Crier's War

by Nina Varela

  It was almost too big. Too much to conceptualize. So much bigger than the one fatal strike that mattered the most to her: Crier, dead in her arms.

  But for that, Ayla would have to wait. She’d already waited so long; she could wait longer still. She could wait as long as it took.

  First, she’d do what she promised Benjy and Rowan—she’d help the cause. She’d find a route to the Iron Heart, if such a thing existed. Then, and only then, would she give herself the one thing she wanted most—personal revenge.

  She brushed some of Crier’s hair out of the way, more than ready to get this whole thing over with, and that was when she saw the tattoo.

  It was tiny. Plain. Ten numbers etched into Crier’s skin with blue-black ink, each one smaller than a fingernail. Ayla had heard of these tattoos before, but she’d never gotten close enough to an Automa to actually see one.

  This was Crier’s model number. The first six numbers identified her as Crier of Family Hesod. The second four indicated the year of her creation. It was one more reminder that the creature before Ayla, the creature laced into this rich, beautiful dress, the creature who prowled the bluffs at night—this creature was not human.

  Unthinking, Ayla brushed her thumb across the number. A soft, barely-there touch; the second she realized what she was doing, she drew back and tried to play it off as pure accident. She didn’t look in the mirror, didn’t dare check whether or not Crier had noticed.

  Crier’s skin was warmer than Ayla might have thought.

  It was Crier who broke the silence between them. “Have you experienced love?”

  “Yes.” Ayla bit her tongue.

  “What does it feel like?”

  Ayla thought not of love but of her necklace. The single shining piece of proof that once, a very long time ago, she had not been so alone.

  “I don’t remember,” she answered at last. She finished the last lace and took a big step back, away from the mirror, still avoiding Crier’s eyes.

  Crier wasn’t giving up. “Is there a physical sensation? Is it pleasant or painful?”

  “Depends.”

  “So you do remember.”

  Just let me go. “Sometimes I feel better when I think of a certain song,” said Ayla. “That’s as much as I can tell you.”

  “A certain song. Have I heard it?”

  “No.”

  “You did not sing it to me?”

  “No, my lady.”

  “Why not?”

  Ayla sighed. “Well, it is . . . private.” It was a word servants rarely said. Nothing about their lives was supposed to be private.

  Crier made a small, considering noise. “Then—you love that song? You love music?”

  “Sure.”

  Crier turned to face Ayla. Somehow, she was more intimidating in the ball gown than in her plain clothes. Taller, fiercer, the corded muscles in her arms on full display. It didn’t help that she was wearing makeup—kohl around her eyes, a dark stain on her mouth. She looked like a monster from the old stories. A bloodsucker, a witch, beautiful and deadly.

  “Here,” Crier said, and crossed to her bedside table. Opened one of the drawers. Took something out. Tossed it to Ayla without warning.

  Ayla startled and just barely managed to catch the thing before it hit her in the face. When she looked down at her hands, she saw she was now holding a single metal key.

  “There is a music room in the west wing,” said Crier. “I go there sometimes. To practice.”

  Ayla stared at her.

  Then stared at the large key in her hands.

  A gift.

  She could hardly comprehend such a thing. It seemed impossible that Crier would trust her this soon, this readily.

  Unless . . . unless she had already wanted to trust her. Unless that had been part of the reason she’d sought her out in the first place.

  The thought wiggled something loose in Ayla, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Trust. Trust meant closeness.

  Trust meant Ayla could more easily get answers.

  The key was cold but weighty in her hand.

  “The walls are thick, so no sound escapes. No one will interrupt you. Now,” Crier said, apparently satisfied with the shock that must have been written on Ayla’s face, “you may escort me to the ballroom.”

  7

  Tonight, Crier was going to do everything right.

  Tonight, her secret would remain safe. She might be Flawed on the inside, with the pillar of Passion wreaking havoc on her from within, but no one had to know.

  Several hundred guests had arrived for the ball—Crier knew, as she had penned many of the invitations herself, had studied long lists of names and connections. They had all gathered to celebrate her engagement to Kinok, pooling from the edges of the dance floor toward the dais at its head, drinking liquid heartstone and pale wine and murmuring in anticipation. Though she couldn’t see them all from her hiding place behind the dais, she could hear guests trickle in through the entrances at either end of the room, until Crier began to feel that the crowd was almost choking her.

  There were men in dark, brocaded waistcoats. Women in dresses of every color and style, their hair loose and tumbling or braided in tight crowns or hidden beneath colorful silks; some were in sharp military uniforms, crests or badges at their throats. Crier wondered if they had ever actually seen battle. Surely most of them were part of the latest generation of Automae, those who’d been created long after the War of Kinds.

  The grand ballroom had always been beautiful, but tonight it was a vision, everything glittering and exquisite. The floor, polished smooth and shining like ice, had been cleared to make room for dancing. The walls were hung with huge floor-to-ceiling tapestries Crier had never seen before, all depicting scenes of celebration and unification: the crowning of some ancient king; a royal wedding featuring a dress made entirely of white pearls; a battlefield scene in which uniformed Automae stood over the fallen bodies of countless humans—and the bodies of the rare human sympathizers, the traitors. All of those Automae, Crier knew, had been rooted out, considered Flawed. Burned.

  At the head of it all stood Crier, taking measured breaths four times per minute. The ceremonial dais before her was carved to look like a mass of tangled human bodies, Automae standing triumphant above them. Even painted with gold leaf and almost glowing beneath the warm light of two dozen crystal chandeliers and their four hundred candles, it was gruesome. Crier kept staring at it, picking out a new detail each time: the unnatural bend of a leg, a face with bulging eyes, a golden mouth twisted into a silent, unending howl.

  The dais was meant to catch the eye. No matter where you stood, you could not forget why you were here tonight.

  To make the engagement between Crier and Kinok official.

  Crier wanted nothing more than to look away, but the only other option would be to turn toward Kinok, who stood rock-still beside her. He was absolutely calm, but in a way that made Crier think of tide pools: motionless on the surface, things dark and spiny hidden below.

  Outside the ballroom, the moon would be reaching its peak.

  It was almost time.

  Her father ascended the dais. He looked proud and powerful standing alone up there. Like the figurehead of a ship, facing off against an ocean of Automae.

  “Organization, System, Family,” said Hesod, his voice booming and echoing around the room. Instantly, the low rumble of a thousand conversations gave way to a hushed silence. The few guests Crier could see all turned to look at Hesod in unison, a ripple of simultaneous movement. “The beauty and symmetry of such values should not merely be wasted on human life,” he continued, quoting from his own manifesto, “but studied and applied for the benefit of all Automakind. Organization, System, Family. Tonight we honor those values. Tonight we honor two lives that will soon be inextricably bound, but we also honor that which a binding symbolizes: The perpetuation of our culture. The unification of our people. The continued success of a civilization built on tradit
ion. A civilization that because of tradition has grown more powerful and magnificent than every civilization that rose and fell before us.”

  Carved into the back of the dais, right in front of Crier’s face, was the body of a naked human woman. Her limbs were long and broken, intertwined with the bodies around her; her hair was a cloud of gold around her golden head. Like all the other bodies on the dais, her face was turned upward as if she, too, was watching Hesod speak. But unlike Crier and Kinok, unlike all the Automa guests, her face was twisted into an expression of pure anguish. A wide and wrenching mouth, eyes that were huge and grotesque and almost frog-like. One of her hands was visible, the fingers stiff and pointed like the claws of a vulture. Other bodies were grabbing on to her—hands on her hips, her thighs, her ankles—as if trying desperately to climb up and over her, using her body as a ladder. A means of escape.

  “Unity—of politics, of thought, of family—is written into our Design,” Hesod was saying. “Tonight, Lady Crier of Rabu and Scyre Kinok of the Western Mountains will pledge themselves to each other and, above all else, to the core tenets of our glorious society. My daughter. Honorable Scyre. The time has come to ascend.”

  For a second, Crier did not move. Then Kinok brushed past her on his way to climb the dais, and she shook the ice off her limbs and followed him.

  The steps built into the side of the dais were shaped like cupped human hands. Crier climbed up slowly, placing her feet carefully into their golden palms.

  After that, time slid into itself. The ceremony came to Crier in fragments: her father’s voice booming through the grand hall as he recited old, half-human words; Kinok’s eyes fixed on the side of Crier’s face; the crowd, motionless as a sea of statues, staring up at Crier with a thousand empty eyes. Was that her own heart in her ears? She could hear the pounding, the tiny clicks of her workings. Was it going too fast?

  Was she breathing?

  She kept forgetting to breathe.

  Four breaths per minute.

  She didn’t surface until it was time, it was time. Kinok raised the ceremonial knife. Its blade caught the light of all four hundred candles, and Crier thought hazily of stars, or fireflies.

  Then Kinok said, “We shall be bound, body to body, blood to blood,” and she rested her forearm on the edge of the dais, and he slid the blade almost gently across her skin from elbow to wrist.

  Blood welled up immediately, a deep violet. Hesod’s grip tightened on Crier’s shoulders—reassurance? pride?—as they watched the blood spill down her arm, down her fingers. It dripped from her fingertips and spattered the golden floor of the dais, ran in tiny rivulets down the outer wall, down the faces and bodies of the naked golden humans, not a single drop landing on Crier’s dress. Kinok set the knife aside. With long, steady fingers, he untied the armband that Crier had worn for the past few months. He set it beside the knife, a coil of red, a snake.

  As with all things, the wound came first and then the pain. Crier’s arm ached terribly, even though she knew logically that the long, neat slice in her skin (the cut of a surgeon, she thought distantly) had already begun to heal. It took everything in her to stand still and keep her expression blank and let herself bleed. She was given only a few moments to gather herself before it was her turn to wield the knife. The cut she made on Kinok’s forearm was not nearly so neat as his—a little shaky, a little too deep or too shallow in some places—but of course his blood spilled all the same. She untied his armband. Cast it aside. And under Hesod’s guidance, they pressed their forearms together, violet blood smearing between them, snaking down to drip from their elbows. A single drop landed on Crier’s skirt.

  “We shall be bound,” Crier said. Her voice was quiet but clear, like a bell chime ringing through the ballroom. “Body to body. Blood to blood.”

  “We shall be bound,” Kinok murmured, meeting her eyes. They held their pose—facing each other, wounds pressed together—for another moment.

  Then Hesod said, “It is done,” and the crowd, which had been silent, repeated in unison, “It is done.” A single voice with a thousand layers.

  Crier dropped her gaze from Kinok’s face as soon as she could. She looked down at the tiny dark stain on her skirt, the drop of fallen blood.

  It was done.

  After the ceremony ended, Crier was free to mingle with the guests, however little she actually wanted to do so. Kinok helped her down from the dais, his hand cool in hers, and together they stepped into the waiting crowd. The musicians had stopped playing during the ceremony, and now they started up again with a series of waltzes, music that was soft and tumbling beneath the hum of conversation. Crier soon lost her father to a member of the council and Kinok to a woman who was apparently also a Scyre, but she preferred it that way. She was not much in the mood for pleasantries. Her arm had been bandaged, but it still hurt, and the sick feeling in her stomach had returned. Had never left, maybe.

  As she sought a quiet spot near one of the tapestries, Crier found herself sneaking glances at the only other humans in the ballroom who weren’t servants—the musicians, set up in a far corner. They were a quartet, lute and harp and pipes and a slow, rhythmic drumbeat. They kept their heads down, backs bowed over their instruments. There was no conductor, and yet each piece flowed seamlessly into the next, syrupy Tarreenian ballads becoming Varnian dancing songs becoming quick, light melodies that reminded Crier of sunlight scattered on the ocean, sparkling on the waves. With each new song, Crier thought: Would Ayla like this?

  The crowd parted as she headed for the edge of the ballroom, seeking space, or air, or silence, all things she craved but would not find here. She was stopped every few moments by a guest offering well wishes or news or introductions or a glass of that pale wine.

  The first time she saw someone wearing a black armband, so similar to the red one Kinok had just removed from her upper arm, she took little notice of it.

  The second time, she thought it was an odd coincidence.

  The third time, she wondered if perhaps this was a new trend.

  The fourth time, she asked. She had finally spotted someone she actually knew: a girl named Rosi, who was the daughter of a merchant important enough to visit the sovereign’s home a few times a year but not important enough to wield any significant influence over the council. Rosi was wearing a dress of deep-blue silk, her hair twisted into a shining knot atop her head. She had tiny freckles painted all over her nose, rouge on her cheeks. A band of black fabric was wrapped around her left arm.

  “Lady Crier!” Rosi called out, and extricated herself from a conversation with another girl to glide over, moving with the kind of effortless grace that all Automae were supposed to emulate. She had always been like that. “Lady Crier, it’s been too long.”

  “A year at least,” Crier said. “I hoped you would come tonight.” And she meant it. Crier sensed that Rosi was most interested in her for the opportunity of social advancement she promised, perhaps believing that Crier, as the sovereign’s daughter, could help elevate her own standing. But even still, Crier appreciated having someone to write to regularly, someone to make her life less narrow and confined.

  They had written each other a handful of letters over the last few years, and were as close as two Automae might get to being considered what humans called “friends.” Their Kind didn’t really experience friendship in the way humans did, as it was not particularly inherent or cultivated—it was not part of Traditionalism and thus not reinforced, the way family and some of the arts were encouraged under Hesod’s rule.

  Which was perhaps why Rosi looked so surprised—and relieved.

  “Really? I am honored, my lady.”

  “That black band on your arm, though. I am curious that you never spoke of it in our correspondence. Is this some type of fashion?”

  Rosi laughed, and then seemed to realize that Crier was serious. “Oh! No, my lady,” she said, giving Crier a confused little smile. “Do you really not know? It is your fiancé’s symbol, after
all.”

  “His symbol?”

  “Yes.” Rosi finished her glass of wine in one swallow and passed the empty glass off to a human servant, switching it for a full one. It took perhaps a barrel of wine to have any effect on an Automa’s faculties; she seemed determined to reach that point. “We use it to identify fellow members of the Movement.”

  The Anti-Reliance Movement.

  Crier frowned, scanning the crowded ballroom. Now that she was looking for it, she realized that practically one in every ten guests was wearing the black band. Did Kinok really have so many dedicated followers? And they were bold enough, it seemed, to declare their alliance so openly, right under Hesod’s nose.

  “Right,” she said. “Of course. And you—you’re a member of the Movement?”

  “Oh, yes. I learned about it from my own fiancé, actually. He’s around here somewhere—Foer, son of Councilmember Addock. Have you met?”

  “Yes, I’ve met Foer.” From what Crier could remember, he was a quiet, unassuming boy, softer than his father had intended. “Congratulations on your binding.”

  “Thank you, lady,” said Rosi. Then she glanced around, as if making sure there were no eyes on their conversation, and leaned in closer. “Truth be told, it would never have happened if not for Scyre Kinok.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Councilmember Addock’s estate was one of those targeted in the Southern Uprisings. If Scyre Kinok had not been there to warn him, to help him fend off the attacks, the humans might have overrun his estate. Councilmember Addock, his husband, my Foer—they all might have been killed.”

  “I see,” Crier murmured.

  “Oh, look!” said Rosi, loud again. “They’ve begun dancing. Your first dance will be soon, my lady.” She laughed, light and pretty. “Such an old-fashioned custom, is it not? I prefer not to dance myself. It always looks so clumsy.”