The Cogsmith's Daughter (Desertera #1)(15)
The king stood in front of Aya’s father, looking down at him. “And what do we call them, Lionel, people who hurt the royal family?”
Papa dropped to his knees. “Please, Your Majesty. I will figure out how to—”
King Archon held up his hand, and again, Papa quieted. “Lionel?”
“We call them traitors.” The prince’s voice cut through the air, flat and emotionless, and jolted Aya out of her trance.
“No!” she screamed, lunging forward. Alfred grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to the ground.
King Archon glanced in Aya’s direction for only a second before returning his gaze to his young son. “And what do we do with traitors, Lionel?”
Prince Lionel looked at the wall. Alfred clamped his hand over Aya’s mouth. Her wide eyes landed on her father’s bent frame. He was looking back at her, water brimming around the edges of his green eyes. As Papa opened his mouth to speak, King Archon grabbed him by his collar and lifted him to his feet.
“Lionel! What do we do with traitors?”
Prince Lionel turned his gaze to the cogsmith. “We execute them.”
Aya barely heard the prince’s statement over the beating of her heart. She fought against Alfred’s arms, but he held her firm to his chest. King Archon smiled and patted the prince on the head with his free hand.
“Guards!” King Archon cried. Two burly men rushed past Aya and Alfred and bowed before the king. “Take this man to the dungeons. He is to be tried for treason!”
The guards latched onto Papa.
“Alfred!” King Archon called.
The butler released Aya and scurried to the king’s feet. “Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Search through his toolbox. Look for a golden cog with nine teeth.”
Alfred opened Papa’s toolbox and rifled his hands through the contents. “No gold, Your Majesty. Only a few bronze gears.”
King Archon huffed. “Send my guards to his shop. Search every nook until you find the cog I seek. Confiscate anything that may be of use to me.”
Aya didn’t understand what the cog mattered to the king now. He had destroyed the bird. Perhaps he intended to find one to use as evidence of Papa’s treason. Before Aya could think about it further, the guards dragged Papa past her.
“No! Please!” Aya lunged at the guards from her seated position. One of the guards kicked her, knocking her back onto her bum. Aya winced, stopping for only a moment before scrambling to her feet.
“Papa!”
“Aya!” Papa shouted back. He struggled against the guards, but they were too strong. Papa stayed locked between them. “Be good, Aya. Please. I love you.”
“I love you, too!” The words came out in short gasps. Aya could barely see Papa’s figure through her tears as the guards dragged him away. King Archon came out of the room. He strode by Aya without a glance. As Aya stared at the back of his retreating top hat, the gears in her mind clicked into place.
“Your Majesty, stop! Please! I know the cog you seek! I can bring it to you! Please!”
King Archon kept walking.
“Please, Your Majesty! Spare my father! I can fix the bird!”
King Archon turned and stormed back to Aya. She recoiled, clutching her arms against her chest.
“Stupid girl! Your father is a liar and a traitor. I don’t give a damn if he has the cog. He deserves to die for lying to his king!”
Aya clutched the king’s robes. “No! Please, no!”
King Archon ripped his clothes from Aya’s grasp and strode away. Aya watched the king go until he passed through a door and slammed it shut. She looked in the direction of Papa and the guards, but they too were gone. She glanced back to Prince Lionel’s chambers. Alfred had gathered her father’s toolbox and carried it to her. She snatched it from him, cradling it against her chest as if it were a wounded animal.
Aya looked past Alfred to Prince Lionel. The prince stood in the same place, looking at her with tear stains on his cheeks. He didn’t say anything, just stared at her with his hollow hazel eyes. Aya wanted to scream at him, to run into his room and drive her father’s screwdriver through his stone heart. The prince had said the words. He had cowered before his tyrant father and issued the execution of her kind father.
Everything was a blur after that. Alfred’s gentle grasp lifting her to her feet and guiding her back to the drawbridge. The stares of the merchants, the whispers of their wives, the innocent laughter of their children as she walked home alone. The creaking of her broken front door, hanging by a single hinge as she pushed it open.
King Archon’s guards had ransacked her home. As Aya walked through the house, she saw through hazy vision the stray pieces of metal scattered around her father’s workshop, the overturned tables in the living area, the dustless spots on the shelves where mechanical animals and ancient machines had rested. She went to the corner of her room, stepping over discarded bedsheets and feathers from her ripped mattress, and pried loose the floorboard. Reaching inside, she felt the cool metal of Charlie’s body against her fingertips, and her tears fell harder as she scooped him up in her hands.
Aya reached her pinky finger inside his body. A lump swelled in her throat as her finger connected with Charlie’s heart cog. She searched her brain for the name, finally stumbling upon it in a memory of her father fixing Charlie at the dinner table. The vortric cog. A golden, nine-toothed cog—the last one in Desertera.