“Punishment?” Crier peered at her. “Come. Walk with me.”
“Walk with you?”
“Yes. Did you misunderstand?”
“No, I understood you,” Ayla said, and then added, “my lady,” like she had only just then remembered that she was supposed to use Crier’s title at all times. And she stood there, holding very still as Crier unfolded herself from the window seat and joined Ayla in the doorway, the space seeming to constrict with a shudder as Crier passed her.
She led her through the winding corridors of the palace, walking in silence a few steps ahead, as was proper, though with every single step she wanted to turn around and look back at Ayla’s face, to try and read her expression, to puzzle out what she was thinking. Ayla’s face was fascinating. Crier had seen her barely twice and she already knew this like she knew the constellations.
It was like the tapestry of Kiera: with the first glance, you saw the deepest colors, her skin and eyebrows and the pink of her mouth. With the second glance, you saw the threads of gold, the spark in her eyes and the tiny scar on her left cheekbone, her perpetual frown—and you were captivated.
Crier’s skin felt too tight.
She led Ayla out of the palace, into the gardens, wet with the last of morning’s dew, and then onto the bluffs. The cool sea air was a relief.
They only stopped walking once they reached the very edge of the bluffs. The exact spot where, last night, Crier had fallen and Ayla had pulled her back up. Crier rubbed at her wrist. There were marks of her fall on the cliff itself: dark spots where Crier had clutched at handfuls of seagrass, jagged broken rock. Eight sets of footprints pressed into the soft mud. Crier, Ayla, and the guards.
“This,” said Crier, “is where I fell.”
A pause. “Yes, my lady.”
“Why did you save me?” Crier asked.
For the first time, Ayla’s eyes flicked up to meet Crier’s, sending a sensation of shock through her. “It’s my job,” she said slowly. “It’s my job to—to serve the house of Sovereign Hesod. That includes you.”
It was exactly the answer she should have given.
It was not at all what Crier had wanted to hear.
“Is there no other reason?” she asked, resisting the urge to lean closer, fearing she might. “No other reason to preserve my life?”
Have you ever observed me before? Have you seen me in the gardens? Did you see something in me?
Can you tell that I am different? Flawed?
Look at me again.
Ayla’s mouth twisted, but she did not look—and this, too, was a relief.
Still: Was there a redness in her cheeks, beneath the brown of her skin, beneath the freckles? Or was that a trick of the morning sun, which had risen like a gasp, like the burst of saltpeter bombs exploding in the night sky, color and fire and light? Crier now felt something burst open inside herself, too. Did you see something in me?
She wanted to ask. She did not.
Instead of an answer, Ayla responded with a question. “Why did you fall?”
What a curious question to ask. Then again, why did she fall? How had it happened?
“I have been occupied lately,” Crier said, putting the words together like layers of starched silk—covering herself with them. “Tomorrow I—I will be officially engaged to Scyre Kinok, there will be a celebration—and three days after that, I will be attending a council meeting for the very first time, as daughter of the sovereign. Hopefully, the first meeting of many. There is so much to do—I was occupied. Preoccupied. I required fresh air, and I walked too close to the edge of the cliff.”
Ayla nodded. And then she looked up, meeting Crier’s gaze dead on. “Why didn’t you report me?”
Ayla reached up and touched a spot on her own chest, over her sternum. Where her forbidden necklace must lie beneath her work shirt, cool against her warm skin. Ayla’s jaw was tight, her chin jutting out again.
Crier swallowed, though she didn’t need to. It was a good question. There were too many questions without answers. Those were the kind Crier hated.
“Because you saved my life,” she replied, but haltingly.
Ayla shook her head. “Your guards arrived quick enough. You would’ve been all right even if I hadn’t been there.”
“That is true,” Crier admitted, because it was. Had always been. She was well protected. “Father Designed me with a chime,” she said, suddenly wishing to convey to Ayla why this