Crier's War (Crier's War, #1)

by Nina Varela

There was a moment—so brief that when she thought about it later she was not sure it had actually happened—in which Crier lowered her bow and Kinok did not. A single moment in which they stared at each other and Crier felt the faintest edge of nerves.

Yeah he's def gonna try to kill her at some point

You couldn’t depend on much in this world, but you could depend on this: love brought nothing but death.

Justice was a god, and Ayla didn’t believe in such childish things. She believed in blood.

Ayla’s face was fascinating. Crier had seen her barely twice and she already knew this like she knew the constellations.

she’s obsessed alreadyyyy 🤭

Your customs are similar because your entire culture was stolen from ours. Because you have no history or culture of your own.

“Supposedly, we marry for love,” Ayla said at last. The word was a bitter seed on her tongue. She’d never been in love before. Not like that. But she’d felt love—for her family. Crier frowned. “That seems . . . ill-advised.” “Agreed.”

LMAOOOOO

Love was what made you invite death, wish for it, crave it, just so that you could be freed from your own pain.

A drop of water gleamed on Ayla’s lower lip. Strangely, it made Crier want to—drink.

If longing is madness, then none of us are sane.

“I know you’re looking at me,” Crier said, and Ayla looked away so quickly that she nearly knocked her head against the carriage window. “I can tell. I can always tell.”

“You’re an Automa. It’s your nature to overpower.”

Ive been SHOT

“But I do,” he said, and there was something lurking in his voice now, something more than bitterness or even jealousy, something young and pained and almost scared. “I do, Ayla, gods, how do you not—” He broke off, letting out a shaky breath. “Benjy—” “I know what it’s like,” he said over her. “Loving someone who’s . . . who’s impossible to have. I know what that’s like more than anything.”

Oh benjy 😭

Crier had been Designed. Crier was Made. But in the moment Ayla first touched her, Crier had learned what it felt like to be born.

“Humanity is how you act, my lady,” said Jezen. “Not how you were Made.”