by Nina Varela
The queen’s back was bared. Two handmaidens were lacing her into a gown—feathered, magnificent—and Ayla tried not to think about the familiar hand movements, the fastening of the laces, knuckles brushing against soft warm skin—
“Yes, your majesty,” said the guard at Ayla’s side. “Understood.” To the second guard, she said, “Take her to the dungeons.”
No.
If she went to the dungeons, she might not ever come back out.
The two guards each gripped one of her arms, preparing to drag her from the room. Ayla went limp, faking unconsciousness, a complete deadweight. For a split second the guards were startled, their grips loosening, and she broke free. She lurched away from them, not even sure what she was trying to do; all she knew was that she couldn’t go to the dungeons, and maybe Storme was somewhere nearby. In the sovereign’s palace he’d never been far from Queen Junn’s side; he had to be close. Ayla barely made it ten paces before the guards were on her again, a sword point at her spine, a hand wrenching her back by the collar of her shirt, choking her.
“STORME,” she screamed, her voice echoing around the chamber. “STORME, I’M LOOKING FOR STORME!”
“You’re dead,” hissed one of the guards, tightening her grip on Ayla’s collar. Ayla struggled against her, gasping for breath, and then, at the end of the throne room, she saw the queen turn around.
“Eya,” said the queen. “Deidra. Bring her closer.”
“Your majesty—”
“That was an order, Eya.”
The guards obeyed. Trapped between them, head shoved down, Ayla was brought closer. The guards dropped her before the queen like a sack of potatoes, and for the second time in less than ten minutes, Ayla’s kneecaps hit the flagstones hard. That was going to bruise.
“Show me your face, girl,” came the queen’s voice above her.
Ayla raised her head.
Queen Junn’s face—as beautiful and cold as Ayla remembered, sharp nose and high cheekbones and red lips—didn’t change; there was no spark of recognition in her eyes. But she said, “Hello again, handmaiden.”
“I’m not a spy,” Ayla said desperately. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I swear, I’m not a spy, I’m not acting on anyone’s orders, I bid you no ill will. I just want to see Storme.”
How much did Queen Junn know? She and Storme had seemed oddly close for a queen and adviser, but maybe he hadn’t mentioned the whole Ayla-being-his-long-lost-twin-sister thing. So . . . there was a nonzero chance Queen Junn knew about the attack on the palace and nothing else, and therefore thought Ayla was just a traitorous, murderous servant who’d tried to assassinate Lady Crier. Ayla racked her mind for a way to prove herself trustworthy, and then—a snippet of memory. The palace kitchens. Malwin, a fellow servant, standing before her. I’m under orders from Queen Junn’s adviser. Gave me something to give to you. Later, the inn at Elderell. Crier’s wide, shocked eyes. You saw nothing, do you understand me?
But she and Ayla had been keeping the same secret.
“Green feather,” Ayla said now. “Storme gave me a green feather. I know that means something to you.”
The queen was silent. She didn’t need a mask to be unreadable.
“This will disappoint you,” she said finally. “My adviser is not here in Thalen. He left two days ago for the northern border, and he’s not due to return for another fortnight.”
Ayla sagged. A fortnight.
Without taking her eyes off Ayla’s face, the queen said, “Handmaiden Rupa.”
One of the two handmaidens, a tall, thick human girl, stepped forward. “Yes, your majesty?”
“Take this girl to the guest wing,” said the queen. “Provide her with a bedchamber, any food or clothing she desires. If she desires a bedfellow, provide that as well.” She smiled, thin and bloodred, at the shock on Ayla’s face. “This is how we show hospitality in my country, handmaiden Ayla. Welcome to Varn.”
2
Crier stood in the center of her bedchamber, a dozen house servants and handmaidens scurrying all around her, and tried not to feel like a piece of driftwood in the middle of a storm at sea.
There were two handmaidens twisting her hair into a crown of braids, another darkening her eyes and painting her lips a deep Automa-blood violet, and countless others flitting in and out of the room with velvet-lined boxes of jewelry, hair ribbons, thick heartstone paste and gold body paint that during the ceremony would be used to draw the symbols of the Makers on her skin.
Four hours from now, Crier would be married.
Presently, she was staring at her reflection, motionless in the large full-length mirror, as the human servants transformed her into a bride. Handmaiden Malwin was at her back, hands working quickly to lace up the bodice of Crier’s wedding gown, pulling it tight around her rib cage, so tight that if Crier had needed to breathe as often as humans did, she would have been suffocating. She was reminded, with a dull throb of pain, of the last time she’d stood like this while someone laced her into a dress. The last time she’d felt someone’s fingers brushing her bare shoulder blades, the nape of her neck, someone’s touch warming her even through layers of linen and silk.
The dress she’d worn then had been pale silver, bell-shaped. This dress was dark red velvet, cut closer to the shape of Crier’s body, the bottom of the skirt pooling on the flagstones at Crier’s feet. There were no sleeves, and she would wear no robe or silks—nothing that would get in the way of the ceremonial markings on her arms, her forehead, her chest above the neckline of the gown. On her head, a delicate golden tiara.
She met her own dark eyes in the mirror. She thought maybe her face looked different than usual, not just because of the makeup. Crier’s expression was usually neutral, controlled, her emotions and reactions purposefully tamped down. Today, she didn’t just look blank. She looked empty. Dead.
Elsewhere in the palace, Scyre Kinok must also be preparing for the ceremony. Kinok, her betrothed. Four hours from now, her husband. Forever. Crier couldn’t stop thinking about it: the concept of forever. Automae lived for a long time. Twenty, fifty, eighty years from now, she would still be married to Kinok. The seasons would change, her father would die, Kinok would replace him as sovereign. For most of her life, Crier had believed that as Hesod’s only child, his only natural heir, she would be the one to inherit his throne. She thought she knew the path her life would take: as soon as her father decided she was ready, she would join the Red Council. She would work as a Red Hand, a councilmember, for decades, doing whatever she could to pass laws strengthening the frayed relationship between Automae and humans in Rabu. She’d spent the last ten years writing essay after political essay, establishing her beliefs, her values, her legitimacy as a potential councilmember. But the day her father had finally invited her to a meeting of the Red Council, she’d been forced to stand silently in a corner and watch as her father chose Kinok to fill Councilmember Reyka’s empty seat. Crier had realized that day that her father had never planned on allowing her to join the council, let alone become sovereign. She wasn’t destined to be a part of her nation’s future. She was destined to be a wife, a trinket, given away as a gesture of goodwill the moment her father wanted to join forces with someone whose power was threatening his own. Kinok: Scyre, Watcher of the Iron Heart, leader of the rapidly growing Anti-Reliance Movement. Kinok: a man who had tricked Crier into thinking she was Flawed, broken, Made wrong; a man who had used this “Flaw” to blackmail her into bending to his will. Who was on a quest to find Tourmaline, a new source of power for their Kind. Who had learned Ayla’s grandparents were somehow connected to the creation of Tourmaline, and therefore wanted to find Ayla.
It felt like Crier’s bodice really was suffocating her. It felt like her ribs were cracking, shattering inward, piercing her lungs. Her heart.
The worst part was her father’s obvious pleasure. He had never been proud of her like this. Not when she’d studied day and night, memorized libraries’ worth of books,
kept silent, obeyed him, adhered to his Traditionalism, followed every rule. That had earned her nothing but indifference. Or the occasional praise like a thin gold veneer over a heap of criticism: This is well written, daughter. If only the content were as good as the technique. But over the past week, he’d taken to treating her like a well-behaved dog, rewarding her good behavior with tiny gifts. Tokens of his affection. A book filled with charts only of various seas, as recorded by sailors and voyagers. A peacock-feather quill with a pot of silver ink. Most precious of all, a golden key. It opened the door to Hesod’s trophy room, one of the only rooms in the palace nobody, not even Crier, was allowed to enter. A few months ago, she would have been honored. But these days she had no interest in seeing her father’s spoils of war. A room of human artifacts he’d been collecting for years. They weren’t trophies. They were stolen. She’d left the golden key in the drawer of her writing desk, hadn’t touched it since. Didn’t plan to.
“Malwin,” Crier murmured, and felt Malwin’s fingers freeze against her spine. None of the other servants noticed; they’d finished with Crier’s hair and makeup and the room had emptied out. Crier knew the wedding guests had started arriving a couple hours earlier. Even on such short notice—the wedding date had been pushed up nearly a month, and the new date had been announced only a week ago, her father’s fastest riders sent to all corners of the nation to deliver the news—there were two hundred in attendance. All of them requiring lodging, heartstone, and food for their servants. The palace had been in chaos for days. It didn’t help that barely two weeks had passed since . . .
Since Ayla had stood over Crier’s bed in the middle of the night with a knife in one hand, poised to strike.
“Yes, my lady?” said Malwin.
“Your Kind speaks of ‘heartbreak,’” said Crier. She’d seen the word in so many human books, faerie stories and love stories and comedies and tragedies alike. It was everywhere. “I know it is not . . . literal. But what is it?”
Malwin hesitated. “Why do you ask, my lady?”
Ever since the night of the attack, all the servants had been visibly warier of Crier, her father, Kinok, even the Automa guards. Their expressions when they saw Crier ranged from nervous to downright terrified. Most of them didn’t know the full story of what had happened that night—it seemed Ayla and the other servants involved had kept their plans a secret, though Crier knew the rumors about Ayla working for Queen Junn were untrue. Still, she understood why the details didn’t matter. Her Kind wasn’t known for being merciful. In the past, her father had punished innocents for other humans’ crimes. If she were a servant, she’d be terrified too. She’d been doing everything she could to appear nonthreatening—keeping her voice gentle, her expression smooth, her orders quick and simple—but it wasn’t helping. She was the sovereign’s daughter. She could hurt or kill them with a word.
Before Ayla, Crier hadn’t realized the extent of her own power, as foolish as it sounded. She knew she had power—she knew the servants had to obey her—but she wasn’t the sovereign. She had no real influence. She wasn’t dangerous, she was just Crier. Why would anyone fear her?
She’d been so naive.
“I’m just curious,” she assured Malwin. “There’s no wrong answer. I’m just curious.”
“All right, my lady,” Malwin said quietly, going back to the laces. “Heartbreak . . . well, it’s like being sad, but more than that. The worst sadness you can feel. When you’re so sad it feels like a real wound, like your heart itself is broken, bleeding.”
“What causes it? What makes people that sad?”
“Could be anything, my lady.” Malwin made a considering noise. “When you lose someone you love. Or if someone you love does something to hurt you, something truly terrible.”
Crier thought about that. She thought about the letter from Queen Junn, currently hidden inside Crier’s mattress along with a heavy gold locket. Junn’s confession: I killed Reyka. She thought about her father humiliating her in front of the Red Council: My apologies. My daughter thinks herself wise beyond her years.
She thought about Ayla.
“What would make you want to hurt someone?” she asked Malwin, very quiet. “What would make you want to do something terrible?”
“My lady,” said Malwin, “I would never, I would never do anything to—”
“I know,” Crier broke in. “I know, Malwin. Please don’t worry. You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just a question, I promise.”
In the mirror, she saw Malwin’s look of surprise. The handmaiden was older than Crier by a few years, with a narrow face, a big crooked nose, a scattering of small pockmark scars around her jaw. Her hair was tied back in a messy braid. She was pretty, Crier thought to herself. It was strange—she’d always been taught that Automae were the ideal. Like the rest of her Kind, Crier’s face was Designed to be perfectly symmetrical. She was tall and strong. She didn’t have any scars. But the most captivating person she’d ever met was Ayla: short, perpetually scowling Ayla, round-faced, freckled, wild-haired, beautiful Ayla.
What would make you want to hurt someone?
What would make you want to do something terrible?
“I suppose . . . ,” Malwin said slowly. “I suppose if they hurt me first. If they hurt someone I loved.”
But I didn’t hurt her, thought Crier, instantly defensive. Then she paused. It was true that she’d never physically hurt Ayla. The closest she’d ever come was at the inn, wild with panic, shoving Ayla back against the door, miscalculating the force of her own strength. Realizing what she’d just done, letting go, sick with a new type of panic, her brain tossing out hyperrealistic images of finger-shaped bruises on Ayla’s shoulders, Ayla’s bones breaking beneath Crier’s hands. Apologizing, horrified with herself. The hatred in Ayla’s voice: You’re an Automa. It’s your nature to overpower. Like she’d been expecting the worst and Crier had still managed to disappoint her.
It’s your nature to overpower.
Ayla hadn’t just been talking about the shove.
Malwin fastened the last pair of laces and took a step back, taking a look at Crier’s reflection in the mirror. “You are beautiful, my lady,” she said. “You make a lovely bride.”
Crier tried to respond, but her throat felt tight. Her body was tense all over. She felt like a fish caught in a net, a doe at the wrong end of a hunter’s arrow. Like she was dangling from a cliff, freezing water and sharp black rocks below, and this time she would not be saved.
Kinok didn’t know she knew the truth about her Flaw, but Crier couldn’t even consider it a victory. Every moment with him was a slow, drawn-out strangulation. He was dangerous, a monster, but Crier—couldn’t leave. She couldn’t.
Three days ago, as was tradition, she had met with the man who would officiate her wedding. He was a well-known, highly respected Designer, an Automa who worked with human Midwives to create newbuilt Automae. The sovereign had arranged the meeting. Crier had been expecting the Designer to walk her through the wedding ceremony, detailing exactly what she had to do and when. That was not what happened.
“Well met, Lady Crier,” said the Designer.
She was startled by the press of two fingers on the underside of her chin. Nobody else would dare to touch her. “Well met,” she murmured, looking up at him. She didn’t know how old he was—it was hard to tell with her Kind—but his face was beginning to show the signs of age. His tan skin looked thin as parchment across his bones; his eyes were not as clear as her own; his dark hair was streaked with silver. He wore the white uniform of the Designers. The white robes, lined with softest lambskin, that marked him as the officiant of Crier’s wedding.
“Lady Crier,” said the Designer in his papery voice, “you seem frightened.”
She didn’t respond.
“Tell me your fears,” he said. “Tell me your doubts.”
“There are so many,” she whispered, ashamed. “I—I sometimes wonder if this is the right choice. My betr
othed, he . . .” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. She didn’t know who she could trust. Kinok had eyes and ears everywhere.
“Doubt is normal,” said the Designer. “Indecision is so common in the young. But this is the right choice, Lady Crier, because it is the only choice. You cannot change it now.”
Her brow furrowed. She blinked up at him, confused. “The only choice?”
“This is what you were created for, Lady Crier,” said the Designer, cupping her face in his hands. His palms were cool and dry. “This is your Design: to be bonded. It is never wise to defy your own Design, Lady Crier. Others have made that mistake. The young, the doubtful. But the nature of our Kind is that we are not so irreplaceable, in the end. If one offspring fails, another can take its place.”
“What are you saying?” Crier breathed. She felt on the edge of something, some blinding, white-hot horror. “Another can . . . ?”
“Take your place,” said the Designer, brushing his thumb across her cheekbone as if wiping away tears, though she knew for a fact she was not crying. “Do not forget, Lady Crier. You were Made, and you can be unmade, and another remade in your image. Do not force your father’s hand, Lady Crier. He created you to fulfill a certain purpose. If you reject that purpose . . .”
He might have continued, but Crier wasn’t listening. She knelt there on the cold flagstones, letting this new knowledge sweep through her. My father wouldn’t hurt me, she told herself. I’m his daughter. He wouldn’t hurt me, even if I refuse the bonding.
Would he?
But the Designer’s message had been clear—obey, or else.
Crier wanted more than anything to run away. But where would she go? In Rabu, she was in danger of being recognized. She could try to make it to Varn, to the queen’s palace in Thalen—after all, as far as Queen Junn knew, Crier was still her ally and confidante—but Queen Junn had killed Reyka. She’d killed Reyka. The idea of facing her, playing nice in her court, made Crier sick.
