Cinder (20 page)

“What else could they be intended for?” said Governor-General Williams.

“Manual labor?” said Torin, daring anyone to deny the possibility. The governor-general sniffed but said nothing. “We should, of course, be prepared should a war come to pass. But in the meantime, our priority needs to be forming an alliance with Luna, not alienating it with paranoia and distrust.”

“No,” said Kai, propping his chin on his fist. “I think this is the perfect time for paranoia and distrust.”

Torin scowled. “Your Highness.”

“It seems you’ve all missed the very obvious point of those pictures.”

President Vargas puffed out his chest. “What do you mean?”

“You say they’ve probably been building this army for decades? Perfecting whatever science they’ve used to create these…creatures?”

“So it would seem.”

“Then why have we only noticed it now?” He waved his hand at the screen where the images had been. “Hundreds of them, standing out in the open as if they have nothing better to do.
Waiting
to have their pictures taken.” He folded his arms on top of the table, watching as uncertain expressions turned toward him. “Queen Levana wanted us to see her spook army. She wanted us to take notice.”

“You think she’s trying to threaten us?” said Prime Minister Kamin.

Kai shut his eyes, seeing the rows of beasts fresh in his mind. “No. I think she’s trying to threaten me.”

THE HOVER RUMBLED TO A STOP OUTSIDE THE QUARANTINE.
Cinder flew out of the side hatch and immediately reeled back, covering her nose with her elbow. Her gut heaved at the stench, rotting flesh intensified by the steamy afternoon heat. Just outside the warehouse’s entrance, a group of med-droids were loading dead bodies into a hover to be carted away, their forms bloated and discolored, each with a red slit in the wrist. Cinder looked away, keeping her eyes averted and her breath held as she slid past them into the warehouse.

The sunlight turned from blaring to murky, caught by the green sheeting on the windows along the ceiling. The quarantine had been near empty before; now it was overflowing with victims—every age, every gender. Buffeting fans on the ceiling did little to dispel the sweltering heat or the smell of death. The air was heavy with it.

Med-droids buzzed between the beds, but there were not enough of them to tend to all the sick.

Cinder slipped down an aisle, gasping for shallow breaths against her sleeve. She spotted Peony’s green brocade blanket and ran to the foot of the bed. “Peony!”

When Peony didn’t stir, she reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. The blanket was soft, warm, but the bulk beneath it didn’t move.

Shaking, Cinder grasped the edge of the comforter and pulled it back.

Peony whimpered, a mild protest, which sent relieved chills across Cinder’s arms. She slumped down beside the bed.

“Stars, Peony. I came as soon as I heard.”

Peony squinted up at her, eyes bleary. Her face was ashen, her lips peeling. The dark splotches on her neck had begun to fade to lavender beneath the surface of her ghostly skin. Eyes on Cinder, she pulled her arm out from beneath the blanket and spread out her fingers, displaying their blue-black tips and the yellowish tinge of her nails.

“I know, but it’s going to be all right.” Still panting, Cinder unbuttoned the pocket on the side of her cargo pants and pulled out the glove that normally lived on her right hand. The vial was in one of the fingers, protected. “I brought something for you. Can you sit up?”

Peony pulled her hand into a loose fist and tucked it again beneath the blanket. Her eyes were hollow. Cinder didn’t think she’d heard her.

“Peony?”

A ping echoed in Cinder’s head. Her display showed an incoming message from Adri, and the familiar surge of anxiety that came with it clamped Cinder’s throat.

She dismissed the message.

“Peony, listen to me. I need you to sit up. Can you do that?”

“Mom?” Peony whispered, spittle collecting at the corner of her lips.

“She’s at home. She doesn’t know—”
That you’re dying.
But, of course, Adri did know. The comm would have gone to her too.

Pulse racing, Cinder bent over Peony and slid her arm beneath her shoulder. “Come on, I’ll help you.”

Peony’s expression didn’t change—the blank, corpse stare—but she did let out a pained groan when Cinder lifted her up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I need you to drink this.”

Another ping, another message from Adri. This time, irritation welled up in Cinder and she shut off her netlink, blocking any more incoming messages.

“It’s from the palace. It might help. Do you understand?” She kept her voice low, worried that the other patients might hear, might riot against her. But Peony’s gaze remained empty. “A
cure,
Peony,” she hissed against her ear. “An antidote.”

Peony said nothing, head drooped against Cinder’s shoulder. Her body had gone limp, but she was light as a wooden doll.

Cinder’s throat felt coated in sand as she stared into Peony’s empty eyes. Eyes looking past her, through her.

“No…Peony, didn’t you hear me?” Cinder pulled Peony fully against her and uncorked the vial. “You have to drink this.” She held the vial to Peony’s lips, but Peony didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.
“Peony.”
Hand trembling, she coaxed Peony’s head back. Her papery lips fell open.

Cinder forced her hand to still as she lifted the vial, afraid to spill a single drop. She set the glass against Peony’s lips and held her breath, but paused. Her heart was convulsing. Her head felt heavy with tears that wouldn’t come. She shook her head, harshly. “Peony,
please.
”

When no sound or air passed through Peony’s lips, Cinder lowered the vial. She buried her head into the crook of Peony’s neck, gritting her teeth until her jaw ached. Each breath stung as it entered her throat, rank with the stench around her, but even now she caught whiffs of Peony’s shampoo from so many days past.

Clutching the vial in her fist, she gently released Peony, letting her slip back onto the pillow. Her eyes were still open.

Cinder slammed her fist onto the mattress. Some of the antidote splashed up over her thumb. Squeezing her eyes until stars flashed before her, she slumped over and planted her face into the blanket. “Dammit.
Dammit.
Peony!” Rocking back on her heels, she sucked in a long, uneven breath and gazed at her little sister’s heart-shaped face and lifeless eyes. “I kept my promise. I brought it for you.” She barely refrained from shattering the vial in her fist. “Plus, I talked to Kai. Peony, he’s going to dance with you. He told me he would. Don’t you get it? You
can’t
die. I’m
here
…I—”

A splitting headache rocked her against the bed. She gripped the edge of the mattress and lowered her head, letting it hang to her chest. The pain was coming from the top of her spine again, but it did not overwhelm her like before. Just uncomfortable heat, like a sunburn on the inside.

It passed, leaving only a dull throbbing behind, and the thought of Peony’s blank stare haunting her. She lifted her head and corked the vial with weak fingers, slipping it back into her pocket. Reaching up, she closed Peony’s eyes.

Cinder heard the familiar crunch of treads on the dirty concrete and spotted a med-droid coming toward her, no water or damp rags in its prongs. It paused on the other side of Peony’s bed, opened its torso, and retrieved a scalpel.

Cinder reached across the bed and clamped her gloved hand over Peony’s wrist. “No,” she said, louder than she’d intended. Nearby patients lolled their heads toward her.

The android’s sensor rose to her, still dim.

Thieves. Convicts. Fugitives. “You can’t have this one.”

The android stood with its blank white face, the scalpel jutting from its torso. Bits of dried blood clung to the edge.

Without speaking, the android reached forward with one of its free arms and latched onto Peony’s elbow. “I have been programmed—”

“I don’t care what you’ve been programmed to do. You can’t have this one.” Cinder yanked Peony’s arm out of the android’s grip. The pincers left deep scratches across her skin.

“I must remove and preserve her ID chip,” the android said, reaching forward again.

Cinder bent over the bed and plastered her hand against the android’s sensor, holding it at bay. “I said you’re not getting it. Leave her alone.”

The android swung the scalpel up, burying the tip into Cinder’s glove. It clanged, metal on metal. Cinder reeled back from surprise. The blade clung to the thick fabric of her work gloves.

Gritting her teeth, she wrenched the scalpel from the glove and jammed it into the android’s sensor. Glass shattered. The glowing yellow light flashed out. The android wheeled back, metal arms swinging, loud beeps and error messages spilling from its hidden speakers.

Cinder barreled over the bed and slammed her fist into the android’s head. It crashed to the ground, silenced, arms still twitching.

Panting, Cinder looked around. The patients who could were sitting up in bed, blinking glossy eyes. A med-droid four aisles away left its patient and rambled toward her.

Cinder sucked in a breath. Crouching down, she reached into the android’s shattered sensor and grabbed the scalpel. She spun back to Peony—the disheveled blankets, the scratches on her arm, the blue fingertips dangling over the side of the bed. Kneeling beside her, she asked for hurried forgiveness while she grasped her sister’s fragile wrist.

She spliced the scalpel into the soft tissue. Blood dribbled out of the wound and onto her glove, mixing with years of grime. Peony’s fingers twitched when Cinder hit a tendon, making her jump.

When the cut was wide enough, she peeled it open with her thumb, revealing bright red muscle. Blood. Her stomach squirmed but she dug the tip of the blade in as carefully as she could, easing up the square chip.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered, setting the mutilated wrist down on Peony’s stomach and standing. The grating of the med-droid’s treads worked closer.

“Ashes, ashes…”

She spun toward the dry, singsong voice, scalpel gripped firmly in one hand, Peony’s chip protected in the other.

The small boy in the next aisle shrank back as his dilated eyes spotted the weapon. The nursery rhyme faded away. It took Cinder a moment to recognize him. Chang Sunto, from the market. Sacha’s son. His skin now glossy with sweat, black hair matted to one side of his head from sleeping too much.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

Everyone who was strong enough to sit up was staring at her.

Stealing a breath, Cinder swept toward Sunto. She fished the vial from her pocket and forced it into his clammy fingers. “Drink this.”

The med-droid reached the foot of the bed, and Cinder shoved it aside. It toppled to the ground like a fallen pawn. Sunto’s delirious eyes followed her without recognition. “Drink it!” she ordered, pulling out the stopper and forcing the vial up to his mouth. She waited for his lips to close around it, and then she ran.

The sun momentarily blinded her as she bolted into the street. Blocked from her hover by the med-droids and two gurneys of dead patients, she spun and ran in the other direction.

She turned a corner and had gone four blocks when she heard another hover overhead, the hum of magnets awakening beneath her pounding feet.

“Linh Cinder,” came a booming voice over the speaker, “you are hereby ordered to halt and be taken peacefully into custody.”

She cursed. Were they
arresting
her?

Planting her feet she turned to face the white hover, panting. It was a law enforcement vehicle, manned by more androids. How had they gotten to her so quickly?

“I didn’t steal it!” she yelled, holding up her fist with Peony’s chip enclosed. “It belongs to her family, not to you or anyone else!”

The hover settled to the ground, its engine still thrumming. An android alighted from a ramp, its yellow light scanning Cinder up and down as it approached her. It held a taser in its prongs.

She shuffled back, her heels kicking up debris on the deserted street.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said, hands extended toward the android. “That med-droid was attacking me. It was self-defense.”

“Linh Cinder,” said the machine’s mechanical voice, “we have been contacted by your legal guardian in regard to your unauthorized disappearance. You are hereby in violation of the Cyborg Protection Act and have been labeled a runaway cyborg. Our orders are to apprehend you by force if necessary and return you to your legal guardian. If you come peaceably, this infraction will not be recorded on your permanent record.”

Cinder squinted, confused. A bead of sweat rolled over her eyebrow as she looked from the android who had spoken to a second android just leaving the hover’s ramp.

“Wait,” she said, lowering her hands. “Adri sent you?”

THE UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE OF THE DINING HALL WAS
broken only by the clatter of chopsticks against porcelain and the shuffling of servants’ feet. Only human servers were present—a concession to Levana’s avid distrust of androids. She claimed it went against her people’s morals, and the laws of nature, to bestow fake emotions and thoughts on man-made machines.

Kai knew, however, that she just didn’t like androids because she couldn’t brainwash them.

Sitting opposite the queen, Kai found himself struggling not to look at her—it was both a temptation and a repellent, and both feelings irritated him. Torin was beside him, and Levana was flanked by Sybil and the second thaumaturge. The two Lunar guards stood against the walls. Kai wondered if they ever ate.

The emperor’s seat at the end of the table would remain empty until the coronation. He did not want to look at that empty chair, either.

Levana made a grand, flourishing gesture, drawing everyone’s attention to her, though it resulted in nothing more than taking a sip of tea. Her lips curled as she set the cup down, her gaze meeting Kai’s. “Sybil tells me your little festival is an annual occurrence,” she said, the cadence of her voice swooning like a lullaby.

“Yes,” Kai said, lifting a shrimp wonton between his chopsticks. “It falls on the ninth full moon of each year.”

“Ah, how lovely for you to base your holidays on the cycles of my planet.”

Kai wanted to scoff at the word
planet
but sucked it back down into his throat.

“It is a celebration of the end of the Fourth World War,” said Torin.

Levana clucked her tongue. “That is the problem with so many little countries on a single globe. So many wars.”

Something splattered on Kai’s plate. He looked down to see that the wonton’s filling had been squeezed from its wrapper. “Perhaps we should be glad the war happened, then, and forced the countries to conglomerate as they did.”

“I hardly think it harmed the well-being of the citizenry,” said Levana.

Kai’s pulse throbbed in his ears. Millions had died in World War IV; whole cultures had been devastated, dozens of cities reduced to rubble—including the original Beijing. Not to mention the countless natural resources that had been destroyed through nuclear and chemical warfare. Yes, he was quite sure some harm had come to the citizenry’s well-being.

“More tea, Your Highness?” said Torin, startling Kai. He realized he’d been gripping his chopsticks like a weapon.

Grumbling inwardly, he sat back, allowing a servant to refill his cup.

“We can give credit to the war for bringing about the Treaty of Bremen,” said Torin, “which has thus far been beneficial to all countries in the Earthen Union. We hope, of course, to see your signature on the document someday soon, Your Majesty.”

The queen’s lips tightened against her teeth. “Indeed. The good of the treatise is thoroughly discussed in your history books. And yet, I cannot help but feel that Luna—a single country ruled by a single government—provides an even more ideal arrangement. One that is fair and beneficial to all inhabitants.”

“Assuming that the ruling government
is
fair,” said Kai.

A flash of contempt set the queen’s jaw but almost instantly faded into a serene smile. “Which of course Luna has, as is evidenced by hundreds of years without a single uprising—not even the smallest protest.
Our
history books attest to that.”

Shocking.
Kai would have grumbled if he hadn’t felt Torin’s glower upon him.

“It is a testament that every ruler strives for,” said Torin.

The servants came forward and whisked away the first course, replacing it with silver tureens.

“My queen is as eager to forge a bond between Luna and Earth as you are,” said Sybil. “It is a shame that an agreement could not be reached under the rule of your father, but we are hopeful that you, Your Highness, will be more accepting of our terms.”

Kai again strove to loosen his grip, lest he accidentally leap across the table and jab a chopstick into the witch’s eye. His father had tried every compromise imaginable to forge an alliance with Luna, except the one thing he could not agree to. The one thing he was sure would signal the end of freedom for his people. A marriage to Queen Levana.

But nobody objected to Sybil’s comment. Not even himself. He couldn’t get the image from today’s meeting out of his head. The Lunar mutations, the army of beast-like creatures. Waiting.

It chilled him not only because of what he’d seen, but of what he could imagine he hadn’t seen. If he were right, then Levana had put her army out for show—as a threat. But he knew she wouldn’t give her hand away so easily.

So what else was she hiding?

And did he dare risk finding out?

Marriage. War. Marriage.
War.

The servants simultaneously lifted the silver domes from the trays, releasing clouds of steam scented of garlic and sesame oil.

Kai mumbled a thank-you to the servant over his shoulder, but the words were interrupted by a gasp from the queen. She shoved her chair away from the table. The legs screeched across the floor.

Startled, Kai followed the queen’s gaze to her plate. Instead of thinly cut pork tenderloin and rice noodles, the plate harbored a small hand mirror set into a shimmering silver-white frame.

“How dare you?”
Levana turned blazing eyes on the servant who had delivered the meal—a middle-aged woman with fine gray hair. The servant stumbled back, her eyes round as the mirror.

Levana stood so fast her chair tumbled to the floor behind her. A chorus of chair legs creaked on the floor as everyone stood.

“Speak, you disgusting Earthen! How dare you insult me?”

The servant tossed her head, mute.

“Your Majesty—” Kai started.

“Sybil!”

“My Queen.”

“This human has shown disrespect. It is not to be tolerated.”

“Your Majesty!” said Torin. “Please, calm yourself. We do not know that this woman is to blame. We mustn’t jump to conclusions.”

“Then she must be made an example of,” said Sybil, quite coolly, “and the true perpetrator can thus suffer the guilt, which is often a far worse punishment.”

“That is
not
how our system works,” said Torin. His face had flushed red. “While you reside in the Commonwealth, you will abide by our laws.”

“I will not follow your laws so long as they permit disobedience to flourish,” said Levana. “Sybil!”

Sybil rounded the queen’s fallen chair. The servant backed away, bowing, muttering apologies and begging for mercy and not knowing what she said.

“Stop it! Leave her alone!” said Kai, rushing toward the servant.

Sybil snatched a knife from the service table and held its handle out toward the woman. The woman took the knife, crying, pleading as she did so.

Kai’s jaw dropped. He was both disgusted and mesmerized as the servant turned the blade toward herself, clutching the handle with both hands.

Sybil’s beautiful face remained complacent.

The servant’s hands trembled and slowly lifted the knife until the glistening edge was poised at the corner of her eye. “No,” she whimpered.
“Please.”

Kai’s entire body shook as he realized what Sybil meant to force the woman into. Heart racing, he squared his shoulders.
“I did it
!”

The room stilled, silenced, but for the woman’s bumbling sobs.

Everyone turned to Kai. The queen, Torin, the servant with the tiny inflamed scratch beside her eyelid, the knife still in her hand.

“I did it,” he repeated. He looked at Sybil, who watched him without expression, and then at Queen Levana.

The queen fisted both hands at her sides. Her dark gaze seethed. Her complexion shimmered. In a single, tilting moment, she was hideous, with her ragged breath and sneering coral lips.

Kai ran his dry tongue across the roof of his mouth. “I ordered the kitchen to put the mirror on your tray.” He pressed his arms firmly against his sides to keep them from shaking. “It was meant as a friendly joke. I understand now that it was an ignorant decision, and a joke that would not cross cultural lines, and I can only apologize and ask for your forgiveness.” He leveled his gaze at Levana. “But if forgiveness is not in your power, then at least direct your anger toward me and not the servant, who would have had no idea that the mirror was there. The punishment should be all mine.”

He had thought the tension bad during the appetizer course, but now he was choking on it.

Levana’s breathing returned to normal as her eyes weighed her options. She did not believe him—it was a lie, and everyone in the room knew it. But he had confessed.

She opened her fists, stretching her fingers out against the material of her dress. “Release the servant.”

The energy dispersed. Kai felt his ears pop as if the air pressure in the room had changed.

The knife clattered to the floor and the servant stumbled back, crashing into a wall. Her shaking hands flattened over her eyes, her face, her head.

“Thank you for your honesty, Your Highness,” Levana said, her tone flat and hollow. “Your apology is accepted.”

The crying woman was led away from the dining room. Torin reached across the table, picked up the silver dome, and covered the mirror. “Bring our most honored guest her entrée.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Levana. “I have quite lost my appetite.”

“Your Majesty—” said Torin.

“I will retire to my quarters,” said the queen. She was still battling Kai across the table, her eyes cold and calculating, and he unable to look away. “I have learned something valuable about you tonight, young prince. I hope you have learned something about me, as well.”

“That you prefer to rule through fear rather than justice? So sorry, Your Majesty, I’m afraid I already knew that about you.”

“No, indeed. I hope you noticed that I am capable of choosing my battles.” Her lips curved, her beauty returning full force. “If that’s what it takes to win the war.”

She departed from the room like a feather, as if nothing at all had happened, her entourage falling into step behind her. Only when the guards’ clopping feet had drifted down the halls did Kai slump into the nearest seat, head hanging over his knees. His stomach was heaving. Every nerve shook.

He heard a chair being set upright and Torin settle beside him with a heavy sigh. “We should find out who was really at fault for the mirror. If it was someone on the staff, they should be suspended for so long as the queen is staying at the palace.”

Kai lifted his head far enough to peer over the table’s edge, seeing the towering silver dome in front of the queen’s abandoned chair. Inhaling a breath, he reached forward and uncovered the mirror, then grasped its slender handle. It was smooth as glass but sparkled like diamonds when he twisted it in the dim lighting. He had only seen material like that once before. On a spaceship.

Holding the mirror’s face toward Torin, he shook his head, disgusted. “Mystery solved,” he said, turning the mirror around so that his adviser could see the strange Lunar rune carved into the back of the frame.

Torin’s eyes widened. “She was testing you.”

Kai let the mirror tip back onto the table. He rubbed his brow with outstretched fingers, still shaking.

“Your Highness.” A messenger clicked his heels from the doorway. “I have an urgent message from the Secretary of Public Health and Safety.”

Kai tilted his head, squinting at the messenger through his bangs. “Couldn’t she send a comm?” he said, checking his belt with his free hand before remembering that Levana had requested no portscreens at their dinner. He grunted and sat up. “What’s the message?”

The messenger stepped into the dining room, his eyes bright. “There’s been a disturbance at the District 29 quarantine. An unidentified person attacked two med-droids, disabling one of them, and then escaped.”

Kai frowned, straightening. “A patient?”

“We’re unsure. The only android that would have recorded a good visual was the one that was disabled. Another android caught glimpses of the act from afar, but only of the perpetrator’s back. We’ve been unable to get an accurate ID. The perpetrator didn’t seem ill, though.”

“Everyone at the quarantines is ill.”

The messenger hesitated.

Kai gripped the arms of the chair. “We have to find him. If he has the disease—”

“It appeared to be a female, Your Highness. And there’s more. The footage we have shows her speaking to another patient, moments after she attacked the first med-droid. A young boy by the name of Chang Sunto. He was admitted to the quarantine yesterday with stage two letumosis.”

“And?”

The servant cleared his throat. “The boy seems to be recovering.”

“From what? The attack?”

“No, Your Highness. Recovering from the disease.”