Winter (34 page)

They weren’t fighting.

They weren’t defending themselves.

They were cowed by their oppressors every bit as much as before.

Disappointment swarmed over her and she stumbled, slouching against the cart. Had she not been persuasive enough? Had she failed to convey how important it was that they all stand up, unified and resolute? Had she failed?

Scarlet laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s only one sector,” she said. “Don’t be discouraged. We don’t know what else is happening out there.”

Though her words were kind, Cinder could see her frustration mirrored on Scarlet. It might be true—they
didn’t
know what was happening in the rest of the sectors and they had no way of knowing. What she saw here, though, did little to give her confidence.

“Don’t touch me!” a man yelled.

Cinder glanced around the cart. A guard was staring down a skinny man with sickly pale skin. Despite the gaunt bent to his body, the man stood before the guard with clenched fists.

“I will not return to my home in recognition of curfew,” he said. “Threaten to report me all you like—after a video like that, the queen and her minions are going to have their hands full rounding up people guilty of much bigger crimes than staying out a few extra minutes.”

Two other guards stopped ushering the people away and moved toward the man. Their gloved hands tightened on their clubs.

The remaining workers stopped to watch. Curious. Wary. But also, Cinder thought—angry.

The first guard loomed over the man. His voice was muffled behind the mask, but his arrogance was clear. “Our laws are for the protection of all people, and no one will be exempt from them. I suggest you go home before I’m forced to make an example of you.”

“I’m perfectly capable of making an example of myself.” The man snarled at the guards that were converging around him, then at the people who had hesitated at the edges of the square. “Don’t you get it? If the other sectors saw that video too—”

The guard wrapped his free hand around the back of the man’s neck and shoved him down, forcing the man onto his knees. His words were cut off with a strangled grunt.

The guard raised his club.

Cinder pressed a hand over her mouth. She reached out with her gift, but she was too far away to stop it, too far to control him.

The other two guards joined in, their clubs falling onto the man’s head, back, shoulders. He fell onto his side and covered his face, screaming from the force of the blows, but they wouldn’t relent—

Cinder gritted her teeth and took a step into the road, but another voice cut through the man’s cries before she could speak.

“Stop!” a woman screamed. She shoved her way through the crowd.

One of the guards did stop. No, he
froze.

The other two hesitated, seeing their companion with his club held halfway through a swing. The woman’s face was contorted in concentration.

“Unlawful use of manipulation,” bellowed another guard. He grabbed the woman and pulled her arms behind her back. Before he could bind them, though, another miner had stepped forward—an elderly man with his back bent under years of work. His gaze was sharp, though, as he raised one hand.

The guard’s body turned to stone.

Another civilian stepped forward. Then another, their expressions made of grim determination. One by one, the guards dropped their clubs. One by one, their bodies were claimed by the people.

A young boy rushed toward the man who had been beaten. He lay limp on the ground, groaning in pain.

The woman who had stepped forward first snarled at the guards. “I don’t know if that girl was Princess Selene or not, but I do know she’s right. This might be our only chance to stand together, and I, for one, refuse to be afraid of you anymore!” Her face was strained, full of resentment.

As Cinder watched, the guard she was controlling reached for the knife at his belt and lifted it, pressing the blade against his own throat.

Horror cascaded over her like ice water.

“No!” Cinder screamed. She ran forward, releasing the glamour of the plain girl. “Don’t! Don’t kill them!” Barreling into the center of the crowd, Cinder held her hands toward the gathered civilians. Her pulse was racing.

She was met first with rage, the remnants of years of tyranny and yearning for revenge turned to disgust at her interruption.

But then, slowly, there was recognition, matched with confusion.

“I understand these men have been the queen’s weapons. They have abused and degraded you and your families. But
they
are not your enemies. Many guards were removed from their loved ones and forced into the queen’s employment against their will. Now, I don’t know about these guards, specifically, but killing them without offering a fair trial or showing any mercy will only further the cycle of distrust.” She met the eyes of the woman who held the guard and his knife in thrall. “Don’t become like the queen and her court. Don’t kill them. We’ll take them prisoner until further notice. We might still find a use for them.”

The guard’s arm began to lower, removing the knife’s imminent threat. He was watching Cinder, though, not the woman. Maybe he was relieved that she’d intervened. Maybe he was embarrassed at his lack of power. Maybe he was plotting to kill all of these rebellious citizens the moment he had a chance.

It occurred to her that this same scenario could be playing out in countless other sectors, without her there to stop it. She wanted the people to defend themselves from Levana’s regime but she hadn’t considered how she might also be sentencing thousands of guards to death.

She tried to tamp down the sting of guilt, telling herself this was war now, and wars came with casualties. But it didn’t make her feel much better.

She approached the fountain and stepped up onto the edge. The water sprayed against her calves.

The crowd around her had grown and was still growing. People who had wandered off to their residences returned in force, drawn by the commotion and the spreading whispers of rebellion. With the guards subdued, their heads were lifted.

She imagined hundreds of thousands, even
millions
of Lunars gathering together like this, daring to envision a new regime.

Then a man’s voice shouted, “It’s a trick! This is Levana testing us! She’ll slaughter us all for this.”

The crowd rustled, made nervous by the accusation. Their eyes roved over Cinder’s face, her clothes, the metal hand she wasn’t hiding. She felt like she was at the ball again, the center of unwanted attention, forging ahead with single-minded resolve and the knowledge that she couldn’t turn back now, even if she wanted to.

“This isn’t a trick,” she said, loud enough that her words echoed off the nearest factory walls. “And it isn’t a test. I am Princess Selene, and the video you just saw was broadcast to almost every sector on Luna. I
am
organizing a rebellion that will span the entire surface of Luna—starting here. Will you join me?”

She hoped to be met with cheers, but uncomfortable silence greeted her instead.

The elderly man she’d seen before cocked his head. “But you’re only a kid.”

She glared at him, indignant, but before she could speak a familiar face emerged in the crowd. Maha came to stand before her. Despite her small stature, she carried every ounce of Wolf’s fearlessness in her stance.

“Didn’t you hear the video? Our true queen has returned! Will we cower in fear and ignore this one chance we have to make a better life for ourselves?”

The old man gestured toward the sky. “One pretty speech will not make for an organized rebellion. We have no training and no weapons. We have no time to prepare. What do you expect us to do—march into Artemisia with shovels and pickaxes? We’ll be slaughtered!”

It was clear from the scattered frowns and bobbing heads that he wasn’t alone in his thoughts.

“What we lack in training and time,” said Maha, “we’ll make up for in numbers and determination, just like Selene said.”

“‘Numbers and determination’? You’ll take two steps into Artemisia and her thaumaturges will have you cutting open your own throats before you even
see
the palace.”

“They can’t brainwash all of us!” someone yelled from the crowd.

“Exactly,” agreed Maha. “Which is why we have to do this now, when all of Luna can move forward together.”

“How do we even know the other sectors will fight?” said the man. “Are we expected to risk our lives for some fantasy?”

“Yes!” Maha screamed. “Yes, I will risk my life for this fantasy. Levana took both of my sons away from me and I could do nothing to protect them. I couldn’t stand up to her, even though it killed me to let them go. I will not waste this chance now!”

Cinder could tell her words meant something to the gathered civilians. Eyes dropped to the ground. A handful of children, covered in the same dust as everyone else, were pulled into the shelter of their parents’ arms.

The man’s face tightened. “I have wished for change my whole life, which is precisely how I know it’s not going to be that simple. Levana may not be able to send manpower into every sector if we all riot at once, but what will stop her from halting the supply trains? She can starve us into submission. Our rations are already too low as it is.”

“You’re right,” said Cinder. “She could cut your rations and halt the supply trains. But not if we control the maglev system. Don’t you see? The only way this can work is if we all band together. If we refuse to accept the rules Levana has forced on us.”

She caught sight of Scarlet in the crowd, then Iko, too, with Wolf and Thorne. Thorne was wearing a guard uniform but had taken off the helmet and face mask. She hoped his open grin would be enough to halt anyone’s misplaced hatred.

Their presence bolstered her.

She tried to meet the eyes of as many citizens as she could. “I have no doubt the other sectors are dealing with the same fears you have. I suggest we select volunteers to act as runners to your neighboring sectors. We’ll tell them that I’m here and that everything I said on that video is true. I will be marching into Artemisia, and I will reclaim my birthright.”

“And I will be with you,” said Maha Kesley. “I believe you are our true queen, and we owe you our allegiance on that alone. But as a mother reunited with her son, I owe you so much more.”

Cinder smiled at her, grateful.

Maha returned it. Then she dropped to one knee and bowed her head.

Cinder tensed. “Oh, Maha, you don’t have to…” She trailed off as, all around her, the crowd started to follow suit. The change was gradual at first but spread like ripples in a pond. Her friends alone stayed standing, and Cinder was grateful for their lack of reverence.

Her fears started to melt away. She didn’t know if her video had persuaded
every
civilian to join her cause, and maybe not even
most
of them.

But the sight before her was proof that her revolution had begun.

Thirty-Seven

Kai stood with his arms crossed, glaring at the window of his lavish guest suite but seeing nothing of the beautiful lake or city below. He had not managed to appreciate any of the luxuries of his fine prison, despite the suite being larger than most houses in the Commonwealth. Levana was feigning respect, giving him accommodations complete with an enormous bedroom and closet, two sitting parlors, an office, and a washroom that, at first glance, had seemed as though it had an actual pool in it, before Kai realized it was the bathtub.

Breathtaking, to be sure. It was even more luxurious than the guest suites in New Beijing Palace, though Kai and his ancestors had prided themselves on how they welcomed and treated their diplomatic guests.

The effect was ruined, however, by the fact that the double doors leading onto his outdoor balcony remained locked and Lunar guards were posted outside his chambers day and night. He had fantasized about breaking one of the windows and trying to scale down the wall of the palace—it was probably what Cinder would have done—but what was the point? Even if he avoided breaking his neck, he had nowhere to go. Though it pained him to think it, his place was here, beside Levana, doing his best to keep her occupied with wedding and coronation rubbish.

Which was not going well, given that he hadn’t seen Levana or any of her cohorts since they’d locked him in here after the ambush in the docks. The only visitors he’d had were mute servants bringing him overflowing platters of extravagant food that went largely untouched.

With an exasperated growl, he started pacing again, sure he would wear a hole through this stone floor before this ordeal was over.

He had succeeded in getting Cinder and the others to Luna, which had been his primary role in their planning, but it hadn’t gone smoothly and he was going mad not knowing what had happened. Had they gotten away? Was anyone hurt?

Even without a D-COMM link, he would have been tempted to send a comm to Iko or Cinder just to know what was happening, but Levana had confiscated his portscreen. It was maddening, but given the risk of a comm being traced, possibly for the best.

His anxiety would have been quelled if he could have moved forward with his other objectives. In addition to distracting Levana, he had also been tasked with gathering information about Scarlet Benoit, but he could learn nothing,
nothing
, while trapped in here.

It was like being stuck on the Rampion again, but a hundred times worse.

A bell echoed through his suite.

He bolted through the main parlor and yanked open the door. A liveried servant stood on the other side, a boy a few years younger than Kai. He was flanked by four Lunar guards.

“I am not a prisoner,” Kai started, wedging his foot into the door in case it was slammed shut as it had been countless times before. The servant stiffened. “I am the emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth, not some common criminal, and I will be treated with diplomatic respect. I have the right to hold counsel with my adviser and cabinet officials and I demand to hear Queen Levana’s reasons for detaining us in this manner!”