Iron Heart

by Nina Varela

Ayla took a deep breath, the cool air a balm on her scorched throat, and ran blind, losing her sense of direction almost immediately, brambles tearing at her clothes. More than once she caught a thin tree branch to the face, and it hurt like all hells, like being struck across the cheek with a riding crop, but she kept going. She ran until she could no longer hear the whooping and the war cries of the bandits, until she could no longer smell smoke in the air, and she kept going. She kept going. She kept going—

  “Oh!”

  She burst out of the tree line and caught herself, arms pinwheeling, right at the edge of a cliff.

  No—a riverbank.

  Of course she’d run in the exact wrong direction. She was standing at the edge of a short drop-off, the River Merra rushing along below, the water moving quickly here. Foaming white where it tumbled over a shelf of rock. Dead end. She allowed herself five seconds to catch her breath, to reassure herself she was still on solid ground, and then she took off again, racing along the riverbank. It was easier to run here, the moonlight weak but not blocked out by the trees. Ayla leaped over knobbly tree roots, the ground slick beneath her boots, mud and wet grass. She didn’t know where she was going, other than: Away. Away, away.

  Away, until she heard voices. Cutting through the dark.

  She froze, deerlike. Ears pricked.

  “What about the eyes?”

  Ayla crept forward. There, up ahead—a flicker of firelight. Had she stumbled across the bandits’ camp? What kind of horrible luck was that? She moved silently from one tree to the next, wanting only to make sure. The trees parted before her, giving way to a natural clearing. She could see the campfire smoldering at the center, three dark shapes sitting around it.

  “Eyes can fetch a pretty coin,” said one, voice carrying through the trees. “Beautiful design, that is. All those vessels, each one thinner than a human hair.”

  “Yeah, and what of the hair?” said a second voice.

  They said something else, but Ayla didn’t hear it.

  She was close enough to the see the whole clearing now. Three bandits. A pile of saddlebags, sleeping rolls. A roan horse tied to a thin, ghostly sapling. And.

  There. Bound to a tree at the edge of the clearing.

  Crier.

  Somehow, Crier.

  Ayla’s breath hitched. Everything went still. Inside her, around her. The leaves overhead stopped rustling. The forest stopped making its forest noises. Elsewhere, the river froze over, thousands of tons of rushing water turned to solid ice. Elsewhere still, the stars stopped wheeling; the sky, like the river, crackled with frost.

  Ayla stared, thinking—she was wrong, this was some other girl, some other Automa girl—but no, she knew that face. Even in the darkness, firelight offering only the faintest glow, she knew that face.

  Crier.

  Crier, captured by human bandits in the wilds of Varn? Crier, arms bent awkwardly behind her, thick chains around her waist, her throat, chains strong enough to restrain an Automa? Not that it looked like Crier needed much restraining. Her body was limp, held upright only by the chains, head lolling sideways. Her eyes were closed.

  After about fifteen seconds, her chest rose and fell with a single breath. The fingers of her right hand twitched.

  She was alive.

  Like floodwater shattering a dam, the world rushed back in.

  “No, no,” one of the bandits said loudly, and Ayla tore her gaze from Crier. Don’t forget where you are, idiot. “No,” he said again, gesturing with a flask, metal catching the light; Ayla realized he’d been drinking. Had they all been drinking, the ones who’d remained here at camp instead of attacking Ayla’s party? “I tell you, the hair never goes for much. It’s the inner workings everybody’s after. That’s where the coin is.”

  Hidden in the shadows, Ayla listened.

  Her eyes found Crier again. She couldn’t look away.

  “Slice ’em open and salvage everything you can get, that’s what we do. You know what their guts are made of?” He didn’t wait for a response from the others. “Maker’s iron. Black magick, that. Iron that moves and breathes. The bones, too, reinforced with that alchem—alchemized iron. Don’t ask me how it works. But I tell you, a single Automa knucklebone’ll sell for ten silver queenscoins.”

  “Ten silver—?” one of the others repeated, incredulous. “For a single knucklebone?” She looked over at Crier, expression almost hungry. “Goddess, what’ll we get for a whole damn skeleton?”

  Well, thought Ayla. That’s that, then.

  She took a deep breath, put on a scared face, and stumbled forward, taking care to stomp loudly on the dry leaves blanketing the forest floor. The bandits leaped to their feet, spinning to face the forest, weapons drawn. Two crossbows, one nasty-looking serrated dagger.

  Ayla pitched her voice high and sweet. “Help,” she said. “Please, is someone there?”

  “Show yourself,” one of the bandits called out. The one who had been curious about the going price of Crier’s skeleton.

  “I’m unarmed,” Ayla said, and slipped out of the shadows, into the clearing. Eyes wide. Arms wrapped around herself, shoulders hunched in. She was already small; she wanted to look smaller. “Please. I need help.”

  “What’re you doing out here, girl?” said the skeleton bandit.

  “My horse spooked,” Ayla said, throwing in a sniffle. “I fell off and it ran away. I tried to find a road, but I got lost. I’ve been wandering for hours.”

  Both crossbows lowered an inch.

  “Please,” she said. “I’m so cold.”

  “Warm yourself, then,” said the second bandit, sheathing his dagger. The other two lowered their crossbows completely, making a space for Ayla at the fire.

  She made a show of sagging with relief. “Thank you. Goddess with you.” Halfway to the fire, she stopped in her tracks and gasped, pretending to notice Crier for the first time. “Wh-who is that?”

  “The most generous leech you’ll ever meet,” said the skeleton bandit. “She’ll be buying my drinks for the next year!”

  The others laughed, coarse and scratchy as a donkey’s fur.

  “Can I look?” Ayla asked, trying to sound nervous, morbidly curious. “I never saw a leech in chains before.”

  The skeleton bandit snorted. “Look all you want, but be careful. She’s a fierce little thing, that one. Stuck her with an arrow and she kept fighting. Took three blows to get her sleeping, and I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

  “Of course,” said Ayla. “Sounds like you men were very brave.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said the second bandit, sounding pleased in a way that sent chills down Ayla’s spine. A horrible, slimy sensation, like someone had cracked an egg over her head. “’S just the one girl.”

  “Feisty, though,” said another. “Tried to bite me. I should’ve knocked her teeth out.”

  “Don’t wanna lose ’em in the dark, though,” said the skeleton bandit. “Worth a meal each, those teeth.”

  Ayla crept closer to Crier. Shadows danced on the forest floor as she left the circle of firelight. She kept her body language shivery and frightened. A scared little rabbit, a baby bird knocked from the nest. This close, she could see the bloodstains on Crier’s clothes. Violet blood dried to a dark, rusty brown. Ayla’s heart was kindling, her anger a burst of sparks, the flare of starving embers. “She tried to bite you? That’s so scary,” she said, letting her voice carry back to the bandits. “I would’ve cried.”

  The bandit said something in response, but Ayla wasn’t listening. She was curling her fingers around the hilt of her bone-handled knife. Only a few paces from Crier, and Crier still hadn’t opened her eyes. It looked like she really was unconscious.

  “Hey,” the skeleton bandit called out. “Don’t get too close.”

  Ayla crouched down as if trying to inspect Crier’s face. Angling her body so the bandits couldn’t see, she placed the knife on the fallen leaves at Crier’s hip. One heartbeat, two, and sh
e stood up and went over to join the bandits.

  The fire was burning low. Near the edge there was a pile of dry wood, including the branch of a fir tree, not yet broken down. It was about the length of Ayla’s arm, needles feathering out like wings.

  Ayla leaned forward, warming her hands. Around her, the bandits had relaxed again. She felt their eyes on her, but not out of suspicion.

  She suppressed a shiver. Disgusting old bastards.

  She leaned forward a little farther, all casual. Then, in one movement, she snatched the fir tree branch off the ground and swept it through the fire like a broom. The dry, browning needles caught instantly, crackling into flames. Ayla didn’t hesitate. Before the three bandits figured out what she was doing, she’d already brought the burning branch in a great arc around her, swiping it across their faces as hard as she could.

  They howled, scrambling to their feet, but they’d already been drinking, and now they’d gotten a face full of fire and sharp, stinging needles. Ayla wanted to go for one of their swords—she didn’t know how else to get Crier out of the chains—but she hadn’t slowed them down enough. Already one of them was recovering, eyes red and cheeks wet with tears, furious.

  “CRIER,” Ayla screamed, voice raw with fear. “CRIER, WAKE UP!”

  “You’re dead meat,” the bandit growled, and lunged.

  Ayla threw herself backward, swinging the burning branch. It was enough to keep him out of arm’s reach, but it was quickly burning up, now more smoke than flame. “CRIER,” she tried again, but an instant later the bandit knocked the branch out of her hand. He grabbed her wrist, yanking her in. His breath smelled of wine; his skin of horsehide and old, sour sweat.

  A noise at Ayla’s back, a metallic wrenching.

  “You’re dead,” the bandit said again, twisting his grip. The other two were straightening up, wiping their streaming eyes. “Only question is, you wanna die quick or slow?”

  “Neither,” said Ayla.

  “Slow,” said one of the other two. “Make it hurt. But don’t ruin her, Han. Who knows, maybe she could fetch us some coin. Sell her hair for wigs, her bones for dogs. Her eyes for—”

  But he never finished. A thick metal chain struck him across the face. He doubled over.

  Crier.

  Ayla dared to look back. Crier was listing to one side, favoring her right leg. She was holding her chains like twin whips. Her eyes flicked between Ayla and the bandits, lingering on the bandit with Ayla’s wrist in his grip. Her features darkened with an expression Ayla had never seen on her face before. Mouth twisting, golden eyes narrowed.

  “Leave now,” she rasped.

  Three drunk men, burly though they were, were no match for her. Crier was artless but furious, weakened but Automa-quick. She darted forward in the span of a blink and lashed out with the chains, this time catching the skeleton bandit across the forehead. He staggered, lurching into one of the others.

  Ayla used the moment of distraction to sink her teeth into her captor’s arm. He cursed, rearing back, and she wriggled out of his grip. Grabbed Crier’s sleeve. “Run!”

  Crier tossed the chains aside and they ran. Back into the black woods, the cover of darkness, they ran until Crier gasped out, “Can’t hear them anymore.”

  Wrist bruised, a nasty stitch in her side throbbing with every breath, Ayla slowed to a stop. She let go of Crier’s sleeve . . . and Crier dropped like a stone into a well, knees hitting the forest floor. “Crier!” Ayla hissed, crouching down beside her. “Please, you have to—”

  “Ayla,” Crier breathed.

  Ayla nodded, helpless. A thousand different responses on her tongue, none of them right.

  “Ayla,” Crier repeated. “Did you know you’re a wanted fugitive?”

  Then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she passed out.

  How long did it take for an Automa body to heal itself?

  Dawn came, the sky shifting from black to deepest blue to the soft color of salt lavender and pale pink. As the sun rose over the treetops, the surface of the river sparkled gold and then white, and Crier slept.

  And curled up under the dangling tree roots, knees drawn to her chest, Ayla watched her. Crier’s dark hair was fanned out around her head like a crown of seaweed. There was riverbed clay smeared on her jaw, pale against her skin. Flecks of dirt like freckles on her arms. Dried blood on her cheekbones, her temples, fingerprint-shaped, like she’d touched her wounds and then her face. Clothes stained with muck and blood. Big blooming patches of dried, purplish-brown blood. If she’d been human, she would not have survived whatever drew that much blood. Ayla thought about that for a long time.

  The sky was pearly like the inside of an oyster, not quite morning blue, when Crier finally opened her eyes. She did it slowly, as carefully as she did all things. One eye cracked open, pupil dilating, then the other. She blinked once. Twice.

  “Hello,” said Ayla, and was rewarded by Crier’s full-body twitch. Crier jolted upright and then gasped in pain, one hand flying back to touch the place where, a few hours ago, there had been a deep wound. Ayla had checked it once, just before dawn. By then, the bleeding had long since stopped. Crier’s skin was already knitting itself back together, shiny like scar tissue, though Ayla knew there would be no scar. Below the surface, the damage to her inner workings—severed veins, pierced organs, nicked bone—would be repairing itself too.

  Crier’s hands fluttered over her own body, checking for other injuries. Finding none, she went still. Her face was hidden behind her hair, and she could have been made from stone, she was so still, all her tiny human movements—breathing, blinking, shifting—ceased. A prey animal frozen at the first hint of danger: First, you hope they don’t see you. Then you run.

  Don’t run, some part of Ayla wanted to say. I am not the hunter here. Not the wolf.

  Instead:

  “I’m not going to stab you this time,” she told Crier.

  “You didn’t stab me last time, either,” said Crier, and unfroze. She tucked her hair behind her ear. The last time Ayla had seen her—the last time, and all the times before—Crier had been perfectly groomed. Hair clean and glossy, skin soft and smelling of rose oil, certainly no dirt or blood anywhere. Silk nightgown. Silk sheets. Only the best for the sovereign’s daughter.

  Now, it looked like she’d been dragged by the ankles to hell and back again. She looked like a survivor.

  Ayla bit back what would have been a half-hysterical laugh. A few months ago, she would have looked at Crier and thought viciously, You will die by my hand and my hand only, and convinced herself that was why she hadn’t abandoned Crier to the bandits. How wholly things had changed since then. Ayla hadn’t been able to kill Crier that night in the palace, and she wouldn’t be able to kill her now. Some things were impossible.

  That begged a new question: If she wasn’t going to kill Crier, what was she going to do?

  She’d been staring at Crier for too long.

  And Crier was staring back.

  “Did you know all of Zulla’s searching for you?” Ayla blurted out, just to fill the silence. “It’s not every day the sovereign’s daughter runs away from her own wedding. You’ve caused quite a stir.”

  “I don’t care,” Crier said hotly. “I couldn’t marry Kinok. I’d rather run forever. I’d rather die.” She pinned Ayla with an uncharacteristically fierce glare. “Are you going to turn me in? Finish what you started that night? Go ahead and try it. I have—” She broke off, feeling at her hip for a weapon that wasn’t there. “I have—”

  Ayla retrieved the bone-handled knife from where she’d stuck it in the clay behind her. “You have this?”

  “I . . .” Crier’s jaw worked. “I don’t need that. You’re human. I can overpower you easily.”

  Ayla felt her face grow hot. Not out of anger; she’d never heard a less convincing threat. But because, judging by Crier’s expression, they were both recalling the same memory.

  You’re an Automa. It’s your nature t
o overpower.

  The look on Crier’s face, like Ayla had struck her. Then—

  Then—

  “I’m not going to turn you in,” said Ayla. She flipped the knife in her hand and held it out to Crier handle first.

  Crier’s eyes flicked to the knife. To Ayla’s face. To the knife again. She took it gingerly, watching Ayla the whole time, like she thought it was a trick. But Ayla let her take it, let her sit back and slip the knife through one of the loops on her belt, secure at her hip.

  Then they were just . . . staring at each other. Again.

  This time, Crier broke the silence. “You didn’t stab me last time,” she said. “But you were going to.”

  A pang in Ayla’s chest. “I thought I was,” she whispered.

  She assumed the next question would be: Why?

  But Crier asked, “Why didn’t you?”

  “I . . .” Gods, how could she answer that? She didn’t know herself. Or she did, but it was too messy to put into words. Because of the tide pool. The key to the music room. Because of the night you whispered into the darkness between us: How can I help? Because I told you to learn more about Kinok and you did. Because you are brilliant and have never once used it to cause harm. Because you surprise me. Because I am not done being surprised by you.

  Once, in Kalla-den, at one of the stalls that sold black-market Made objects, Ayla had played with a trinket shaped like a little gold telescope. If you peered into one end, you could see grains of colored glass shifting and forming new patterns. The grains changed color, rippling blue, red, orange, rainbow, back again. Sometimes they formed images: a red flower on a field of gold, a yellow cat’s eye, an emerald-green leaf. Never the same pattern or image twice. Knowing Crier felt like that. Especially toward the end, those final weeks, when Ayla had begun to realize—and refused to admit, even to herself—that she would not be able to kill her. Every time she looked at Crier, a new pattern. A new picture. A display of new and stunning light.

  Crier was waiting. Her gaze was steady, but there was a tightness to her mouth, her shoulders. Like she was bracing for a blow.

  “I don’t think . . .” Ayla chose her words carefully. “I don’t think this world would be better for your death.” No, come on, don’t be a coward—if nothing else, for this, you owe her honesty. “I don’t think I would be.”