Read the first two chapters of Clockwork Princess, book one of The Clockwork Kingdom Saga.
The crash of a cannonball striking the eastern tower cracked through the thick walls of Clockwork Kingdom Castle, and Queen Pretya choked back a whimper. She could not let the fear and mayhem descend on her like a stifling, paralyzing cloak. Instead, she turned that fear into a fuel to continue her unladylike sprint through the empty corridors.
Let the courtiers and her royal husband huddle in the cannon shelters if they could stomach their own wretched cowardice, but the thought of her sixteen-year-old daughter trapped in that tower, crying and scared as the sky pirates pelted the castle with cannonballs made Pretya’s abdominal gears grind with sharp nausea.
Her breath sawed through her ventilation, rough with the gritty taste of smoke, too warm to properly cool her overheated system. Her heart pistoned so hard the vibration juddered through her entire chassis.
Both hands were slick with the condensation of cold fear.
One of her silver shoes, chosen to match her platinum gown, had come unscrewed in her dash from the council room. The bare copper of her left foot clanged painfully against the uncarpeted stone floor, but Pretya did not slow. If she ended up with dents in her heels, so be it.
The sky pirates had never attacked the castle directly before, a fact which Pretya tried not to think about as the tremors of another impact rattled through the floor. A fact which she had hoped would continue for at least another season, despite their foes’ growth in confidence as their constant attacks on the Clockwork Kingdom were met with little resistance of any real effect.
And now the sky pirates had grown bold enough to attack openly, on a cloudless autumn afternoon, while the very council Clockwork Kingdom had convened to solve this problem was in session. A crushing wave of helpless despair followed close at Pretya’s freshly dented heels, and it was all she could do to keep half a step ahead of it.
But keep ahead of it she did. Nilya needed her.
As she barreled around a corner and approached the bridgewalk that connected the eastern tower to the castle proper, the din of the attack increased threefold, and she fought the urge to cover her ringing ears and cower. Low whistles preceded the booming impacts of cannonballs near and far. The shouts and screams of the clockwork citizens, of Pretya’s people, floated up to her from the streets below. Underscoring the entire soundscape was the distinctive whump-whump of the skyship engines.
The door to the bridgewalk stood open, and orange and yellow light flickered in the metalwork design. Heat rippled through the doorway, lapping at Pretya and bringing a sheen of condensation over her entire body. A twisted mass of metal lay slumped against the doorframe, smoldering and sparking.
The firelight glinted off a warped symbol on the metal wreckage, and Pretya swallowed against the scream that rose in her throat. That pile of twisted metal used to be one of the royal guards.
Blinking away the sting of tears, Pretya ignored the fire blazing beside her and squinted through the growing haze of smoke and ash and the dust of cracked stone. Across the bridgewalk, a mountain of rubble lay in the doorway of the eastern tower. A gaping hole yawned in the roof, opening into the upper room where the princess lived. Broken support beams and jagged fragments of stone bricks jutted like cruel teeth in the mouth of a giant beast.
The whump-whump grew louder, and a strong wind whipped across the bridgewalk, driving the smoke away.
A skyship drifted towards the new opening in the tower. Sky pirate crew members swarmed about on the deck suspended below the scarlet balloon, their human forms made visible against the billowing plumes of gray smoke by their stark black outfits.
They were coming for the princess.
Pretya’s heart pistoned in her chest as she dashed across the expanse. The space between the castle and her daughter’s tower had never stretched this wide before.
“Nilya!” she cried. The word tore away from her lips as soon as she said it, pulled by the howling wind of the skyship hovering over her head. “Nilya!”
She skidded to a stop as she reached the pile of rubble. It was taller than she’d thought, but the doorway behind it was still visible. The door stood open, and someone moved just inside the tower. One of the princess’s handmaids cowered there, her joints rattling audibly.
“Your Highness,” gasped the handmaid beyond the rubble. “They’re coming through the roof!”
“Where is Nilya?” Pretya called. She clawed at the stones, not caring if her fingers got scratched to shreds. She had to get to her daughter before the pirates did.
“She is within, Highness. We came down here when the cannonball struck, but we couldn’t get past these stones. Princess Nilya went back up to fetch one of her tools. But the pirates are coming in!”
“I know. Who is guarding her?”
“Dhural was standing guard at the door, Highness. Elsewise it was just me,” the handmaid said with a sob.
Pretya swallowed once more. Dhural wouldn’t be much help now that he was little more than a pile of scrap. Not that a royal guard could do much against the sky pirates’ cannonballs, anyway.
But now Nilya had no one to protect her besides a terrified handmaid.
Pretya took a shaky breath, trying to calm her frantic heart rate. It didn’t work. She was making no progress with the rubble, and deep grooves covered her fingers. She’d have to climb over the pile somehow, but what good would that do if she couldn’t then climb back out with Nilya?
The scrape of stone on stone shivered down from the top of the tower, and Pretya jerked her head up in time to see a chunk of stone dislodge from the wall as the sky pirates swung their grappling hooks into the huge hole. Her breath stuck in her throat as the stone teetered and came hurtling to join the pile on the bridgewalk.
Pretya lunged back towards the castle proper. The impact of the chunk sent her sprawling on the bridgewalk, and she covered her head and screamed as dust and pebbles rained down around her. The front of her platinum gown screeched against the paving stones. She was certain she’d lost her other silver shoe in the leap. The loose screw rattled in her ankle.
The bridgewalk shuddered and groaned beneath her, and fine cracks appeared in the pathway. That hit had probably compromised the structure, but she didn’t think the whole thing would collapse.
At least, she hoped it wouldn’t.
Wincing and coughing the dust from her ventilation, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees. She twisted to look over her shoulder at the tower. The rubble now completely blocked the doorway, and a steady trickle of pebbles slid from the hole in the tower top. The building moaned and creaked. Pretya wasn’t certain if her vision was simply swimming after her fall, or if the tower really was swaying.
The skyship hovered directly over the gaping roof, ten or eleven lines of thick rope anchoring it in place. As Pretya watched, two sky pirates heaved another bundle of rope overboard. It unfurled as it fell, becoming a ladder that waved in the wind and smoke.
Pretya scrambled back to her feet and rushed to the base of the tower. She didn’t bother clawing at the pile of rubble again, as she couldn’t possibly enter the tower that way now. Instead, she glanced around, hoping to find some way to climb into a window. She’d scale the wall if she had to.
A flash of firelight on metal railing drew her attention to a thin walkway running just below the bridgewalk. The service walkway! She’d never used it before, but she knew it led to a ladder that climbed the entire height of the tower.
Though the sight of the lower city streets sprawling below the castle level made her gyros tilt and waver, Pretya clambered over the side of the bridgewalk and lowered herself onto the service walkway. The metal path creaked with every step she took, but she kept her hand pressed to the solid stone of the tower and her gaze locked on the skyship directly above her.
A black-clad man was sliding down the rope ladder.
Pretya had no time to waste moving carefully. She broke into a run, both bare feet banging against the path. So much for sneaking up on the pirates. They had to know someone was coming, anyway.
The walkway curved around to the rear of the tower, and soon the roof blocked Pretya’s view of the rope ladder and the descending pirate. At the back she found the service ladder. Its rungs were each individually fastened to the stone wall, with no side rails connecting them. A hole in the service walkway allowed a climber to move either up or down. Pretya tried not to look through that opening as she swung her right leg over it and onto the first rung.
The voluminous skirts of her platinum gown got in the way as she climbed, and she had to stick her posterior far out into the open air to give herself room to maneuver up the ladder.
She kept her eyes riveted to the stone wall. The wind didn’t pull at her so much back here, but smoke from fires in the lower city drifted up to get in her eyes and her ventilation. The soot collected in her mouth, acrid and gritty.
All that mattered was getting to Nilya. Pretya fell into a rhythm of climbing and breathing, rotating her hips awkwardly to move up to the next rung.
Like the bridgewalk, the ladder seemed to stretch on forever. Pretya’s arms shook as she pulled herself up each rung.
A scream ripped through the air from above. Nilya!
Pretya’s eyes flicked upwards. Only three rungs remained before she reached the roof. Wiggling her hips faster, she scrambled to the top. With a grunt, she levered herself up and over, flopping her torso gracelessly onto the tiled edge of the roof.
The whump-whump of the skyship engines became a roar this close, and the wind tore at Pretya with the force of a summer storm. The rope ladder flapped where it dangled into the hole, many paces away from her. As Pretya came to her wobbly feet, someone climbed up from inside the tower.
The sky pirate, with Nilya thrashing and screaming over his shoulder.
Nilya wore the oil-stained mechanic’s apron Pretya had tried many times over to take away from her, the copper foil of her hair twisted up into a style more fitted for practicality than enhancing beauty. The stainless steel of her face shone as the sky pirate carried her into the afternoon sunlight, revealing her tempered fury at such treatment.
Pretya’s heart slowed for a cycle at the realization that her daughter was not weeping and terrified, and she chastised herself for even thinking that would be the case. Nilya was nothing if not a rebellious daughter. But right now the sight of that controversial leather apron brought Pretya to a measure of solidarity with Nilya’s feisty spirit.
The sky pirate had clearly gotten more than he’d bargained for with this royal captive.
Still, Nilya’s flailing and hurling of insults did not deter her captor from continuing to scale the rope ladder.
“Halt!” Pretya yelled. Her command was inaudible under the drowning force of the skyship.
No matter. Action would speak better to these sky dogs, anyway.
She charged for the hole in the roof. The smooth tiles made her feet slide, but she pressed on, building up momentum. When she came to the edge, she leapt, both hands outstretched for the ladder.
Her arc brought her right below the sky pirate, and her fingers closed around the flesh of his ankle. She squeezed as tightly as she could. The pirate yelped in pain.
“Mother!” Nilya cried.
Pretya didn’t have the breath to reply. All her focus went to finding a steady foothold on the rope ladder. The fabric kept swinging away from her, and she flailed in the open air for a heart-thumping moment. The loose screw in her foot finally dislodged from the setting, and she watched as it made its dizzying tumble to the lower city far below her.
The sky pirate twisted to grimace down at her, and the movement pulled the ladder back towards Pretya’s outstretched foot. She caught it, keeping ahold of the pirate’s ankle, and wrapped it around her foot. Her other hand reached to meet Nilya’s dangling arm.
“Hold on!” Pretya said as their hands clasped.
Nilya nodded, her lips set tight and her eyes widened to show the fear she was keeping bolted down inside. Pretya’s chassis flooded with pride. Her daughter was so brave.
With her feet tangled in the ladder, Pretya let go of the sky pirate and yanked on Nilya’s arm. The pirate let out a guttural yell as he overbalanced, and suddenly Nilya was falling too fast into Pretya’s arms. With nothing holding either of them, Pretya fell backwards until she was upside down. Nilya flipped over Pretya’s head, screaming.
Then Pretya’s fall came to a jerking stop. Her left foot had come untangled from the ladder, but her right still held. She swayed from side to side, blinking as the oil rushed to her head and the fine furniture in Nilya’s bedroom spun below her. Nilya struggled to keep her grip.
The rope ladder jerked, and Pretya strained to look up. The sky pirate had regained his hold on the ladder and scowled down at them. His hand moved to his waist, his gloved fingers grasping the handle of his harpoon pistol. He twirled it like an expert slinger.
A scream gurgled in Pretya’s throat.
“Move aside,” Nilya said below her. She slipped one hand out of Pretya’s grasp.
Pretya let her head fall back and gripped Nilya’s one hand with both of hers. Nilya had her feet on the ladder and had pulled a heavy wrench from her mechanic’s apron. She held it poised behind her ear like a throwing knife.
With a twist that strained her abdominal gears, Pretya pulled herself out of Nilya’s trajectory. Nilya let the wrench fly, and Pretya winced at the crunch of iron against the sky pirate’s nose. He screamed, and his harpoon pistol fell into the open tower, joined by the stained wrench. Crimson blood dripped onto Pretya’s platinum gown.
“Get back on your skyship, cloud bilge!” Nilya shouted. She climbed up level with Pretya’s tangled foot. Blood splashed on her face, too, making long streaks on her reflective cheeks.
“Mark me, Windup Princess,” said the pirate, his voice thick with blood. “My crew will return for you. A treasure once held in a sky pirate’s sight won’t easily find itself forgotten. You’ll join my collection soon enough.”
He pulled a knife from his sleeve and slashed one side of the ladder below his feet. He turned to do the same to the other side, but Nilya yanked a second wrench from her apron and flung it without hesitation. The heavy tool struck the knife clenched in the pirate’s fist, and both objects twirled away, glinting in the light of the fires in the city below. Pretya hoped they wouldn’t hit an innocent clockwork person when they reached the street level.
Casting one last glare at the two of them as he shook his hand out, the pirate turned and raced up to the deck of the skyship. He moved like a spider in its web.
Pretya supposed that made the two of them flies hung out for its next meal.
“Don’t move, Mother,” Nilya said. “Hold onto the rope below you.”
Pretya did as her daughter said, holding the rope so tightly it squeaked against the copper of her palms. Nilya worked to free her foot before the other side of the ladder broke.
The pressure on her ankle released without warning, and Pretya flipped over again. She screamed, and the rope slid in her hands until she caught on the next rung.
“Sorry!” Nilya shouted.
Pretya went lightheaded as the oil drained, but she made herself scramble down the ladder as fast as she could manage. Her damnable platinum gown caught on every rung, but she simply kept going. Nilya climbed after her.
The noise of the skyship overhead rose in pitch, and the airflow shifted direction around them. The many anchor ropes that held the ship to the tower fluttered down around them, severed at the level of the deck.
“They’re taking off,” Nilya screamed. “The rope’s going to snap!”
The words froze Pretya. They were going to fall and smash themselves into scrap.
“Mother!”
Pretya looked up as the rope broke. She took in Nilya’s widened eyes, saw her own fear reflected in her daughter’s mirror face.
Then they were falling, the wind whistling past her ears and flowing in the extrusions of her hair. She reached up to hold Nilya, to cradle her to her chest. At least she could break her daughter’s fall against the tower.
“Mother, the bed!”
“What?”
But Nilya’s answer, whatever it may have been, was interrupted by the flump of a sea of fabric and cushions. The landing still rattled Pretya’s chassis, still drove the breath from her ventilation and stopped her heart’s pistoning for a cycle, but her daughter’s messy and unkempt bedclothes saved both of them from a gruesome scrapping.
Pretya lay there, staring up at the wide patch of blue sky through the jagged hole in the roof, and watched as the skyship shot away, propellant flames flaring from its scarlet balloon until it shrank into the distance.
Smoke clouds billowed in its wake.
Beside her, Nilya panted, her newer ventilation handling the smoke better than Pretya’s older design. Pretya reached for her daughter.
“Oh, Nilya.”
“I’m okay,” Nilya said. The slight petulance in her tone went a long way to soothing Pretya’s nerves. Her daughter would be okay. She was a fighter.
Still, Pretya sat up and gathered her close. Just because Nilya was a fighter didn’t mean she couldn’t do with some motherly smothering after a traumatic run-in with the sky pirates. Clockmaker knew she could do with some.
“He said they’d be back for me,” Nilya said, looking back through the hole. She trembled against Pretya’s bodice, though the movement was slight.
Pretya smoothed her hand over Nilya’s copper hair. “They’ll never touch you again, Bright Penny.”
She scowled up at the rising smoke clouds. The council had floundered on this issue for long enough, and this near miss was the result. She couldn’t let it get this close again. Let her royal husband rail about her usurping his power and overstepping her role as a woman. The time had come to take matters into her own hands.
Her daughter’s safety depended upon it.
Sometimes, Queen Pretya fumed as she struggled to maintain her ladylike grace, I question whether that girl wants to be made safe at all.
The gentle refrains of the chamber musicians and the murmur of the courtiers working to impress one another faded to a muffled hum as Pretya moved away from the dinner party in the receiving hall. The embarrassment of her hastily pulled together apologies to the human ambassador from Maraland did not.
The man’s palpable disapproval, along with the surely unnatural redness of his fleshy, bearded face, had ratcheted up with each minute the princess he had traveled so far to assess did not show up. His grumbly throat noises told Pretya his opinion of the girl was plummeting before he’d even had a chance to lay eyes on her.
“Does the girl need winding to be on time, Clockwork Queen?” he’d asked before quaffing his third glass of sweet wine.
Pretya had ignored the insult as well as the pinkish dribble that ran into his beard, and simply smiled. “The clockwork people are not like our manufactured mechanical trinkets, Ambassador. We require no winding to continue our livelihoods.”
She’d seen to his constant supply of sweet wine herself, before promising to produce her daughter presently.
Even as she marched on the warpath to her daughter’s new rooms in the southern tower, her mind whirred with things to say to appease the ambassador. Dealing with his ignorance and rudeness chafed, and the knowledge that his harsh opinions were representative of those of his entire country burned even worse.
But nothing matched the constant ache of fear that filled Pretya’s chassis every day since the sky pirate’s attack two weeks ago. It was as if that black-clad pirate had reached into her and misaligned every cog in her body.
If she had to sacrifice her own dignity to get Nilya under the protection of Maraland’s anti-skyship defenses, she would do it with a smile welded on her face.
And by the Ancient Clockmaker, Nilya would too.
The cool air of a cloudy autumn night flooded over Pretya as she flung open the frosted glass door to the southern bridgewalk. The stars were veiled, but below her, a thousand pinpricks of light twinkled from the lower city. Even in the dark, the outlines of scaffolding and cranes stood out against the houses and shops. The rebuilding efforts were running smoothly, and every report her royal husband had received from the engineers declared things would be good as new within the week. And if the council moved on the next stage of their plans, the beginnings of Clockwork Kingdom’s communication tower project would enter the preliminary building phase by then as well.
Just in time for the sky pirates to come and pulverize everything all over again.
Pretya forced her suddenly whirring abdominal gears to maintain a normal rpm. Her thin silver foil dress fluttered in the breeze, and she let the scent of seasoned charcoal flow through her ventilation soothingly. The simple fare of the common citizens had that effect on her often. She allowed the forcefulness to drain from her steps, but she didn’t slow her pace across the bridgewalk. She had a plan and was taking steps to put it into action.
She just had to make Nilya cooperate.
The two royal guards posted outside the southern tower bowed as Pretya approached, and the one on the right opened the door for her. Pretya acknowledged their service with a nod, then swept inside.
Nilya’s handmaid had a roaring fire going in the downstairs fireplace, and the cheery warmth washed over Pretya. The rooms were not furnished quite to the standards befitting a royal occupant, but at least the light oaken chairs had been polished to a sheen that reflected the fire. Cushions of silk and satin lay propped on every chair, their lavender and marigold colors chosen to match the curtains draped in the windows. Pretya sniffed. Perhaps not fine enough for a princess, but she found the cozy atmosphere charming nonetheless.
Too bad she and the princess had a party to attend. Pretya glowered at the timepiece on the mantel. Nilya was a full half an hour late to the most important dinner of her life.
The handmaid looked up at Pretya’s arrival and squeaked, dropping her bundle of gold threadwork.
It wasn’t a good sign.
“Why is my daughter not at the ambassador’s dinner? I instructed her to arrive, properly dressed and prepared to show our ally how charming and good-natured she is, a quarter of an hour early.” Pretya kept her tone icy. She hated to frighten the poor girl after her ordeal with the sky pirates, but sacrifices had to be made in desperate times.
The handmaid collapsed into a curtsey. “Your Highness, that is, Your Majesty. Princess Nilya is, um, taken ill, yes, rather suddenly.”
Pretya tilted her head to the side, raising one eyebrow. “Ill?”
“Suddenly ill, Your Majesty.” The handmaid’s fingers clicked together as she clasped and unclasped her hands. She couldn’t quite bring her face all the way up to meet Pretya’s gaze.
“What are her symptoms?”
“Your Majesty?”
Pretya scowled. “The signs of her sudden illness, girl. Does she suffer from abdominal grinding, poor ventilation, internal condensation? She won’t be happy to hear how little imagination you’ve put into creating her cover story.”
The handmaid shrank in on herself, and the hollow iron of her knees rang as they knocked together.
Pretya reined in her sigh of exasperation and strode across the room, aiming to brush past the handmaid to the curving stairs.
But the handmaid found the shreds of her courage and leapt in front of Pretya. She planted herself at the base of the stairs, arms and legs spread to block the way up.
“Please, Your Majesty, forgive me. Princess Nilya asked that I … that I-I stop you from coming up and d-disturbing her work. She says she’s nearing a b-breakthrough, and—”
Pretya did not have the strength to contain her own outburst at the handmaid’s words. “She’s been working on that machine again! How many times do I have to forbid this nonsense before my commands stick?”
To the girl’s credit, she did not waver from her blockade stance, though she trembled more than ever. But Pretya dangled at the end of her patience. Drawing on her queenly authority, she thrust herself past the handmaid and charged up the stairs.
“Nilya,” she called. She hoped her daughter cowered at the serrated edge of her words.
Pretya neared the top of the stairs, where the stout oak door to the bedchamber stood open a crack. Metallic clangs and scrapes escaped from that crack. Pretya bared her teeth and flung the door wide. The reek of crude machine oil nearly gagged her as she stepped into the room.
Nilya turned from the horrid hunk of metal plating and coils she had been in the process of shoving into her open wardrobe, a scowl to match Pretya’s laid thick on her mirror face. The mechanic’s apron hung from her delicate frame, stained nearly black with machine oil. Nilya put her hands on her hips and wiped her equally blackened fingers on the apron.
A shriek burbled in Pretya’s throat, but she swallowed it down.
“Don’t try to tell me I can’t be a mechanic again, Mother,” Nilya said.
“I’ll tell you whatever you need to be told!” Pretya thundered. “You are jeopardizing our relations with Maraland as we speak, and I haven’t the slightest shred of patience for this filthy hobby of yours. That thing,” she said, pointing to the monstrosity piled in the wardrobe, “will be locked up in the garden shed. You will be made to at least appear to be a lady. Handmaid!”
The handmaid poked her head in the doorway, and Pretya wondered if she’d come up just to watch the confrontation. She was shaking now like she regretted such a choice.
“Pull the new copper gown out of that wardrobe. If the princess has not splattered oil all over it, you will bolt her into it at once. I need her in the receiving hall ten minutes from now, and she had better be spotless. Here,” Pretya said, moving to the vanity. She scooped up an untouched bottle of Gohwa reed oil and popped the lid open. Heavy rose scent drifted into her ventilation.
“Use this. Rub it in her hair until it shines.” She cast an appraising glance at Nilya. Those black spots made her gears shudder. “In fact, better douse her in it. She can’t meet the ambassador smelling like a common garage.”
The handmaid moved about the room like a whirlwind. The copper dress took up residence on the bed, along with the necessary accessories. The girl may have been loyal to her princess, but no one could fault her for leaping to obey the commands of her queen, especially when spoken in the booming tones of regality.
Well, perhaps Nilya could blame her.
Nilya held herself stiff as the handmaid fluttered around her. She did not fight the girl’s efforts to remove the mechanic’s apron and scrape the oil from her hands with a buffing brush, but her attitude could not be called cooperative.
“I don’t want to go to some party, Mother,” Nilya said through clenched teeth. “This is not the time for revelry. The sky pirates could come back at any moment. Tonight, even! I have to be ready. My machine has to be ready. All I need is to figure out the rail sliders, and work out the power supply issues I’ve been having, and—”
“You will be ready,” Pretya said. She scooped up a silver clip set with emeralds and moved to stand behind Nilya. “You will be beautiful and charming tonight so that the ambassador will agree to take you back to Maraland with him.”
She pulled Nilya’s copper hair into an elegant sweeping twist and secured it with the clip. The emeralds flashed as Nilya spun to scowl at her some more.
“Me? Go to Maraland? Whatever would I go there for? They hate clockwork people there.”
Pretya masked her agreement with a fond smile. “There, now, don’t you look so much prettier without all that sludge?”
“All that sludge is essential to the proper lubrication of the rail sliders, which are the basis for the entire mechanical integrity of my machine—”
“Whatever purpose that reeking mess may serve in mechanics, it has no place in a princess’s repertoire. Hurry up with that dress, handmaid.”
Pretya stepped back to give the handmaid enough space to set the gleaming copper gown about Nilya’s slim form. Nilya remained as still as she had throughout the forced primping, but a constant stream of constrained frustration rolled off her. Pretya ignored it.
“You are luminous, my dear,” she said when the handmaid stepped back to reveal the metalwork gown in its full glory. And truly, her daughter was. Light from the fireplace flickered over Nilya, making the curves of the dress come alive with flame, and dancing in the smooth-polished steel of her young, reflective face. The dress left her arms bare to show off the intricacy of her elbow and shoulder joints. So long as she kept her mouth shut, the ambassador wouldn’t be able to deny her regal build once he laid eyes on her, and her passage into Maraland would be secure.
“I still don’t see why I have to go to this stupid party.”
Pretya sighed and stepped closer to her difficult daughter. She placed her hands on Nilya’s bare shoulders, noting as she always did the differences in their metaltones. Her own copper seemed such a contrast to Nilya’s nearly perfect stainless steel. Nilya had carried over more of her father’s infant-pieces than Pretya’s as she grew and required upgrade after upgrade, as all clockwork children did.
And yet, the foil of her hair came from the original piece of copper piping Pretya had sacrificed from her own elbow joint to form the tiny chassis that would house her baby daughter.
“Nilya,” Pretya whispered, lowering her head so she and her daughter looked each other in the eye. “You must go to Maraland. The sky pirates have so little success attacking their cities that they hardly even try anymore.”
“Maybe because they’re so busy attacking us all the time?” Nilya said. Bitterness soured her tone.
“Because Maraland has the means to fight them off. I promised you the sky pirates wouldn’t lay a hand on you again, Nilya, and the best way to ensure that is to get you safely within the borders of a country that can properly defend you.”
“But Maraland is so…”
“Safe?” Pretya said. “Capable where our soldiers are not?”
“I was going to say backwards,” Nilya said. “Everyone knows they think the clockwork people are somehow lesser. Like we’re all a trunkful of fancy toys. In fact, the only people they seem to hate more than us are the handful of humans who marry into clockwork families…”
“And yet the ambassador is willing to offer you safe passage to their kingdom, so long as you impress him tonight. So long as you show him how valuable the princess of Clockwork Kingdom can be to him and his people.”
Pretya watched the effect of pride pull Nilya’s shoulders back and her neck into a graceful arch full of her natural royal dignity. Pretya hid her satisfaction at the moment her daughter accepted the ambassador’s challenge and swore she’d rise to surpass it.
“Come, dearest,” Pretya said, stepping away and offering her arm. “You look radiant enough to pull off a fashionably late arrival.”
Nilya laid her steel fingers on Pretya’s elbow and followed her out of the bedchamber. On the landing of the stairs, Pretya urged her forwards.
“Let me see your graceful walk on the stairs,” she said.
She watched Nilya’s first few gliding steps, found them satisfactory, and then turned to whisper in the handmaid’s ear.
“I expect that mechanical mess to be moved down to the gardens and locked securely in the sheds by the time the princess retires for the night. Do you understand?”
The handmaid nodded, her expression a mix of nerves and sullen obedience.
Satisfied, Pretya joined Nilya at the bottom. The royal guards opened the door at Pretya’s knock, and the two royal ladies crossed the bridgewalk back to the glittering castle.
From this southern approach, they had a clear view of the western tower silhouetted by the moonlight, wreathed with scaffolding, and strung with pulley systems and winches. To the east, the Grand Pipewalk spanned the distance between the castle’s main entrance and the Waterwheel. Lights hung from wrought iron posts along the entire stone walkway, their beams distorted by the waves of heat rising from the humongous copper pipe that ran under the full length of the bridge, carrying hydropower into the castle. Above the castle’s main entrance, the glittering wall of glass that was the Crystarium, where the future generations of Clockwork Kingdom incubated, presented its awe-inspiring façade to visiting dignitaries.
The night had grown chillier since Pretya’s earlier crossing, and Nilya shivered beside her. The crisp air made the scent of firewood and charcoal more noticeable, as well as carrying the sounds of music and laughter to them. The revelry of the party had spilled out onto the Grand Pipewalk.
They picked up the pace, took the short way around the armory hall and the kitchens, before coming to a halt outside the receiving hall. Pretya gave Nilya one last appraising look, adjusted the clip in her hair, and nodded.
“Wait here. I’ll have the caller announce you, then I will introduce you to the ambassador.”
Nilya gave a jerky nod, her eyes on the open doorway and her fingers crumpling the foil of her skirt. Pretya smoothed it, then went to give the caller his instructions.
“Her Royal Highness, Heiress to the Throne of Clockwork Kingdom, Crown Princess Nilya de JiChron.”
Pretya stood to the side as Nilya made her entrance. The gathered courtiers and honored guests responded with applause and toasts, and well they should for such a young lady. Still, Pretya resisted the urge to glance at Maraland’s ambassador.
The applause died down, and Nilya moved into the room. Some of the younger courtiers came to greet her, and real graciousness sparked in her smile. Pretya let her converse with her friends long enough to take some of the nervous tension out of her shoulders, but she couldn’t keep the ambassador waiting any longer. Nilya begged their forgiveness, then came to join her mother.
They found the ambassador swaying in a circle of fellow human courtiers near the wine tables.
“My lord,” Pretya said, dipping her head in the appropriate show of deference to an important guest. “May I have the pleasure of introducing you to my daughter, Princess Nilya?”
Beside her, Nilya sank into a perfect curtsey, giving just the right amount of bend in her knees to appear both humbled and aware of her own high station. “Lord Ambassador.”
The ambassador handed his nearly empty wineglass to a servant and slid his eyes up and down Nilya’s form. He blinked at Nilya’s reflective face, caught as many people were by the way light bounced from its contours. “Punctuality leaves something to be desired, but at least she’s something worth looking at when she does turn up. Perhaps now the dinner can begin? Decisions of international import shouldn’t be made on an empty stomach, you know.”
“Of course,” Pretya said, quick to cut off Nilya’s grumble at his insult. “I shall give the signal at once.”
At her signal, wheeled servants swarmed the receiving hall, shifting tables and chairs and carrying trays laden with the courses of the meal. Hearty cuts of charred oak accompanied a side of pork for the human guests, with Gohwa reed soup for everyone to enjoy. The wine continued to flow, though Pretya did hope the ambassador would limit himself as they sat down to eat. She wondered if providing him with as much as he wanted earlier wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake, and was relieved to see no trace of a stumble as he approached the table.
Pretya ensured the ambassador had a seat beside Nilya, while she herself, as well as her royal husband, sat together at the head of the table.
The conversation remained light for the duration of the first two courses, and King Constas readily discussed the work on his plans for a kingdom-wide communication system. “So our scouts can sound the alarm to the entire kingdom the moment they spot an oncoming skyship,” he explained through the dinner course. He ate with a deliberate decorum, after every bite wiping his napkin over the gold and silver spring coils of the beard that draped over the top of his wrought iron waistcoat.
The ambassador plowed through his dinner with an expression of mild interest, but as the servants cleared away the remains of the braised fish and roasted pine boughs and presented the diners with a delectable dessert tray of whipped chocolate mousse and delicate bricks of sassafras baked to a flaky crisp, the topic turned sour.
“King Constas, your offer is of course extremely generous, though in light of the history between our kingdoms, it could come across as rather … underhanded,” said the ambassador around a mouthful of chocolate.
Pretya’s royal husband did not shift in his chair, though his eyes hardened. “Clockwork Kingdom has upheld its end of the Treaty of Advancement for twenty years now. We limit our excursions into the Praying Forest as Maraland dictates, and we keep the trade laws enforced. As far as we are concerned, the old animosity between our kingdoms is ancient history.”
Nilya stabbed her fork into her sassafras with undignified force, sending bits of flaky bark skittering over her plate. Under the table, Pretya gripped Nilya’s knee and gave her a warning squeeze. The young people of Clockwork Kingdom might disagree with her royal husband’s claims of peaceful relations, but it would not do for Maraland’s ambassador to witness Nilya’s disquiet.
She needn’t have worried, though. The ambassador’s attention remained on the king.
He dabbed a napkin at his chocolate-stained lips. “Yes, yes, the treaty was signed by both parties, but a couple of old signatures don’t change the fact that Maraland never recovered the old princess. Had to make do with putting her younger brother on the throne back then.”
“King Thoric has done an excellent job governing your people,” said King Constas. “I have learned much from studying his ways since I took my own throne, and I would never presume to replace what his family has lost by sending Nilya into your country.”
“Oh, I am certain you mean no disrespect to our royal family, Your Highness,” said the ambassador. “The fact remains, however, that the majority of Maraland’s citizens may not see it that way. They remember how the Clockwork Kingdom of old sent its mechanical dragon to kidnap the old princess.”
Nilya slammed her fork onto her plate, sending her mutilated sassafras flying onto the tablecloth. “Maraland has no proof of that! Clockwork Kingdom has never manufactured a dragon of any kind, and to say so in this day and age is libel of the worst sort. Clockwork Kingdom and Maraland are not the only two countries in Aralond, after all.”
Pretya’s heart stilled for a cycle, and her hand fisted on Nilya’s knee.
The ambassador looked at Nilya, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “You are quite young to have an opinion in such matters, Princess. Though your spark is certainly a diverting amusement. I think King Thoric will rather like her.” This last was directed at King Constas with a lopsided smile. The ambassador picked up his own fork and shoved another glob of chocolate into his mouth.
Pretya released a quiet breath from her clenched ventilation. He found Nilya’s attitude charming. Though how much of it he could handle before charm turned to annoyance, she didn’t want to risk finding out. She smoothed the crumpled foil of Nilya’s skirt in an attempt to bring down her daughter’s raised hackles.
Nilya remained tight-wound, but she did not say anything else as the men continued to talk around them. She shot a look of annoyance at Pretya and leaned in close to whisper. “How am I supposed to get him to see my value if he won’t discuss politics with me? He only wants to speak with Daddy now that the important topics are on the table.”
Her words resonated with Pretya’s own frustration with getting her voice heard in matters of court, but Pretya simply shook her head in answer.
Nilya rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair, and Pretya returned her attention to the conversation.
“Your daughter is a treasure, Your Majesty,” the ambassador was saying. “And the fact that you are willing to part with her in this time of trouble from the skies says much to your kingdom’s loyalty to Maraland and our alliance.”
“Her departure will bring me pain, but I know she will find happiness in Maraland,” said King Constas. He placed his hand over his chest. “Just knowing she is safe will ease my weary timepiece.”
Pretya murmured her own agreement, though she kept her doubts about happiness to herself. She had no delusions and knew that Nilya would hate Maraland upon arrival, but the fact of the matter was that Maraland could protect her from the greedy graspings of the sky pirates, and Clockwork Kingdom could not. Her daughter’s happiness had little sway in the decision.
The ambassador picked up his wineglass, and a servant wheeled up to refill it.
“I feel we can easily sweep the messy details of past conflicts and accusations under the rug. Maraland would be delighted to have Princess Nilya within its borders. Your suit is accepted, Your Majesty.”
A smile spread across Pretya’s face, perhaps revealing more teeth than was appropriate for a queen, but she didn’t rein it in. He’d accepted, and Nilya would be safe, and her royal husband would get the position of higher influence he desired.
Pretya raised her own glass along with her royal husband, and together they and the ambassador drank a toast to the new-forged alliance between the royal families.
Nilya’s glass remained untouched as she sat frozen.
“Our suit?” she asked.
Pretya opened her mouth, ready to give Nilya the right sort of words to turn this into something her daughter could stomach, but the ambassador beat her to it.
“Young Prince Monterrian will be your husband, Princess. The first prince of Maraland to take a clockwork bride!” He raised his glass once more and drained it.
Nilya rose from her chair so fast it clattered to the floor. A hush descended throughout the receiving hall. The courtiers probably expected their princess was about to make a delightful toast.
Pretya knew better. She reached a hand towards Nilya’s, happy that the grinding of her internal gears didn’t translate into her steady arm.
Nilya whirled to slap her hand aside. Her mirror face burned with fury and betrayal, the flickering candlelight reflected in her cheeks enhancing the storm of emotion.
Then she fled the room.
“So like a young bride,” chuckled the ambassador. “Overcome with her joy.”
Pretya stood, made a shallow curtsey, and threw out some promise to bring the princess back presently.
“Oh, take your time. I hardly need to witness her raptures.”
The rapid pistoning of Pretya’s heart drove her from the table without completing the appropriate pleasantries. She had to catch up to Nilya before the girl did something rash in her anger.
Like run away before her parents could marry her to the prince of the kingdom she hated.
Pretya broke into a run before she passed the door of the receiving hall.
Continue the story by picking up a copy of Clockwork Princess over at the Kickstarter for The Clockwork Kingdom Saga Book 2: Skyship Pirate!
