no proof, but then again, Kinok had multiple motives. He didn’t like the queen or her beliefs. And he wanted a spot on the Red Council.
What had he done?
Reyka, please be alive.
Perhaps the answer was less dire. Perhaps Reyka had simply realized she’d been exposed, and was forced to go into hiding.
Maybe, even now, she was in Varn, under the queen’s protection. The thought gave Crier some relief.
Crier stared at the green feathers, so flimsy and light, yet carrying so much meaning.
If Kinok did do it, if he was willing to go after a member of the council, where would he draw the line? What if he found out Crier was conspiring with Queen Junn as well?
Would he make her disappear, too? Would he expose her Flaw?
Or would he go after her real weak spot, who was currently sitting in the tavern just one floor below, unaware that she was in unspeakable danger?
When she looked up and saw Ayla standing in the doorway of the room, stock-still, Crier at first questioned her own eyes. It seemed she had simply thought of Ayla, and Ayla had appeared. But it wasn’t an illusion—Ayla was standing there with her wide eyes fixed on the open box. The green feathers.
Panic.
One second, they were staring at each other, ten feet between them, and the next Crier had dropped the box from her lap, allowing the feathers to scatter all over the floor, and she was across the room, twisting her fingers into the collar of Ayla’s shirt, dragging Ayla inside, closing the door and slamming Ayla back against it harder than she intended—hard enough to make Ayla cry out in pain, or surprise, or anger.
“You saw nothing,” Crier hissed, her voice tight and desperate in a way it had never been before. “You saw nothing, do you understand me?”
“Let me go!” Ayla snapped. She tried to wriggle away from Crier’s hold; Crier only tightened her grip on Ayla’s collar. She could feel Ayla’s heartbeat against her fingers, radiating out from the pulse point in her soft neck, rabbit-quick, human-quick. “I’m not going to—”
“You must keep this a secret,” Crier insisted. “You must.”
“Crier—”
“If Kinok finds out, he will kill me,” said Crier, meeting Ayla’s eyes. Their faces were so close—she had the advantage of height over Ayla, and something about staring down into Ayla’s face, even when it was all twisted with indignant anger, made Crier’s blood sing. “He will kill me. And if I die, so do you.”
In era nine hundred, year fifty, justice came to Zulla like summer rain to scorched and sterile earth.
Their names were Tayol and Neo, and it was they who gained control of the Iron Heart.
It was they who captured Thomas Wren, the Maker of the First of our Kind, the Maker of Kiera. Once a brilliant alchemist, now a disgrace, a hermit, hoarding heartstone deep within the mountains, using it as leverage over the Made.
It was Tayol and Neo who murdered Wren.
With that single act, they set us free.
—FROM ON THE WAR OF KINDS
BY RIA OF FAMILY DARYLLIS, 0922950901, YEAR 8 AE
20
“Will you calm down?” Ayla snapped, trying to remain calm herself. It was as if her mind had slowed, gone into survival mode. “I’m not going to tell anyone. I know what those feathers mean. You’re in contact with the Mad Queen.”
Crier’s mouth moved but no sound came out. “How do you know?” she whispered at last.
“I’ll show you how. But first you’ll have to let go of me.”
Still gaping, Crier finally let go. She took a step back, her eyes never leaving Ayla’s face.
“Gods,” Ayla said, rubbing at her shoulder. She could already feel the bruises forming, marks in the shape of Crier’s fingers.
“How do you know about the feathers?” Crier demanded.
“Because.” Ayla reached into her pocket and pulled out her own green feather, the one Storme had given her. She hated thinking about Storme. It was like pressing on an old wound that had only just recently reopened. But there was no safer place to keep the feather than on her person at all times. “I didn’t know she’d contacted you.”
“I didn’t know she’d contacted you,” said Crier.
Ayla snorted. “Guess I don’t seem like a likely candidate, do I.”
“Neither did Reyka.” Catching Ayla’s look of surprise, Crier explained. “You’re right. I am in contact with Queen Junn. But these feathers aren’t mine. I wanted to stop in this village because it was the last place Councilmember Reyka was seen alive.”
“The box is hers,” Ayla realized, looking