Crier's War

Crier's War Plot Summary

Introduction

# Hearts of Iron and Flesh: Love Beyond the Boundaries of Creation In the marble halls of Sovereign Hesod's palace, where salt winds carry the scent of power and oppression, two hearts beat in defiance of every law that governs their world. One belongs to Lady Crier, daughter of the sovereign, her skin crafted from obsidian and gold, her amber eyes designed to calculate rather than feel. The other pulses with human blood and buried rage—Ayla, a servant girl who carries a blade meant for her mistress's throat and a secret that could topple empires. Seven years have passed since Automae forces burned Ayla's village to ash, murdering her family and leaving her with nothing but vengeance to sustain her breath. Now she serves in the house of her enemy, braiding the hair of the girl she plans to kill, while Crier struggles against the suffocating weight of an arranged marriage to Scyre Kinok, a charismatic leader whose vision of the future runs red with human blood. Between them stretches a chasm wider than the sea—Created versus born, oppressor versus oppressed, duty versus desire. Yet in the space between heartbeats, something impossible begins to bloom.

Chapter 1: The Flawed Design: Crier's Discovery of Her True Nature

The ceremonial blade opens Crier's arm from elbow to wrist, violet blood spattering the golden floor like scattered amethysts. Four hundred Automae watch in perfect silence as she binds herself to Scyre Kinok, their blood mingling in the ancient ritual of engagement. The stage beneath their feet depicts tangled human bodies crushed under Automae feet, a monument to their species' victory carved in marble and pain. Kinok's smile never wavers as he whispers her secret back to her during their first dance. He knows about the documents hidden in her chambers, the blueprints that reveal her shameful truth—a Fifth Pillar of Passion burning where only four should exist. Reason, Calculation, Organics, Intellect. These are the foundations of every proper Automa mind. But Crier carries something more dangerous, something that makes her weep human tears and dream of futures her father never designed. The papers flutter in her trembling hands like dying birds as she studies her own creation. Seventeen years ago, a midwife named Torras corrupted Designs, creating flawed Automae that had to be destroyed. Crier survived only because her defect remained hidden, but now Kinok holds her secret like a blade at her throat. His Anti-Reliance Movement promises to purge their kind of human weakness, to create a Golden Age where emotions like hers have no place. In the mirror that night, Crier sees not the perfect daughter her father crafted, but a mistake wrapped in beautiful flesh. The Fifth Pillar burns in her chest like a fever, making her hunger for things she cannot name. When her new servant arrives the next morning—a human girl with wild dark hair and eyes that hold depths like tide pools—Crier feels that forbidden Passion flare like struck flint.

Chapter 2: Blood and Vengeance: Ayla's Mission of Revenge

The flames still dance behind Ayla's eyes when she closes them, seven years after they consumed everything she loved. She remembers her twin brother Storme's hand pushing her into the latrine pit, the weight of his body shielding her from the soldiers' sight. Above them, their parents' screams cut through winter air like breaking glass, followed by the smell of burning flesh that still haunts her dreams. Rowan found her half-frozen in an alley three days later, more corpse than girl, clutching a golden medallion that pulsed with inner fire. The woman offered something more precious than warmth or food—she offered purpose. The Resistance had been watching, waiting, gathering intelligence about their oppressors' weaknesses. Now they had found their weapon: a girl young enough to serve in the palace, broken enough to kill without hesitation. The irony tastes bitter as wine on Ayla's tongue. She braids the hair of her enemy's daughter each morning, her fingers gentle as a lover's while her heart burns with hatred. The blade hidden in her corset feels warm against her ribs, a constant reminder of the debt that must be paid. Sovereign Hesod destroyed her world, but his daughter will settle the account. Every night she practices death in the shadows, imagining Crier's throat beneath her knife. The medallion at her chest beats with mechanical rhythm, a forbidden Maker's artifact that could see her executed if discovered. But death holds no fear for someone already hollow. Revenge is the only fire left burning in the cavern where her heart used to live, and soon that fire will consume the house of her enemies.

Chapter 3: Dangerous Proximity: When Servant Meets Lady

The cliff crumbles beneath Crier's feet like her carefully constructed world, sending her tumbling toward jagged rocks and churning black water. One moment she stands eavesdropping on her father's midnight conversation with Kinok, the next she dangles over the abyss, her perfect fingers clawing at wet stone while death waits below. A hand grabs her wrist—human, warm, trembling with effort. Ayla's face appears in the moonlight, framed by wild hair that catches the wind like a battle standard. For a heartbeat, Crier sees something flicker across those dark features—calculation, hesitation, the weight of choice. The girl who planned to kill her now holds her life in calloused hands, and time stretches between them like a held breath. Then Ayla pulls her up, both of them collapsing in the salt grass, breathing hard. Impossible tears streak Crier's cheeks, and Ayla's thumb brushes them away with wonder and confusion, as if touching something sacred and forbidden. The moment charges the air between them with questions neither can voice, creating cracks in foundations both girls believed unshakeable. When the guards arrive, Crier lies without thinking, protecting the girl who saved her life. But she glimpsed the golden medallion at Ayla's throat, marked with symbols that should not exist. The next morning brings an offer that surprises them both—become my personal servant, Crier says, and neither speaks of tears or hesitation at the cliff's edge. They are bound now by something more dangerous than duty, circling each other like binary stars caught in an orbit that will either create new worlds or destroy them both.

Chapter 4: The Web of Control: Kinok's Manipulations Revealed

Behind the tapestry in Kinok's chambers hangs a map more terrifying than any battlefield—hundreds of human faces drawn in perfect detail, each no larger than a copper coin, connected by threads of red, blue, and gold. Ayla recognizes them all: Nessa the head servant, Thom from the orchards, Benjy with his gentle smile. The red thread linking her to Benjy burns like accusation in the candlelight, marking them as lovers though they have never been more than friends. This is Kinok's true work—not philosophy or politics, but the careful cataloging of human weakness. Every relationship becomes a weapon, every love a lever for control. The black thread leading from Faye's wild-eyed portrait ends in scratched-out ink where her sister Luna's face once smiled. Now Ayla understands why Luna died, her white dress hanging from the apple trees like a flag of surrender. She was murdered not for her own crimes, but as punishment for Faye's transgression. Kinok's study reveals more horrors. Maps of trade routes snake across his desk like veins carrying poison through the empire's body. Documents bearing the Iron Heart's seal speak of experiments that make Ayla's skin crawl, of a substance called Shadow's Breath that turns Automae into hollow-eyed puppets. This marriage to Crier is no mere political alliance—it is the union of Hesod's traditional tyranny with something far more calculated and cruel. When Nessa dies three days later, her bloodstained handkerchief hanging from the apple trees, Ayla knows the web has claimed another victim. The handkerchief she borrowed to clean her bleeding nose, left behind in Kinok's room like evidence of guilt. Now Thom weeps over his wife's corpse while their infant daughter cries for milk that will never come, and Ayla tastes the true cost of proximity to power.

Chapter 5: Forbidden Connection: Love Across Enemy Lines

The music room's perfect silence wraps around them like a cocoon as Ayla's fingers trace instruments she cannot name. Crier finds her there in the darkness, drawn by invisible threads that neither understands. They sit among the shadows speaking of love and loss, of songs that carry memory and pain that shapes the soul like water carving stone. Crier's questions probe like gentle knives—what is it like to feel, to love, to be human? Ayla's answers come wrapped in careful lies, but beneath them runs a current of truth that makes them both tremble. She speaks of her brother's voice explaining the laws of nature, of forces that govern even the stars, of attraction and repulsion that keep the universe in balance. She does not speak of the night he died saving her, or how love became a weapon turned against itself. When Crier offers her the key to this sanctuary, Ayla understands that something has shifted between them. The lady and the servant, the hunter and the prey, the living and the Designed—the boundaries blur like watercolors in rain. Trust becomes a currency more dangerous than gold, and both are spending it freely despite the cost. The night air carries the scent of sea salt and blooming roses when Crier leads Ayla to the hidden tidal pools. Here, away from watching eyes and listening ears, they can almost forget the roles they play. When Crier asks what love feels like, Ayla's breath catches. She could lie, deflect, maintain the careful distance between them. Instead, truth spills from her lips like blood from a wound: "Like drowning and flying at the same time. Like finding home in another person's eyes." The admission hangs between them like a bridge neither dares to cross, but bridges, once built, demand to be traveled.

Chapter 6: The Failed Strike: When Vengeance Meets Compassion

The palace sleeps under a moonless sky when Ayla finally makes her move. Four years of planning have led to this moment—Crier sleeping peacefully in her bed, unaware that death stands at her bedside. The knife feels heavier than ever in Ayla's hand as she raises it above the girl who asked about her family and listened to the answers with genuine care. But when the blade catches starlight, Ayla's hand trembles. Crier's face in sleep looks younger, vulnerable, stripped of the imperial mask she wears by day. The medallion around Ayla's neck burns against her skin, pulsing with memories of laughter and unexpected kindness, of the girl who offered sanctuary and asked for nothing in return. The knife falls from nerveless fingers, clattering on stone. Crier's eyes snap open, meeting Ayla's in the darkness, and for a heartbeat neither moves. Then chaos erupts as palace guards flood the room, responding to the disturbance. Ayla runs, her mission failed, her heart shattered by her own weakness. The rebellion she was meant to support crumbles without her distraction. Her fellow conspirators scatter into the night, some escaping, others falling to Automa blades. In the confusion, Benjy manages to steal something from Kinok's private study—not the compass they sought, but a scrap of parchment bearing three names: Leo, Siena, Turmalina. As dawn breaks over the blood-stained courtyard, Ayla finds herself a fugitive from the only home she has known for years, haunted by the girl she could not kill and the love she cannot name.

Chapter 7: Truths Unveiled: The Origin of Creation and Power

In the archives of the Midwife's House, where ancient cathedral stones hold secrets in their shadows, Crier discovers the truth that will reshape everything she believes about herself. Midwife Jezen spreads the real blueprints of Crier's creation across a workbench, her human hands gentle as she reveals the deception that has defined a life. Four pillars, not five. Intellect, Organics, Calculation, Reason—the standard configuration of every Automa ever made. The documents Kinok showed her were forgeries, designed to make her believe she was flawed, broken, in need of his guidance and control. If Crier has no Fifth Pillar, no excess of Passion to explain her feelings, then what she feels for Ayla springs not from faulty programming but from something deeper—something that makes her more than the sum of her parts. Through Ayla's medallion, activated by drops of their mingled blood, Crier witnesses memories that span generations. She sees Siena and Leo, Ayla's ancestors who lived before the War of Kinds, who loved across the boundaries of species and paid the price in blood and fire. The medallion reveals that Thomas Wren, credited as creator of the first Automa, was a thief who stole his designs from a human woman. The real innovation came from love—a mother's desperate attempt to save her artificial daughter. Now Kinok seeks that same power, hunting for something called the Heart of Yora—a prototype Automa powered not by heartstone but by a blue gem called Turmalina. The key to finding it lies in Ayla's bloodline, in the memories stored within the medallion she wears. But knowledge comes with a price, and the truth about their origins may be the weapon that destroys them all.

Chapter 8: Revolution's Dawn: Choosing Love Over Loyalty

The wedding preparations proceed with mechanical precision while Crier's world crumbles around her. Queen Junn's latest message makes her position clear—the marriage must go forward, creating the perfect opportunity to eliminate Kinok and his corrupt supporters in one decisive strike. But the cost will be measured in blood, and Crier finds herself caught between competing loyalties that threaten to tear her apart. Ayla flees south with Benjy, seeking answers about her heritage and the power that flows through her veins. They are fugitives now, hunted by Hesod's guards and haunted by the failure of their rebellion. The names on the stolen parchment become their only clues to a mystery that spans generations, while behind them the palace burns with the memory of what might have been. Kinok tightens his grip on power, using Crier's supposed weakness as justification for accelerating his plans. The Shadow's Breath spreads through Automa society like a plague, creating an army of hollow-eyed servants who worship him as their savior. He knows about the medallion, about Ayla's connection to the ancient secrets he seeks. Soon he will have everything needed to claim the Heart of Yora and reshape their world in his image. Crier stands at her window, watching the sun set over the sea that separates her from the girl she loves. Tomorrow she will marry the man who has manipulated and controlled her for months, smile and speak the words that bind her to a monster, all while planning his destruction from within. The perfect Automa daughter has become a revolutionary, and revolution demands everything she has to give. In the distance, storm clouds gather on the horizon, carrying the scent of rain and change, of endings and beginnings intertwined.

Summary

The threads of fate draw tight as two girls who should have been enemies discover that love recognizes no boundaries between Created and born, between oppressor and oppressed. Crier prepares for a wedding that will become a battlefield, choosing duty to her heart over loyalty to her blood, while Ayla journeys toward answers that may destroy everything she thought she knew about herself and her family. The medallion around her neck pulses with the memories of ancestors who dared to love across the species divide, who created wonders and watched them burn in the flames of fear and prejudice. The revolution they have started will not end with them. It will spread like wildfire through the rigid structures of their society, consuming old certainties and leaving space for something new to grow. Whether that something will be better or worse than what came before remains to be seen, written in the choices yet to come. But in the space between heartbeats, in the moment before the storm breaks, two hearts beat in rhythm across the miles that separate them—one human, one Automa, both choosing love over the easier path of hate, both willing to burn the world down if that is what it takes to build it anew.

About Author

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Nina Varela

Varela interrogates societal structures through a blend of fantasy and queer narratives, as seen in her young adult novels. Her work consistently challenges established systems like monarchy and patriarchy, drawing on her upbringing in North Carolina, where she engaged with nature and community. This background fuels her storytelling, which merges political commentary with themes of identity and revolution.\n\nIn her debut book, "Crier’s War," Varela explores young people’s resistance against oppressive regimes, integrating LGBTQ+ themes that resonate with her own identity. By focusing on characters who defy hierarchical norms, she not only entertains but also encourages readers to question societal constraints. Her narratives provide a lens through which audiences can explore complex issues, particularly benefiting those interested in social justice and identity exploration.\n\nLiving in Los Angeles, Varela continues to develop her craft, recognized nationally for both screenplays and short fiction. Her literary contributions extend beyond entertainment, offering insightful perspectives that provoke thought and inspire change. Through her unique voice, Varela enriches the young adult genre, making her a pivotal author for those seeking stories with depth and meaning.

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