Clockwork Princess: The Clockwork Kingdom Saga, #1

By Brigid Collins

Automaton Queen of Clockwork Kingdom, Pretya, has one goal at heart: keep her copper-haired, steel-faced daughter, Princess Nilya, safe from the constant threat of the sky pirates. Pretya will do anything to ensure her stubborn daughter's safety, even marry her off to the prince of their more defensible neighboring nation, Maraland.

But Nilya is uncooperative, to say the least. She has her own ideas about defending herself, and she doesn't care how unladylike they might be. If she can convince her mother to let her try out her prototype defensive machines, Clockwork Kingdom might be able to defend themselves rather than rely on neighbors who don't have much respect for clockwork people.

It makes for a strained relationship between mother and daughter.

But their kingdom needs a solution now, and the sky pirates circle ever closer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frosty Owl Publishing
• Release date: May 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224793945

Brigid Collins

Brigid Collins is a fantasy and science fiction writer living in Michigan. Her short stories have appeared in Fiction River, The Young Explorer's Adventure Guide, and Chronicle Worlds: Feyland. Books 1 through 3 of her fantasy series, Songbird River Chronicles, are available in print and electronic versions on Amazon and Kobo. You can sign up for her newsletter at tinyletter.com/HarmonicStories or follow her on twitter @purellian.

Book preview

One

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.

Two

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