Crier's War - Nina Varela Page 0,68

wane. Crier almost looked to her father for direction, but then she remembered the way he had ignored her during the council meeting. The way he’d said, Stay.

She raised her chin and met the queen’s gaze dead on. “I would be honored, Your Highness.”

And so, after dinner, Crier was summoned to Queen Junn’s quarters. She tried to walk slowly at first, dignified, but the apprehension in her stomach made it feel like she’d swallowed a nest of horseflies. Her steps grew faster and faster until she rounded a corner so quickly that she startled a housemaid into dropping an entire tray of cutlery, all of which fell to the flagstones with a tremendous clatter, which resulted in the housemaid trying to simultaneously curtsy, collect the fallen forks and knives, and apologize profusely. Crier hovered for a moment before realizing that her presence seemed to make the housemaid nervous, and then she left, feeling extremely awkward and no less apprehensive.

When she knocked on the queen’s door, it opened immediately, Queen Junn ushering her wordlessly inside. Maybe Crier was not the only one who felt a strange urgency right now.

The bedchamber was sparse. The queen’s company was set to leave the next morning at dawn, so the only signs of life in the massive room were the hearth fire and the slightly rumpled bedding. There was a platter of cheese and candied fruits on the table, untouched.

Crier shifted awkwardly, gripping at her skirts. “You wanted to speak with me, Your Highness?”

“Please,” said the queen. “Sit.”

Crier sat in one of the two chairs at the table. The queen sat across from her. They were so much closer than they had been over dinner. Crier could smell her, like rain and dark spice.

“I am not the type to mince words, my lady,” said Queen Junn. “The Scyre is a problem.”

Crier’s first thought was, Stars and skies, finally. “Oh?”

“But you already know that, don’t you,” said Junn, reading it from Crier’s face. “You fear him.”

“I do not fear him,” Crier corrected her. “I do not fear anyone.”

Junn smiled with her teeth showing. It was a smile somewhere between kindness and wickedness. “Fear is a good thing, Lady Crier. Fear means you are alive, and you want to keep it that way.”

“My life is not in danger.”

“Of course not,” said Junn. “Because you are untouchable. Because you were Made to be invincible.” She leaned closer. “I’ll tell you a secret, Lady Crier. Humans believe themselves invincible, too.”

A flash of memory: solid ground disappearing beneath her feet, the cliffside slippery and crumbling in her grip. Dark water below, white foam, tooth-sharp rocks. The clear image of her own body, shattered and bloated, her Made flesh unwanted by the wheeling seagulls.

Not invincible, no.

“What do you know about Kinok?” Crier asked.

“He is powerful,” said Junn. “His ideas are dangerous. They spread like a human infection. You have studied the various plagues of the human world, I’m sure.”

Crier nodded.

She remembered books filled with graphic illustrations. Human bodies bisected, cross-sectioned. Studies of ruined skin, weeping wounds. Maps covered in thin red lines, detailing the spread of a hundred different sicknesses.

“Fever and fervor,” said Junn. “There is very little difference, in the end.”

“Fervor isn’t necessarily dangerous, Your Highness. Neither is passion.”

Crier fought the urge to clap a hand over her mouth. Suddenly she felt like one of the illustrations in those medical books—flayed open, exposed. Passion isn’t dangerous? There was nothing more dangerous. Nor was there a reason for her to argue in Kinok’s favor—it was more a gut reaction, a defense mechanism because she felt so flustered. Why did she feel so flustered?

Queen Junn leaned in closer. And then closer still, so close that Crier’s breath quickened in her throat. “You’re right,” Junn murmured. “But the Scyre’s ideas are dangerous. I know this; you know this. I see it in your face when you look at him. I know that look because I have worn it myself.”

“What do you mean, Your Highness?”

“You are not the first maiden to draw his attention, Lady,” said Junn, jaw tightening. “Before you, it was me. He came to my palace last autumn. I admit: in the beginning, I found him charming. Desirable. He is clever, Lady, even for our Kind.”

“He—he courted you?” Crier asked, shocked that she hadn’t known of this. Did her father know? Did it even matter?

“Of course,” the queen answered, waving the back of her hand as if brushing away a fly. “As you may have noticed, he is drawn to any