for her pulse. Ayla didn’t pull away.

  Crier took Ayla’s hand and placed it on her sternum. Right above her heart. She could feel the thud of it—Made, but no less real than her own. “I have a heart, like you,” she breathed, and again her eyes searched Ayla’s face, and Ayla heard her own heartbeat so loud in her ears, like the drums from the cave, like the night she’d led Crier out onto the black rocky beach and begged for the end of her story.

  “I have a heart like you, Ayla,” Crier repeated, pressing Ayla’s hand harder against her chest. Ayla heard her own heartbeat and felt Crier’s—a song tapping against her palm, a racing pulse beneath her fingers. Ayla was breathing too hard. She was breathing too hard.

  “I feel things too,” Crier whispered.

  The hand that wasn’t on Crier’s sternum moved on its own. Ayla watched herself reach up, watched her own fingers stutter across the sharp line of Crier’s jaw, watched them pause on the soft spot just below the hinge of the jaw, where the heartbeat was closer to the surface. Ayla pressed her fingers in a little bit, into the softness, the warmth, the moth wing flutter of a pulse. Crier held completely still. Let it happen. Didn’t pull away, even though she could.

  Instead, Crier raised her own free hand to the same spot on Ayla’s jaw.

  “We’re the same,” she said.

  “We’re not,” Ayla hissed. “We’re not the same at all, Crier,” she said, though what she meant was the opposite, and she was already surging forward—it should have been to shove Crier away, maybe even to strike her, to make her hurt. But it wasn’t. S
he knew it wasn’t.

  She knew she’d been wanting this for a long time, even though she hated herself for it.

  Crier moved at the exact same time, hands flying up to frame Ayla’s face, and they were kissing. Hot and furious, gasping into each other’s mouths, Crier’s fingers in Ayla’s hair, her teeth scraping against Ayla’s bottom lip, their bodies pressed together. For a moment Crier went stiff, mouth unmoving beneath Ayla’s, and through the haze Ayla realized Crier didn’t know how to do this. Crier had nothing to draw from, no knowledge, no instinct. But they’d moved at the same time.

  Somehow Ayla’s hands found Crier’s shoulders, her throat, her jaw, and she dug her fingernails into Crier’s skin, still wanting to hurt, to make Crier bleed, to make her cry out—but instead Crier was shuddering against her, making another noise into Ayla’s mouth, this one softer, wanting, aching. Ayla wanted to hear that noise again, that soft, wounded sound, muffled against her lips, a cut-off hum.

  Ayla pressed a thumb to the corner of Crier’s lips, coaxing her mouth open, deepening the kiss, and oh, gods—it was breath and heat, a hint of wet, the taste of Crier like a drop of honey on Ayla’s tongue, and she’d never been so close to anyone before, never done anything that felt like this, her whole body awake and thrumming, pulse racing hotly beneath her skin. She wanted to get even closer. Wanted to press their bodies together until she couldn’t tell them apart. Wanted—

  —no—

  Ayla wrenched away, scrambling toward the wall farthest from the bed. She knew she must look just as wild as Crier did, if not worse: mouth dark and swollen, hair messy, eyes huge.

  The temporary madness disappeared, replaced by horror.

  What have I done?

  “Wait!” Crier moved forward and then froze when Ayla backed away from her, keeping a solid six paces between them. “Wait,” she said, low and desperate. “Just, just wait for a moment, please. Please. I have to give you something.”

  “What could you possibly have to give me right now,” said Ayla. Her mouth felt bruised, and her heart—she was breathless, terrified, like she was standing at the edge of the sea cliffs, just one step from leaping over the edge. She wanted to run. She wanted to pull Crier in again. She wanted to shatter like glass, to disappear, to not feel like this.

  Then Crier reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out something that glinted in the torchlight, something that seemed to glow from within—

  Ayla’s necklace?

  “No,” said Ayla, shaking her head. She felt dizzy, stomach roiling. “No, that doesn’t make sense, how could you—?” She’d seen it on Kinok’s desk. Had Crier somehow stolen it from Kinok? Had he given it to her? Why would he give it to her?

  “It’s yours,” said Crier, holding it out. The necklace dangled from her hand, delicate and golden. “It’s yours. I know it is. You’re not”—her expression cracked, something like guilt bleeding through—“you’re not in trouble, I promise, I just want to return it.”

  But Ayla took another step back. Her bitten mouth, her shaking hands, the taste of Crier on her tongue. She wanted to scrub everything about this moment off her skin, scrub off the skin itself. What have I done.

  “Get that away from me.” It’s a weakness. Like this. Like her. “It’s just a stupid trinket. I don’t want it anymore.”

  Crier was frowning, still holding out the necklace. “A trinket? Do you even know what it can do?”

  “What are you talking about? Did you make another deal with Kinok—one to get that back for me?”

  Crier stared at her, the desperate look giving way to confusion. “Kinok never had this in his possession.”

  Now it was Ayla’s turn to feel awash and drowning in confusion. If he’d never had her locket, then what locket had she seen in his study, when he’d been questioning her?

  It dawned on her.

  The other locket. The twin to her own. She’d always thought it was lost forever. Maybe not.

  Crier’s eyes darted around the room. It wasn’t like there was much to see; a bed, a chest of drawers, a small bedside table with a dull brass candleholder, a pen, a pot of ink. Things a traveler might request. Ayla opened her mouth, about to demand a real explanation, but Crier was hurrying over to the bedside table. Grabbing the pen. She studied it, considering, and then pressed the sharp nib into the pad of her thumb, piercing the skin. Dark blood welled up and Ayla sucked in a breath, but Crier’s face didn’t even change. She held out the pen to Ayla. “Go on.”

  “You want me to . . . what, stab myself?”

  “Just your fingertip, just enough to draw even a drop of blood,” said Crier. “Please, please just do it, and you’ll see.”

  If it had been an order, Ayla would have turned on her heel and left the room, fled the inn altogether. But now she was so curious, so confused, so—

  Please.

  Swearing under her breath, already regretting this, Ayla stepped forward and pricked the tip of her index finger on the pen. The tiny wound throbbed.

  “All right,” Crier said shakily. “Now.”

  She held up the necklace between them, the locket glinting in the low torchlight. For a moment, Ayla could have sworn the light seemed to pulse along with the wound on her finger; it looked as if the locket was glowing, producing light instead of reflecting it. Crier held her bleeding thumb right over the locket, indicating what to do.

  Together, they touched the locket.

  Their blood—red and violet, human and not—smeared.

  And the world lurched and spun.

  Ayla breathed out and tasted dust; she breathed in and tasted sunlight, summer air, something lush and green. She realized her eyes were closed, and she opened them.

  She was in a forest, and she wasn’t alone. Crier was there with her. It was barely past noon, even though the sun had been setting outside the tavern windows moments earlier. Butter-colored sunlight streamed down through the foliage, creating a dappled pattern of shadow and gold across Crier’s face.

  “Is this real?” Ayla breathed.

  “Yes, I think so. Or . . . it was. It’s memory now, it’s—”

  “Leo?”

  Ayla and Crier whipped around in unison, searching for the source of the voice. A moment later they found it: a rustle in the undergrowth, and then a young woman stepped out of the trees and into the clearing. She was barefoot and beautiful, her skin the same brown as Ayla’s, her black hair loose and tangled around her shoulders. Her dress was strange. Old-fashioned, like the clothes in old paintings.

  “Leo?” the woman called out softly. “Leo, are you here yet?”

  There was a pause in which the only sounds came from the chattering birds above their heads, the woman catching her breath. The forest seemed to swallow all other sound. The woman didn’t even glance at Ayla and Crier, even though the three of them were less than ten paces apart. She . . . couldn’t see them?

  There was a scuffling noise, a muffled curse, and then a man stumbled out from behind a tree. He was as young and beautiful as the woman, broad-shouldered and brown-skinned and tawny-haired. The moment he reached the woman, he tugged her into his body, arms curling around her. She snorted and half shoved at him and then melted, nudging her face into his chest. Ayla felt suddenly uncomfortable. She didn’t know these people, she had not chosen to come here, and yet she still felt like she was witnessing something she shouldn’t. Something too intimate, too personal.

  “What did you need to tell me?” he asked. “What was so secret that we had to meet out here?” When she didn’t answer immediately, his tone grew worried. “Did something—?”

  “No,” said the woman. “Well—yes, something happened, but it’s not bad. It’s not bad at all. I—I found the blueprints, Leo. I found my mother’s blueprints.”

  She was grinning.

  He was not.

  “Si . . . ,” he said slowly. “You promised. You promised you wouldn’t—go too far.”

  “Too far?” she said, almost laughing.
“Gods, Leo, don’t you see? There’s no such thing as too far. This is my calling. If the gods have given me anything, this is it. I want to continue where my mother left off. I have to.”

  “Si—”

  She pulled away from his embrace, all traces of laughter gone. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I was born to do this, Leo.”

  “Born to defy the laws?”

  “No, my love,” she said. “I was born to Make this. I was born to Make—her.”

  Leo opened his mouth to protest, but just then Si whirled around, startled, as if she’d heard a sudden noise. And Ayla’s mouth dropped open. Because she could finally see the details of Si’s face . . . and those were her own eyes staring at her, identical in shape and color. Now that she was looking, really looking—Si’s nose was similar to her own as well, and she had the same round face, the same wide, full mouth—stars and skies, this Si even had the same dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, faint but visible.

  Si. Siena. Siena Ayla, Ayla’s namesake. Her grandmother.

  “Wait,” said Ayla, but not quick enough.

  Crier tugged at the locket in their bloodied hands, and the forest clearing fell away as if it had never been there at all.

  It was late now—the sounds from the tavern below had grown louder, and Ayla shuddered at the thought of all those travelers down the stairs, at the thought that anyone could have walked into this room and discovered them.

  Ayla felt a million questions crowding her tongue, who were they what was that how how how how how, but her head was spinning and skies, the smell of the ale from the tavern brought back the all-too-recent memories of what she and Crier had done just minutes before, the recollection of heat against Ayla’s body and hands in her hair and Crier’s breath against her lips, and it was finally too much.

  “Ayla,” Crier started. She was clutching the bloody locket in both hands, eyes fixed on Ayla’s face. Her voice was as low and soft as if she’d spoken to a spooked horse. Could she read the panic on Ayla’s face?