Crier's War: 1

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It took half a day’s ride to reach these woods, and so Crier had been here only once before, nearly five years ago. Her father enjoyed hunting deer like the humans did. She remembered eating a few bites of hot, spiced venison that night, filling her belly with food she did not require. More ritual than meal. The core of her father’s Traditionalism: adopting human habits and customs into daily life. He said it created meaning, structure. Under most circumstances, Crier understood the merits of Hesod’s beliefs. It was why she called him “father” even though she’d never had a mother and had never been birthed. She had been commissioned, Made. Ayla - Bi! A human girl who lost her family and everything else after the Automaes raised up and overthrew the humans.

Rowan was a seamstress who lived and worked in Kalla-den. At least, that’s what she was on the outside. Crier’s War is set in an alternative future where alchemists have crafted mechanical people, called Automaes, who now rule over the humans. The humans originally created them so a powerful queen, who could not bear children, could have an heir, but soon Automaes were forged for other human pleasures. But then they rose up and conquered the humans who originally made them. Now the world is a very unsafe place to live for humans who are still alive after the war, and they are allowed very few liberties. Hit So Hard, the Calendar Felt It: The calendar was reset after the War of Kinds, abandoning their previous Era markers and starting at year one of the Automa Era.Now, with growing human unrest across the land, pressures from a foreign queen, and an evil new leader on the rise, Crier and Ayla find there may be only one path to love: war. 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. This was not her first Make,” Kinok continued, meeting Crier’s eyes. “She had been working with the nobles of Rabu for decades.” Crier was close to Councilmember Reyka, who was the one person in authority who seemed to appreciate and nurture her intelligence and aspirations. She is crushed when she learns that Reyka has mysteriously vanished at the start of the story.

When Ayla and Crier pose as a married couple to seek shelter at an Automa women’s estate, she keeps trying to pump them for gossip. Even asking for stories from their wedding in case they know the same people. Gone Horribly Wrong: When the ‘shades’ start appearing in southern Rabu, primarily in areas where Kinok had the greatest influence, everybody opposing Kinok tries to figure out how this figures into his plan. It’s Ayla who realizes that this isn’t part of his plan at all, and that Kinok had actually screwed up and created the shades by accident. Kinok had been trying to create a replacement for heartstone and came up with Nightshade, which he disributed to his loyal supporters. He had no idea that it turned the Automae who used it into shades, so he unwittingly lost his fiercest supporters and created a zombie mob at the same time.Benjy took Ayla’s hand and squeezed. She didn’t return it. She knew what the code meant: an uprising in the South. Another one. It filled her gut with suspicion and dread. And now she worked for him. It disgusted her, every second of it, but it was the only way she could get close to Hesod. She’d come so far. She was not going to throw it all away for some doomed dream of revolution. Months before Kinok’s arrival, Crier and her father had taken a walk along the sea cliffs. “Kinok’s followers are few and scattered, but he is gaining influence at a rate I hadn’t thought possible,” he’d explained.

First Love: Crier does not believe that Automae feel love the way that humans do, and Ayla deliberately suppresses her feelings to prevent being hurt by others. They are both unprepared for the feelings that arise for each other. The leeches had let themselves forget that they’d been created by the same humans they now treated worse than dogs. In the forty-eight years since their rise to power, they’d conveniently let themselves forget their past. Forget that they were once merely the pets and playthings of human nobility. And after Ayla saves Crier’s life, Crier offers her an opportunity to become a servant for her, which is a very high honor for humans. So, Ayla becomes Crier’s handmaiden, while also seeing this as an opportunity to go undercover and maybe seek the vengeance she has been after for so long. That is, until both girls start realizing that maybe they are on the same side, and maybe they could be something more than enemies if they only were able to learn to trust. Also, I find it hard to believe that this is the first time in sixteen years that anyone is noticing Crier having different emotions and thoughts than the rest of the Automae. Yes, she’s been super sheltered but really? They’re robots (??) so wouldn’t they all detect she’s flawed. Like seriously? Also, at this point I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a one-sided romance because I have a hard time believing that Ayla is going to fall for Crier. Maybe start to think of her as a friend or ally, but surely not lover. Ayla doesn’t let anyone in, and has gone through a lot of traumatic events including the death of her family including her twin brother. That’s just my thoughts at this point in the book, I could be wrong. Chapter 12-16 It was Hesod’s men who had broken into Ayla’s childhood home, who had murdered her family just because they could.His lips were still slightly parted, as though there was more he wanted to say. She knew how badly he needed this. Revolution. Blood. Change. She waited for him to keep going, to try again to convince her. But he also knew how much she wanted what she wanted: Lady Crier’s blood on her hands. Ayla had chosen the latter. And Rowan, keeping her promise, had found Ayla work as a servant of the palace. When Ayla learns that Storme is alive, she is furious to see him working as an advisor to Queen Junn. She doesn’t listen when he tries to explain that things are different in Varn, and that Automae aren’t universally oppressive. Rabu does not accept or tolerate any relationships between Automae and humans, and it is so unheard of that Crier thinks her own feelings for Ayla must mean her Design was Flawed. Councilmember Reyka had to completely hide that she was in love with a human woman and they had a child together, only bringing Dinara around in the guise of a servant.

Crier bit her tongue, trying to hide her excitement. After years of near-begging, her father had agreed to let her attend a council meeting. After years of studying history, philosophy, political theory, reading and rereading a dozen libraries’ worth of books, writing essays and letters and sometimes feverish little manifestos, she would finally, finally be allowed to take a seat among the Red Hands. Maybe even to share her proposals for council reform. As daughter of the sovereign, the Red Council was her birthright; it was as much a part of her as her Pillars. She was Made for this. Rowan is killed in a riot that Ayla witnesses, as Ayla sees Rowan as a mother figure and mentor this greatly affects her. After Ayla is cold and distant, and vows to Benjy that she’ll kill Crier to serve as a distraction while he gets Kinok’s safe. However, she is able to bring herself to do it. Benjy also isn’t successful in getting the safe, but both manage to escape along with some of the others that helped them. Ayla decides to flee to Queen Junn’s country where Storme is with Benjy who got injured during the escape. Since they are wanted for treason, as Herod the King believes Ayla has been writing in code to Junn not Crier. Not to mention setting the stable on fire, attempting to kill Crier, and stealing from Kinok (granted those three are true). Moral Myopia: Automae do not view human lives as equal to their own. When discussing past rebellions where hundreds of humans were killed in reprisals, they view it as justified because one Automa was almost killed. Rowan was gone as swiftly as she had appeared, leaving only a crumpled flyer in Benjy’s hands—a religious pamphlet, something about the gods and believers. Ayla knew it would be riddled with code—code that only those in the Resistance could decipher.

After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners' estates and bent the human race to their will. After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, Designed to be the playthings of royals, took over the estates of their owners and bent the human race to their will. I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Ayla discovers that Scyre Kinok has made a deliberate map of all the relationships between human servants in the palace (Blood family, friendships, and romance). When somebody needs to be punished, he knows to hurt somebody they care about instead of them directly. Ayla realizes that this is why Luna was executed: She hadn't done anything wrong, but Kinok wanted to punish Faye, her sister. Secret Room: Scyre Kinok has an alchemical laboratory hidden in a secret room behind his quarters, where he is working on creating a new substance to replace heartstone. Mama. Papa. Her twin brother, Storme, who had loved Ayla more than anything else in the whole world. Who had been wrenched away from her, trying to protect her from Them. Storme, who, from the sounds of his screaming cut short, had met his end then and there, just beyond the walls of what had been their home.