Winter (40 page)

It was sickening to watch. All that strength. All that fury. Reduced to nothing more than a marionette. It was even more sickening because she knew how much mental strength and focus it took to force Wolf to do
anything.
She’d barely begun to master such a skill, yet Aimery showed no sign of difficulty at all.

“There’s a good dog,” said Aimery, patting Wolf’s head. “We will take you before Her Majesty and let her decide the punishment for your betrayal. Does that suit you, Alpha Kesley?”

Wolf’s voice was throaty and robotic as he answered, “Yes, Master.”

“As I thought.” Aimery cast his attention to the rest of his entourage. “Should there be any lingering pockets of rebellion, ensure they are swiftly stamped out. There is to be a royal wedding tomorrow, and we will not tolerate any more disturbances.”

After the other thaumaturges had bowed and scattered, Aimery tucked his hands into his sleeves and turned back to Cinder. “Which only leaves the question of what shall be done with you.”

She held his gaze. “You could bow before me as your true queen.”

Aimery’s lips curled upward. “Kill her.”

It happened so fast. One of the guards whipped the gun from his holster, held it against Cinder’s forehead, released the safety, squeezed the trigger—

Cinder sucked in a final breath.

“Stop. I’ve changed my mind.”

Just as quickly, the gun was stashed back at the guard’s waist.

Cinder sagged, her head spinning from the rush of fear.

“My queen has requested the pleasure of deciding your fate herself. I think I will suggest she offer your head to Emperor Kaito as a wedding gift.”

“Thaumaturge Park?”

He turned to the red-coated woman who had spoken. She had her palm on the side paneling of a small podship.

“This is a royal pod,” she said, “and it looks to have arrived recently.” She held up her hand. “Hardly any dust. Odd for it to be way out here.”

Aimery made a disinterested sound. “I am not surprised there are thieves about, but it could help us locate the missing rebels. Run a search on its tracking number and see what you find.”

He gestured to some of the guards. Cinder and Wolf were marched into his ship and forced onto separate benches. No words were spoken as the engines started to rumble.

Within moments, they were heading back toward Artemisia.

Aimery kept giving orders, something about medical care and bullet wounds, designating a new captain of the guard and informing the queen of casualties and prisoners. Cinder’s thoughts became muddled and she found herself staring at the profile of the guard who had killed Iko.
“Disabled it
,
”
he’d said. Thrown it into a
trash compactor.

The visions rolled through her head again and again. A knife ripping through Iko’s spine. Maha’s broken fingers. The sector residents kneeling at Aimery’s feet.

Her hatred warmed. Simmered at first, low in her gut. But by the time Artemisia came into view, she was boiling.

The ship dropped into Artemisia’s underground port. The ramp was lowered and a guard hauled her up with a squeeze so painful she had to bite back a cry of pain. Wolf’s heavy steps labored behind her.

She was greeted with a slew of new threats. A dozen guards, their bioelectricity as malleable as factory-new personality chips, and three more thaumaturges, whose mental strength always had a certain iron rigidity to it.

Her finger twitched and she wondered how quickly she could have a bullet loaded in her finger and how long it would take to kill them all. She was back in Artemisia. If she escaped, she could go rogue—a lone assassin hunting down the queen.

It was just a fantasy. Her hands were still bound.

She squeezed her cyborg hand into a useless fist instead.

“Thaumaturge Park?”

Cinder peered at the guard who had killed Iko.

“Sir Kinney.”

“Permission to seek immediate medical attention?”

Aimery’s attention darted down to the blood on his uniform. There was a lot of it, though Cinder couldn’t tell where, exactly, he’d been hurt. “Fine,” he said. “Report back as soon as you are cleared for service.”

The guard fisted a hand against his chest, then paced off in the opposite direction.

Cinder and Wolf were shoved away from the docks and into a maze of corridors. Not knowing what else to do, Cinder tried to focus on where they were taking her. She counted her steps, creating a rudimentary map in her head and piecing it together with what she knew of the queen’s palace.

They were led to an elevator bank, flanked by more guards. There was a pause in which Aimery conversed with another thaumaturge, and though Cinder adjusted her audio interface, she could only pick up a few words—
alpha
and
soldier
at first. Then
insurgence
and
RM-9
and
cyborg.

Aimery gestured and they started pulling Wolf away, down a separate corridor.

“Wait,” said Cinder, panic flooding her veins. “Where are you taking him?”

Wolf growled and strained against his captors, but any fight was tempered beneath the mind control.

“Wolf!
No!
” Cinder stumbled forward, but arms held her back. The bindings burned against her wrists. “
Wolf!
”

It was for nothing. They turned a corner and Wolf was gone, leaving Cinder panting and shaking. She felt wetness on her right wrist where the cords had cut into the skin. She wasn’t so naïve to think she and Wolf could have made a successful stand against their enemies, but she hadn’t imagined being parted from him so soon. She might never see him again. She might never see
any
of them again.

As she was forced into the elevator, it occurred to Cinder that, for the first time since this had all begun, she was alone.

“I’m sorry we aren’t able to give you a private tour,” said Aimery, “but we’re rather preoccupied with wedding preparations. I’m sure you understand.”

The elevator doors shut and they began to descend. And descend. Cinder felt like she was being taken to her tomb.

When the doors opened again, she was prodded forward with a jab in her back. She was taken through a dim corridor, with rough walls and the smell of stale air and urine and bodies. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“I hope you’ll find your accommodations acceptable for such a
distinguished
guest as yourself,” Aimery continued, as if the scent didn’t bother him. “I understand you’re already accustomed to prison cells.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Cinder. “The last one could only hold me for a day.”

“This one will be much more suited to you, I’m sure.”

This prison of rocks and caves was nothing like the modern structure in New Beijing. This was dreary and suffocating, and worst of all, Cinder had no blueprint for it. She had no accurate map, no plan, no means of judging her location in relation to … well, anything.

They paused and there was the jangling of keys and the creak of ancient metal hinges. An old-fashioned padlock. How quaint.

If she could reach it from within the cell, she could have that picked in under thirty seconds.

The thought offered a twitch of hope, at least.

As the door opened, the smell intensified. Her lungs tried to expel the air as soon as they took it in.

“You will remain here until Her Majesty the Queen has time to see to your trial and execution,” said Aimery.

“Can’t wait,” Cinder muttered.

“Of course, you’ll want to use the time to get reacquainted.”

“Reacquainted?”

A guard cut away the bindings on her wrists and shoved her forward. Her shoulder hit the edge of the iron door as she stumbled into the cell, catching herself on a rough wall.

Someone whimpered and she froze. She wasn’t alone.

“Do enjoy your stay …
Princess.
”

The door slammed shut, the noise of it vibrating through Cinder’s bones. The cell was small with a high, barred window in the iron door that allowed just enough light from the hallway that she could make out a bucket on the floor. The source of the rank smell.

Two people were huddled together in the far corner.

Cinder gaped at them, willing her eyes to adjust. She turned on the built-in flashlight in her hand. The two figures shuddered and cowered behind their arms.

Recognition hit her like a right hook and she fell against the wall.

Adri.

Pearl.

“You can’t be serious.”

Her stepmother and stepsister were quaking with fear and staring up at her with wide eyes. Cinder couldn’t begin to imagine why they were here—what Levana wanted with them.

Then it hit her.

She would be stuck here, with them, until her execution.

She dragged a hand down her face, hating Levana so very, very much.

Forty-Three

In Winter’s dream, she was standing in the kitchen of a little farmhouse on Earth, or what her imagination thought a farmhouse on Earth must be like. She knew it was Scarlet’s home, though she’d never been there. She stood at a sink overflowing with dirty dishes. It was vital that she get them all clean before everyone came home, but every time she lifted a plate from the suds it shattered in her hands. Her fingers were bleeding from all the shards, turning the bubbles red.

When the seventh plate cracked in her hands, she stepped back from the sink with an overwhelming sense of failure. Why could she never do anything right? Even this simple task turned to disaster at her touch.

She fell to her knees and began to weep. The blood and soap puddled in her lap.

A shadow fell across her and she looked up. Her stepmother stood in the doorway, acres of fields and Earth’s blue, blue sky laid out behind her. She was holding a bejeweled comb in her hand, and though she was beautiful, her smile was cruel.

“They love you,” said Levana, as if they’d been in the middle of a conversation. She came into the kitchen. The hem of her regal gown trailed through the soapy water on the floor. “They protect you. And what have you ever done to deserve that?”

“They love me,” Winter agreed, though she wasn’t sure who they were talking about. The people of Luna? Cinder and her allies? Jacin?

“And they will all pay the price for their adoration.” Coming around behind her, Levana began brushing the comb through Winter’s curls. The touch was gentle. Motherly, even. Winter wanted to weep with longing—how she had yearned for a mother’s touch—but there was fear in her too. Levana had never been so kind. “They will come to know all your weaknesses. They will learn how flawed you truly are. Then they will see how you never deserved any of this.”

A sharp pain stitched into her skull as one of the comb’s tines dug into Winter’s scalp. She gasped. Her head started to throb.

A growl drew her attention back to the door. Ryu was standing with his paws spread in defense, his teeth bared.

Levana stopped brushing. “And what do
you
care? She betrayed you too. She allowed that guard to sacrifice your life for hers. You cannot ignore her selfishness.”

Ryu prowled closer. His yellow eyes flashed.

Levana dropped the comb and stepped back. “You are an animal. A killer. A
predator.
What do you know of loyalty or love?”

Ryu hushed and lowered his head as if chastised. Winter’s heart opened to him. She could tell he missed her. He wanted to play fetch, not be berated by the queen’s cruel words.

Winter raised her hand to her stinging scalp. Her hair was damp. She looked down at the fallen comb and saw that the pool of dishwater had become thick with blood.

“You are wrong,” she said, turning her face up to the queen. “
You
are the killer. You are the predator. You know nothing of loyalty or love.” She held her hand out to Ryu, who sniffed it, before settling his warm head down on her knee. “We may be animals, but we will never again live in your cage.”

*   *   *

When she opened her eyes, the farmhouse was gone, replaced with shabby walls and furniture and window curtains covered in regolith dust. Her eyelids flickered as she tried to ward off the heavy drowsiness and a throbbing headache. She could still smell the pool of blood, and her scalp still ached from where the comb had punctured it.

No, from where she had hit the corner of the table.

Someone had laid her out on the sofa. Her feet dangled off the edge.

“Hey, crazy.”

Winter pushed her hair out of her face and found a towel wrapped around her head. She looked up at Scarlet, who had brought a dining chair into the front room and was sitting on it backward with her arms settled on its back. She was wearing her hooded sweatshirt again. Most of the stains were gone but it still looked worn and ragged. So did she, actually. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her face blotchy and flushed. Her usual ferocity had dulled to bitter exhaustion.

“Iko told us what happened,” she said, her voice withered and cracked. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here, but I’m glad she was.”

Winter sat up. Iko sat cross-legged on the floor, picking at a thread of skin fiber that had been torn open in her chest. Thorne was standing with his back against the main door. He was wearing the partial uniform of a Lunar guard and she had to look twice to be sure it was him. She listened, but the house was otherwise silent.

Winter felt a flush of dread. “Where are the others?”

“The sector was attacked,” said Thorne. “They took Wolf and Cinder and they … they killed Maha.”

Scarlet wrapped her arms tighter around the back of the chair. “We can’t stay here. We moved the bodies of that guard and thaumaturge into the back bedroom, but I bet someone will come for them.”

“The guard who helped us,” said Iko, “told me to take Her Highness into hiding. I know he meant to take her out of this sector, but where else can we go? I’ve been reviewing the maps of Luna and the only places that seem like they might offer more security are underground. At least we would be away from people, and surveillance isn’t as strict in the tunnels and mines, but it doesn’t seem like a perfect solution, either.”