wounded deer. Scenting blood in the air. Ayla had learned that the hard way.
Now she was sixteen, and everything she wanted was just inches from her fingertips.
When Rowan had first rescued her, Ayla only had her pain and her anger.
But one day, about a month after being with Rowan, a group of nomadic humans had come into town. Rowan had given Ayla a choice. Leave with these traveling humans, leave all of her pain and her memories behind and start anew. Or stay under Rowan’s wing. Rowan would care for her until she could find work. And Ayla would learn to fight, learn to live, and plan for justice.
Ayla had chosen the latter. And Rowan, keeping her promise, had found Ayla work as a servant of the palace.
Hesod. The leech who’d ordered the raid of Ayla’s village.
It was Hesod’s men who had broken into Ayla’s childhood home, who had murdered her family just because they could.
Hesod prided himself on spreading Traditionalism throughout Rabu—the Automa belief in modeling their society after human behavior, as though humans were a long-lost civilization from which they could cherry-pick the best attributes to mimic. Family was important to Sovereign Hesod, or so he and his council preached. The irony was not lost on Ayla.
And now she worked for him. It disgusted her, every second of it, but it was the only way she could get close to Hesod. She’d come so far. She was not going to throw it all away for some doomed dream of revolution.
Rowan had always told her that justice was the answer. And for a long time, Ayla had believed her. She’d believed that revolution was possible, that if humans just kept rising up, refusing to submit, they could really change things. But Ayla knew better now. Over the years, she’d seen how hopeless Rowan’s dreams were. Every uprising had failed; every brilliant plan had been crushed; every new maneuver just resulted in more human death.
Justice was a god, and Ayla didn’t believe in such childish things.
She believed in blood.
3
Crier’s father and Kinok were already seated in the great hall for breakfast when she arrived, dressed in a new gown this morning. Her father’s and fiancé’s heads were bent toward each other in a discussion that broke off as soon as Crier entered.
For a moment, she stared at her father—the man who’d commissioned her. Hesod was a masterpiece of Design. He was Made to be powerful, influential, brilliant even for an Automa, respected by everyone in Zulla. When he spoke, people listened.
What would he say about Midwife Torras’s betrayal?
She hadn’t told him yet.
Was afraid to, really.
Kinok had mentioned the scandal a week ago, during their Hunt, and yet she’d kept it to herself.
She sat down at the table across from Kinok. The great hall, in the east wing of the palace, could easily seat fifty—it was huge, airy, with a high, arched ceiling and a massive banquet table made of well-sheened pine. But despite its vastness, most days it saw only Crier, Hesod, and a handful of servants. And, over the past months of his courtship, Kinok.
“Good morning, my lady,” said Kinok. Crier nodded in greeting, gaze averted.
“Daughter,” said Hesod, and Crier managed to look him in the eyes.
“Father,” she murmured.
A serving boy came in carrying a golden platter, and with it, liquid heartstone.
The subterranean jewel, carefully mined, was the source of the Automae’s strength. It ran through their veins, their inner workings, not like human blood but like ichor, the blood of the old gods in all the human storybooks. Something closer to magick, alchemy, than anything natural.
Crier sat up straighter in her chair.
The liquid heartstone was served in a teapot shaped like a bird skull, with a long handle carved from heartstone itself. Steam leaked from the bird’s eye sockets. Crier tried not to look eager when she pushed her teacup forward.
She needed this. Especially after what Kinok had told her last week. About the Midwife’s scandal, the Design that had been tampered with. It made her stomach harden and twist inside to think there’d been even the slightest risk to her own Design. She hadn’t slept since.
Automae did not require nightly rest like humans did, but it was recommended that they sleep for at least six hours every three days. Sleeping let their organs slow and reset, let their bodies repair any internal or external damage. Crier was usually very diligent about getting the proper amount of sleep—she found it almost pleasing, curling up in the soft blankets