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

by Nina Varela

It is ignorant to think we cannot learn from humanity’s existing structures.”

It was always better to do what you knew was right than what was kind.

Because her mother had given it to her—pressed it into Ayla’s palm when she was no more than four or five, keep it safe, child, remember us, remember our story—and because, stars and skies, she couldn’t, the necklace was all she had left of them, the only proof that her family had ever existed at all. Like Ayla herself, this necklace used to have a twin; it was one half of a matching set. The second necklace had been lost years and years ago, before Ayla and her brother were even born. Ayla wouldn’t let this one share the same fate.

Crier’s hands flew up to her cheeks. Her skin was grimy, almost sticky, damp with dirt and—tears. Water from her eyes, salt on her lips. Tears, like the strange wet that streaked down human faces, but these were her own. They were hot like blood. It felt like she was bleeding, like she was wounded. But Automae did not cry like humans did. Why would they.

Revenge had left her hands bloody, but it wasn’t the right blood.

“Ayla. It is a gift. It is a memory. And that’s one they can’t take from you.”

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

“I have a heart, like you,” she breathed, and again her eyes searched Ayla’s face, and Ayla heard her own heartbeat so loud in her ears, like the drums from the cave, like the night she’d led Crier out onto the black rocky beach and begged for the end of her story.

She knew she’d been wanting this for a long time, even though she hated herself for it.

“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.” Ayla was stunned speechless. “But you just do what you think is right, Ayla. It was never really a choice, was it? Wanting her. Killing her.”

“If a spider weaves her web to catch flies and catches a butterfly instead, what does the spider do?” Benjy stayed silent. “She eats the butterfly,” said Ayla.

That she was capable of the most human feeling of all. That she loved Ayla.

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