Winter (71 page)

As they reached the gates of the palace, the clomp of their footsteps halted.

No one was in sight. Even the guard tower was empty. The heavy iron gates were wide open, beckoning them forward. It was as if Levana had no idea she was under siege—or like she was too confident to heed Cinder’s threats.

Or maybe it was a trap.

The gilded doors of the castle were shut tight.

Cinder emerged from the front line of her army, stepping before the open gates. There was an energy coursing through her, an impatience humming across her skin. Strom and Iko stayed at her side, ready to protect her if an attack came from one of the palace windows.

Cinder scanned the sparkling windows but saw no sign of life. Anticipation wrapped around her body like a rope, growing tighter by the moment. She felt as if she were teetering on the edge of a cliff, waiting to be pushed off.

Glancing down the front line, she watched as the groups that had split off emerged, filling up the intersections of every city street. The soldiers waited in perfect military formation. Training and willpower turned them into ferocious statues, but she noticed the twitch of a muscle, the flexing of a fist, eagerness sizzling beneath their skin.

Behind them, thousands of civilians waited. Less intimidating, less prepared, but no less determined. She saw Scarlet’s red hair in the crowd.

Not everyone who had joined them had come from LW-12. Some had come on faith, because of a couple videos and a promise that their true queen had returned. Some had been encouraged by the messengers Cinder had sent. Some, she hoped, were still coming.

Inhaling deeply, Cinder stretched her thoughts thin, reaching for all the electrical pulses within her reach, and slipped her will into her allies. It was what she should have done in RM-9, before Aimery had seized control. She told herself it was a protection against Levana and her thaumaturges. So long as a civilian was under
her
control, then the queen could not have them.

But she also knew that she would use them, if she had to.

She would sacrifice them, even. If she had to.

She had ordered the strongest of her allies to do the same thing—to seize control of their comrades now, before Levana and her court had the chance. They couldn’t control everyone, but she had to believe that neither could Levana. Cinder needed enough people to overwhelm her defenses. It had to be enough. They had to be enough.

“If Levana does not surrender,” Cinder yelled into the eerie silence, “we will take the palace by force. There are multiple entrances on this main floor. Take them all. Break the windows. But do not forget that the queen and her entourage are inside.” She scanned the windows again, unnerved that there was still no sign of opposition. A feeling of dread stirred in the pit of her stomach.

She was confident in their plan, but not
that
confident. They had made it to the queen’s doorstep without a hint of resistance beyond the barricaded tunnels. Something should have happened by now.

“Thaumaturges will try to manipulate you,” she continued. “Kill them if you have the chance, as they will not hesitate to kill you, or use you to kill your own friends and neighbors. The queen’s guards are trained soldiers, but their minds are weak. Use that to your advantage. Above all else, remember why you are here today. By this night, I will be your queen, and you will no longer be slaves!”

A cheer pulsed through the courtyard, coupled with a bone-chilling howl that coursed through Cinder’s body. She raised an arm, telling her allies to hold. She prepared herself to let it fall—the signal to charge. She watched Iko from the corner of her eye, waiting for her to say that the ten minutes were up.

Her eye caught on movement.

The palace doors were opening.

The soldiers dropped into fighting stances. A low growl rumbled through the ground, shaking the soles of Cinder’s stolen boots. As the doors spread, they revealed a glowing silhouette. Not a long-coated thaumaturge or even the slender figure of the queen.

A mutant. One of the queen’s soldiers.

A hand grabbed Cinder’s elbow and hauled her back behind the front line.

The soldier stepped onto the palace steps. His movements were graceful and precise. There was a familiarity to him that Cinder struggled to place, something different from the soldiers surrounding her now. The same malformed face. The same protruding teeth. Angry eyes flashing at the crowd. He was dressed not in the drab, utilitarian uniforms of the regiment, but in a uniform more fitting to the royal guard—all decorum.

Her breath caught.

It was Wolf. Wolf, repugnant and beastly, who stopped at the edge of the steps.

Her thoughts darted to Scarlet, but she dared not turn to see Scarlet’s reaction.

Another form emerged from the castle. Queen Levana herself. Thaumaturge Aimery followed and, spilling out behind them, thaumaturges in red and black, forming a line of haughty expressions and amused sneers, hands tucked into their belled sleeves. The embroidered runes glinted in the first natural daylight they had seen in weeks.

For the first time, Cinder had no lie detector to tell her that the queen’s glamour was an illusion. She had no evidence that this was really Wolf, either, and not someone glamoured to look like him.

But she also had no reason to doubt it.

She felt again for the strings of power connecting her to the men and women she had taken control of. She had never controlled so many at once, and her grip felt delicate and weak.

“‘By this night, I will be your queen,’” Levana quoted, smiling her wicked smile, “‘and you will no longer be slaves.’ What spirited words from the girl who causes death and chaos everywhere she goes.” Levana held out her hands, like a peace offering that meant nothing. “Here I am, girl who claims to be Princess Selene. I will not make you go in search of me. Go ahead. Try to take my crown.”

Cinder’s eye twitched. Her pulse was racing beneath the surface, but there was calmness at the center of her mind. Maybe because, for the first time, her cyborg brain wasn’t breaking down the statistics of the world around her. She could guess that her adrenaline levels were spiking and her blood pressure was worrisome, but without the red stream of warning text, she didn’t care.

Arm still raised, she spread her fingers, indicating that her people should hold their attack.

Levana was betting on Cinder’s loyalty to Wolf. She must believe that Cinder would not attack so long as he could get caught in the crossfire. That she would not dare to put her friend in danger.

But she couldn’t even be sure he was her friend anymore. Was he still Wolf, or was he something else now? A monster, a predator?

She clenched her jaw, recognizing the hypocrisy of her thoughts. He was the same now as the soldiers who stood beside her, ready to fight and die for their freedoms. Whatever Wolf had become, she had to believe he was still her ally.

The true question was whether or not Wolf, her friend, her ally, her teacher, was a worthwhile sacrifice to win this war.

“
Princess
,” Strom growled, “she’s brought reinforcements.”

Cinder dared not take her gaze from Levana, though curiosity twitched inside her.

“I smell them approaching. A dozen packs, maybe more, along with their masters. We’ll soon be surrounded.”

Cinder kept her expression composed. “This is your last chance,” she said, holding her aunt’s gaze across the courtyard. “Proclaim before all these witnesses that I am Selene Blackburn, the rightful heir to the Lunar throne. Give me your crown, and I will let you and your followers live. No more lives have to be lost.”

Levana’s lips curved, bloodred against her pale skin. “Selene is dead. I am the queen of Luna, and you are nothing but an impostor.”

Cinder waited one full breath before she returned the smile. “I thought you’d say that.”

Then she let her arm fall.

Eighty-Two

Cinder’s army surged forward, the civilians pooling through the open gates while the soldiers ran for the fence, scaling to the top and hurling themselves into the gardens on the other side.

The queen did not flinch. Her thaumaturges did not stir.

They had reached the base of the marble steps when Levana raised her hand. Her thaumaturges closed their eyes.

It was a moment of contrasts.

The mutant soldiers, their first line of attack, fell as one. Their enormous bodies crumpled to the ground like forgotten toys, and a hundred men howled from what pain Cinder could only imagine. She had heard such inhuman noises only once, when she herself had tortured Thaumaturge Sybil Mira—driving her to insanity.

The civilians whose minds were protected by Cinder and those who were strongest with their gift pushed forward, heaving themselves over the wolf soldiers as well as they could. But the others began to stumble and halt as the queen claimed them. Many collapsed, their weapons thudding to the ground. Those under Cinder’s control swarmed around them and over them, tripping over fallen bodies, charging forward with weapons raised.

The thaumaturges
, Cinder thought, mentally coaxing them toward the distinctive red and black coats. Every dead thaumaturge would equal a dozen soldiers or citizens returned to their side.

But the rush of civilians was met with resistance as the queen’s palace guards formed a wall, dividing the queen and her entourage from the attackers who barreled toward them.

They crashed into one another like a river into a dam. Steel rang. Wooden spears thumped and splintered. Cries of war and pain reverberated down the streets.

Cinder shuddered and moved to step forward, to join the melee and cut her own path through to the queen—but her body wouldn’t move. Her limbs seemed stuck in mud.

Her pulse skipped.

No.

She had not expected—had not thought—

Clenching her teeth, she tried to shake off the manipulation that was being pressed into her thoughts. She imagined the sparks of electricity lighting up inside her brain, the twist of energy as Levana turned her own mind against her. She had always shaken it off before. She had always managed to escape, to be stronger. Her cyborg brain could override the effects of—

A shiver raced down her brain.

Her cyborg brain was broken.

No.
No.
How could she defend the minds of others when she couldn’t protect her own thoughts from the queen?

She gritted her teeth. If she could free one limb, prove to her body that it could be done …

She groaned and fell to one knee. Her body pulsed with unspent energy and she felt the sudden snap. Her tenuous control over the citizens dissolved. The surrounding howls of pain burrowed into Cinder’s ears.

Within seconds, those allies were taken from her too.

The battle ended before it had truly begun.

Cinder sat panting from the exertion of trying to rid herself of Levana’s mind control, and even still her limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated. The screams of her soldiers dwindled into whimpers and groans of the dying. Even from that brief collision, the iron smell of blood tainted the air.

Levana started to laugh. Delighted and shrill, the sound was as painful to listen to as the screams of a hundred warriors.

“What is this?” said the queen, clapping her hands together. “Why, I had been looking forward to a battle of skill, young
princess.
But it seems you will not put up the fight I’d been expecting.” She laughed again. Raising a hand, she stroked her fingernails through Wolf’s hair, a gesture that was both endearing and possessive.

“There is an easy treat for you, my pet. Already caught in a snare.”

He growled, his enlarged teeth flashing as he prowled down the steps. The guards parted for him and he stepped over the collapsed citizens as if he didn’t even see them.

Cinder shivered. She had lost count of how many times she’d faced those vibrant green eyes, both as an enemy and as a friend. But never before had she been helpless.

She tried to shake her head. To plead with Wolf, or whatever piece of Wolf was left inside the creature.

“Hey, your queenliness! Over here!”

Cinder’s eyes widened.
Iko.

A gunshot ricocheted through the crowd. Levana stumbled. Cinder saw the blood spray on the massive golden doors and there was a moment—the tiniest of moments—in which she was overjoyed. She’d been shot—the queen was shot!

But it was Wolf who roared. Levana had ducked behind him. The bullet had hit near his hip and already his fine uniform was darkening with blood.

Iko cried out, horrified.

Levana snarled and her anger tightened around Cinder and the crowd like a noose. Her control was strangling. Suffocating.

Wolf charged, not toward Cinder, but Iko. She could see it in his eyes, the animal instinct. Attacking his attacker.

Cinder’s stomach roiled. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything. Could hardly even breathe. Her lungs burned, but she was trapped.

Wolf reached Iko while she stood gripping the gun, unsure what to do. His claws swiped at her, tearing more skin fibers from her already-shredded abdomen. She shrieked and scrambled backward, unwilling to shoot him again. He tackled her to the ground. His jaws sank into her synthetic arm and the gun clattered beside her. A wire sparked in his mouth and he let go.

Cinder pleaded with her control panel to wake up, to fight back, to be stronger than her, to
win—

“I am Princess Selene.”

The disembodied voice fell over the crowd. Determined. Familiar, yet not.

The dome above them darkened. Like a storm moving in, the glass tinted to near blackness. On the surface, a series of squares brightened. Blue light at first, before the video began to crystallize.

Levana’s voice screeched all around them.
“You are an impostor!”

Levana looked up. Her guards and thaumaturges tensed.

“And I am ready to claim what’s mine. People of Artemisia, this is your chance. Renounce Levana as your queen and swear fealty to me, or I swear that when I wear that crown, every person in this room will be punished for their betrayal.”