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

by Nina Varela

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

Like she was more than a human girl. Like she was a summer storm made flesh.

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

Crier’s skin felt too tight.

Maybe she could tell that it pleased Crier. That Crier wanted to tell a story. Maybe she just wanted to be sure Crier was distracted and would not report the celebrations to her father. Or maybe, maybe, she, too, wanted to stay.

For some reason, Ayla’s outrage—over a story, over her words, over, maybe her—made Crier smile. A thought came to her: a story of its own, one that had only just begun writing itself in her mind: a story of two women,

one human, one Made, who told ancient faerie stories to each other. Who splashed each other at the edge of the water. Who whispered the beauty of snow and the fear of death into the darkness of a late autumn evening.

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

“It means I saw the way your Lady Crier looks at you,” said Storme. “It means I saw the way you look at her.

The way you spoke to her. The way you almost touch her, sometimes.”

more than perfect bone structure and symmetrical features and flawless brown skin. It was the way her eyes lit up with interest, the way her fingers were always so careful, almost reverent, as she flipped the pages of a book. The way she held absolutely still sometimes, like a deer in the woods, so still that Ayla wanted to touch her, reach out and touch her face to make sure she was still real.

“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.”

hands flying up to frame Ayla’s face, and they were kissing.

(Crier’s eyes on her in the carriage. Ayla’s mind was somewhere else, lost in foolish, half-imagined ideas of southern heat, a white shore, blue water, belly full of fish, never cold, never afraid, never exhausted, and Crier’s eyes on her the whole time. Crier’s gaze not cold, but warm, a patch of sunlight on Ayla’s skin.)

(That kiss. The way her entire body had lit up, everything inside her coming awake.)

story of the hare and the princess, the way Crier told it with such intimacy, told it knowing how terribly the story would end, but changing it—promising Ayla happiness and peace, pretty lies, kind lies, because it had never been written that way. Because some things were just impossible. How the whole time Crier spoke, her words like honey in the darkness, Ayla had wanted to taste that voice forever.)

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.”