Winter

Eighty-Three

Standing on the dais on which he’d been crowned the king of Luna, Kai crossed his arms and scowled into the audience. The leaders and diplomats from the Earthen Union were stone-faced in an attempt to hide the anger lurking under the surface. Levana had locked them in the great hall with guards posted outside each door along with hundreds of Lunar aristocrats, who smirked and tittered at the Earthens as though they were exotic animals—adorable and fascinating and harmless.

He could hear the distant sounds of fighting and stampeding feet, but they were muffled by the thick stone walls.

The threat of revolt and the massacre of thousands of their countrymen was not enough to taint the Lunars’ revelry. They were acting as though they were at a circus. Cheering when the sounds of fighting got louder outside. Placing bets on different thaumaturges and who would have the highest death count when it was done. Making crude jokes about who among them would be going without cashmere wraps and blueberry wine next season if the laborers from the outer sectors didn’t stop playing at war games and get back to work, lazy buffoons that they were.

Listening to it had Kai’s vision blazing red. He didn’t realize his hands had been tightened into trembling fists until Torin settled a hand on his shoulder. Kai started, then forced his fists open and took in a calming breath. “They have no idea,” he said. “They have no clue what it’s like in the outer sectors, no gratitude at all for the workers that allow them to have the luxuries they do. They believe they’re entitled to everything they’ve been given.”

“I agree, it’s sickening and perhaps even unforgivable,” said Torin, “but we should consider that they have been kept in ignorance as much as those in the outer sectors have.”

Kai snarled. He was not in the mood to feel sympathetic toward these people. “It would appear the honeymoon is over.”

“I must say, the queen does have a flair for the dramatic.” Torin cast a sly grin toward Kai. “So, it seems, does her niece.”

He smothered a twitch of pride. Cinder did have a knack for making an entrance. “What have we learned?”

“All of the exits have been bolted shut from the outside, and if the Lunars are to be believed, there are two guards posted at each exit.”

“Guards are easily manipulated, aren’t they?” Kai gestured toward the audience. “These Lunars—do you think they could control the guards through the doors? Cinder always said she could detect people through doors, but I don’t know if she could also manipulate them. But if we could get some of these Lunars to manipulate the guards into unlatching the doors, then clear a path down to the docks … maybe we could get everyone to safety.”

“The docks would offer shelter and the potential for escape should Linh-dàren fail,” said Torin, “but I can’t imagine these Lunars choosing to help us anytime soon.”

Kai blinked. It was the first time he’d heard anyone refer to Cinder as Linh-dàren—a title of high honor.

“You’re right,” he said. “They won’t help us, and they’re idiots for it. Have they even stopped to think why Levana locked them in here too? They think they’re invincible because they’re under her protection, but Levana doesn’t care about them. She’ll use them as quickly as anyone if she thinks it will further her cause.”

A distant rumble shook the palace, followed by yelling, throaty and furious, from what could have been thousands of voices. Then there was a rain of gunfire.

Kai shuddered. Even knowing Levana had gone to meet Cinder and whatever allies she’d persuaded to join her, it hadn’t seemed real. A revolution, a battle … it was incomprehensible. But now there were guns and people were dying and they were trapped.

“That was a bomb!” screamed a representative from Eastern Europe. “They’re bombing the palace! They’re going to kill us all!”

A group of nearby Lunars started to titter and cry out in mocking fear, “A bomb, oh stars, not a bomb!”

Kai narrowed his eyes. He didn’t know if the sound had been caused by an explosive or not, but his companion’s fear had given him an idea.

The portscreen Levana had thrown was still on the floor beside the altar. He marched toward it and gathered together the pieces. A couple plastic panels had snapped off and there was a permanent dent in the corner, but it hummed to life when he turned it on.

As the screen brightened, though, it was jumbled and pixilated, full of black spots and broken icons. He cursed, sweeping his fingers over the screen, jabbing at the controls. Nothing changed.

“Your Majesty?” Torin crouched beside him.

Kai held up the broken portscreen. “What would Cinder do? How would she fix it?”

A crease formed across Torin’s brow. “You want to comm for help?”

“Sort of.” He buried a hand in his hair, thinking, thinking. He pictured Cinder at her booth at the market. She would have been surrounded by tools and spare parts. She would have known what to do. She would have—

He hopped to his feet, his pulse racing, and whapped the corner of the portscreen hard on the top of the altar. Torin jerked back.

Kai looked again and let out an excited whoop. Half the screen had cleared.

He opened a comm.

“How did you do that?” said Torin.

“I don’t know,” he said, typing in a hasty message, “but you’d be surprised how often that works.”

A bout of laughter pulled his attention back to the audience. A group of Lunars had formed a circle around one of the servants who had been locked inside with them. The servant girl was dancing, but with jerky, uncomfortable movements. There were tears on her face, even though her eyes were shut and her expression was twisted in an attempt to imagine herself elsewhere. The look made Kai’s heart shrivel in his chest.

Somehow he knew this was not an unusual occurrence for the girl. He wondered if she had ever gone an entire day without someone else’s will being forced upon her limbs.

“That’s not a waltz at all!” a Lunar cried, smacking his companion on a shoulder. “Let me have a try at it. I can make her much more graceful than that.”

“She needs a partner, doesn’t she?” someone else said. “Let’s get one of those Earthens up here and have ourselves a bit of puppet theater while we wait.”

“Hey—how about that sweet young girl from the Commonwealth, the one that’s related to the cyborg? Remember her from the trial? Where is she?”

Kai heard a whimper. Cinder’s stepmother and stepsister were kneeling on the floor between two rows of chairs, clutching each other in an attempt to go unnoticed.

He ripped his gaze away and clipped the port back to his belt. “That’s enough,” he said, stalking toward the group. “Release the servant at once!”

“Ah, it looks as though the pretty emperor wants to dance too.”

The cheers that greeted Kai sounded cruel, but to his relief, no one took control of his body, even as he put an arm around the servant girl and hugged her against his side. She stopped dancing at once and slumped against his body, exhausted.

“You are addressing your king,” he said, enunciating each word. He was glad that he still wore the spindly Lunar crown, even though king consort was not a title that carried much power. He could hope that not everyone knew that, though. “You don’t seem to comprehend the situation. We are all prisoners in this room, each and every one of us. That also makes us allies, whether we like it or not.” He jabbed a finger toward the back wall. “Once Levana realizes she’s overpowered—and she is—she will retreat. And where do you think she’s going to come?”

He fixed his gaze on those closest to him. They were smirking. Humored by Kai’s outrage.

“She didn’t lock us in here for our protection, or because she wanted us to go on having a big party. She’s keeping us here as her reserves. Once her guards fall, you are going to be her next line of defense. She will use your bodies as shields. She will turn you into weapons. She will sacrifice every person in this room and she won’t feel a hint of remorse so long as she survives. Don’t you get it? She doesn’t care about you. All she cares about is having more bodies at her disposal when she needs them.”

The eyes around him still glimmered. It was impossible to tell if his words were having an impact, but he continued, “We don’t have to sit here and wait for her to come back. With your help, we can get out of this room. We can all get down to the royal port where we’ll be safe and where Levana won’t be able to use us to fight her battles.”

A man standing not far away clicked his tongue. “Oh, poor pathetic Earthen king, talking to us as if we are powerless little children who will bow to him just because he wears a crown. We are not allies, Your Grace, nor would we ever stoop to consider ourselves equals with your kind. Our queen may have seen the benefit of making you her husband and crowning you our king, but in truth, you and your companions are hardly worthy of washing the spaces between our toes.”

The room erupted into laughter. The man who had spoken smirked at Kai while his words were rewarded with shouted suggestions of all sorts of other vile things the Earthens were not worthy of.

“Fine,” Kai growled, his tone icy. “Allow me to persuade you.”

Unlatching his portscreen, he pulled up a holographic map of Luna, enlarging it to hang over their heads. The image filled up the space within the great hall, the moon’s cratered surface touching the lofted ceilings. Kai adjusted the map so everyone had a good view of Artemisia Central and the eight city sectors surrounding it. Then he lit up the space fleet that he had ordered to take up position in neutral space earlier that day—sixty ships that had reacted swiftly to his comm. Sixty ships that were making their way toward Luna’s capital.

“Each of these Earthen spaceships is carrying weapons capable of destroying your biodomes. We have enough ammunition to reduce your entire country to rubble.”

It was a lie. Not every ship was armed, but there was enough, he hoped, to still do significant damage. To make them afraid.The energy in the room changed. The smiles became hesitant. The laughter uncertain.

“While you were busy taunting this poor servant, I sent a comm to my military with the order to open fire as soon as they’re within range. But I will revoke that command once my people have been safely relocated to the ports.”

A woman giggled, but it was high-pitched and anxious. “You would not dare risk an attack while you yourself are in the palace! You and all your Earthen friends would be dead.”

Kai grinned. “You’re right. I wouldn’t attack Artemisia Central. But if I’m not mistaken, most of your homes aren’t in the central dome, are they? Most of them are in one of these outlying city sectors, right?”

The glowing ships in the holograph ticked closer. Closer.

The aristocrats exchanged looks, showing the first signs of nervousness. It was as if they were silently daring one another to call his bluff, but no one wanted to be the one to do it.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Kai said, “we have less than twenty minutes before the ships arrive. If you ever want to see your homes again, I suggest we move fast.”

* * *

“This is not good,” said the nasally voice Cress had come to think of, somewhat unoriginally, as Sinus, the queen’s moronic computer technician.

Honestly. If Sybil had let her stay on Luna, Cress could have taken over this guy’s job when she was ten.

“This is very, very bad,” he continued, his voice trembling with impending doom.

“Just make it stop,” yelled a deeper masculine voice. Cress was pretty sure it was the same guard who had been stationed outside the hall before.

“I can’t! The video already played. Do you want me to unplay it?” Sinus groaned. “She … she’s going to kill me. The queen will have me executed for this.”

Withholding a sigh, Cress tried her best to roll her ankle. A cramp was starting to develop in her left calf and she had a feeling it was going to come on quick if she didn’t have a chance to stretch the muscle soon. She managed to move her ankle a little, but the small movement only reminded her muscles how enclosed they were in this tiny alcove.

The technician knew it was too late. He knew he couldn’t stop the video from playing. Why didn’t he leave already?

“Well?” said the guard. “Did she set up any more surprises for us?”

“What more do you need? That video—the queen will be…” He didn’t finish, but Cress sensed the shudder in his voice.

Having seen the video herself at the mansion, Cress knew the vision wouldn’t soon leave them. Levana’s scarred face, her empty eye socket, her nub of an ear. It was not a face one looked away from, no matter how they wanted to. It was not a face one forgot.

And now they’d all seen it. Cress hoped Levana herself had seen it. She suspected it wouldn’t be easy to recover her glamour after a shock like that.

Maybe not, though. Levana had been practicing her deception for a long, long time.

“Have they caught her?” Sinus asked. “The girl who did this? She’s … she really knew what she was doing.”

The comment might have flattered Cress if she hadn’t been so uncomfortable. As it was, she just wanted them to go talk about her elsewhere. She was still gripping the handle of the gun Thorne had given to her, and it had imprinted her palm with painful red grooves.

“That’s not your problem,” the guard growled. “Just get it back to normal. And get rid of that video before—”

He didn’t finish. There was no before. They were already in the after.

“I’m trying,” said Sinus, “but the crossfeeds have all been restructured and it could take days to…”

Cress stopped listening, her attention stolen by the cramp in her right calf. She gasped, wrapping her hands around the muscle in an attempt to rub out the tightness.

“What was that?” Sinus asked.

Cress flinched and crawled out of the alcove. The second she was on her feet, she aimed the gun at the technician, then the guard, then back at the technician. For as puny as his voice sounded, she’d been imagining a guy not much older than her, but he looked like he might be in his fifties.

The technician pushed back his chair. The guard reached for his weapon.

“Don’t mo—ah!” Cress grimaced as the muscle in her leg tightened again and she fell into the desk. The corner dug into the hip that was still sore from where the statue had fallen on her in the servants’ halls. Groaning, she reached down to knead the muscles.

Remembering the gun, she started to lift it again, at the same moment the guard snatched it from her hand. Cress cried out and grabbed for it, but the gun was already out of reach. Whimpering, she went back to rubbing the muscle and raised the now-empty hand in exhausted surrender.

The guard kept his own weapon pinned on her.

“I’m unarmed,” she said meekly.

He didn’t seem to care.

“Are you…” Sinus looked from her to the screens. “Did you do this?”

“Yes, sir.” She breathed a sigh of relief as the pain began to recede. “And, can I make a suggestion? Because I’ve been listening to you talk and I have to wonder, if you’re sure Levana is going to have you executed for failing to stop the video … have you considered joining the other side?”

They both stared at her.

Fisting her hands, Cress pounded at the sides of her leg. She was going to have to start working on her exercise regimes again after this. Or at least stop hiding in such confined spaces.

“I mean it,” she said. “I happen to know Princess Selene and she’s really nice. She wouldn’t have you executed, especially for something that wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m taking you into custody,” said the guard, grabbing her elbow.

“Wait!” she cried, unable to tug away from his grip. “You’re not even going to think about it? You would choose execution at the hands of Levana over … not execution?”

The guard smirked as he pulled her away from the bank of invisi-screens. “This rebellion is not going to succeed.”

“Yes, it is. Levana will be overthrown and Selene will be our new ruler and—”

She was interrupted by an alarm blaring from a screen on the other side of the control center. The guard swiveled toward the sound, pinning Cress against his chest, as if she were a threat with her cramping leg and puffy orange skirt.

“Now what’s happening?” the guard yelled.

Sinus was already at the warning screen. He stared slack-jawed for a moment, before he muttered, “I think … I think we’re under attack.”

“Obviously we’re under attack!”

Sinus shook his head and enlarged a holograph. Above the glittering domes of Artemisia, a regiment of spaceships had breached neutral space and were moving fast toward the city. “Not from the civilians,” he said. A drop of sweat fell down his temple. “These are militarized Earthen ships.”

They all stared at the ships, watching their blinking lights draw steadily closer. It was Cress who managed to gather her thoughts first. She tried to stand straighter, but the guard had too firm of a grip on her.

“That’s right,” she said, relieved when her voice didn’t tremble. “Princess Selene has allied herself with Earth. If Levana doesn’t surrender, we’re prepared to destroy you all.” She ran her tongue over her parched lips and craned her neck to look at the guard. She hoped she was convincing when she said, “But it’s not too late for you to join the winning side.”