Winter

Eighty-Five

“We’re almost there,” said Iko, as she and Cinder crept down the main corridor of the palace. They could still hear the sounds of the battle raging in the distance, but the palace was quiet in comparison. There had been no sign of Levana since they’d entered and Iko almost expected the crazed queen to jump out from behind a corner and try to stab them with her pointy-heeled shoes.

Seeing Levana on the palace steps was the first time Iko had ever seen the Lunar queen, and her scarred face made Iko wish she wasn’t immune to glamours. After years of hearing about the queen’s famous beauty, the truth had been something of a letdown.

But the truth was out. Thanks to Cinder’s video, now everyone knew what lurked beneath the illusion. Hopefully they would be able to find the queen while she was still shaken from it.

Cinder’s grip tightened on her bloody knife. “Two guards up ahead.”

They rounded a corner, and she was right—two guards stood in front of a set of ornate doors, huge guns already trained on them.

Iko froze and raised her good hand in a show of innocence. She tried to smile sweetly, but with her missing ear and a twitching cheek muscle, she was not performing at the height of her abilities.

Then recognition sparked through her processor. “You!” she screamed. “He’s … that’s the guy that saved Winter.”

Though the guard was immobile, probably thanks to Cinder, his face was free to twist with disgust as his eyes traveled the length of Iko’s battered body, dead wires, loose parts, and all.

“And you’re that disturbing robot.”

Iko bristled. “The correct term is escort-droid, you ignorant, inconsiderate—”

“Iko.”

She clamped her mouth shut, though her synapses were still firing.

Cinder cocked her head to the side. “So you’re the one who killed Levana’s captain of the guard?”

“I did,” he said.

The second guard snarled, casting his glare between his companion and Cinder. “Traitor.”

A low, humorless laugh echoed through the first guard’s throat—Kinney, Iko remembered. “You’re wasting your energy controlling me. I have no intention of shooting you.”

“Fine,” Cinder drawled, though Iko could tell she didn’t fully trust him. “So long as you don’t try to harm us, I have no reason to manipulate you.” It wasn’t a real concession. If he tried anything, Iko knew Cinder could stop him.

The muscles in Kinney’s arms relaxed. “So you’re the cyborg that’s been causing so much trouble.”

“Wow,” Iko mused. “He’s pretty and smart.”

His wrinkling nose made her wonder if she was starting to overdo it on the sarcasm, but her smarting ego made her irate. She’d gotten used to people looking at her like she was human. Not only human, but beautiful. But now she was stuck with a flopping arm and shredded skin tissue and a missing ear, and all this guard saw was a broken machine.

Not that his opinion mattered. He was clearly a jerk.

Except for the whole saving-Winter’s-life thing, which was probably a fluke.

“Is Levana in there?” Cinder asked, gesturing to the barred doors.

“No, just the coronation guests. Our orders were to contain them until either the queen or a thaumaturge retrieves them—I suspect she’s preparing to slaughter all the Earthens if you don’t surrender.”

“Sounds like her,” said Cinder, “but I doubt she has the strength to glamour so many people at once right now. Otherwise, I think she would have come straight here.”

Kinney frowned, speculative. He wouldn’t have seen the video. He didn’t know that the truth beneath Levana’s glamour had been revealed.

“Where else would she go?” asked Cinder. “If she was trying to lure me somewhere, somewhere she feels safe and powerful.”

He shrugged. “The throne room, I guess.”

Cinder’s jaw flexed. “That’s where the feast was the other night? With the balcony over the lake?”

Kinney had started to nod when the second guard reeled his head back and spat. Literally spat on this gorgeous tile floor.

“Oh!” Iko cried. “You heathen!”

“When she catches you,” the guard snarled, “my queen will eat your heart with salt and pepper.”

“Well,” said Cinder, unconcerned, “my heart is half synthetic, so it’ll probably give her indigestion.”

Kinney looked almost amused. “We guards tend to be treated well here. You’ll find that a lot of us will stay loyal to Her Ma—to Levana.” The queen’s given name was awkward and Iko wondered if he’d ever said it before.

“Why aren’t you?” Cinder asked.

“Something tells me I’m going to like your offer more.” His gaze slipped toward Iko. “Even if you do keep strange company.”

She huffed.

Stepping forward, Cinder disarmed the second guard, taking his handgun for herself. “Maybe when this is over I can convince them that I intend to treat you pretty well too.”

Cinder turned, and Iko could make out the conflict warring across her facial muscles. “Stay with Kai. In case she does send a thaumaturge after them, I want someone there who can’t be controlled. And try to get him and any Earthens away from here.” She inhaled sharply. “I’m going after Levana.”

“No, wait,” said Iko. “I should come with you.”

Ignoring her, Cinder jutted a finger toward Kinney. “If you’re loyal to me, then you’ll be loyal to the Earthen emperor. Protect him with your life.”

The guard hesitated, but then brought a fist to his heart.

Her new gun in one hand and her knife in the other, Cinder turned and started running back the direction they’d come from.

“Cinder, wait!” Iko yelled.

“Stay with Kai!”

“But … be careful!”

When Cinder turned the corner, Iko swiveled back to the two guards, just as the second guard realized he had control of his body again. Gaze darkening, he lifted the gun, aiming for Iko.

Kinney clubbed him over the head with the butt of his own rifle. Iko jumped back as the guard sprawled face-first on the ground.

“I feel like I should be going with her,” said Kinney.

Snarling, Iko stepped over the fallen guard and jabbed a finger at his chest. “I have known her a lot longer than you have, mister, and if there’s one of us who should be going with her, it’s me. Now open these doors.”

One eyebrow—dark and thick—shot upward. She could see him struggling to say something, or not say something. He gave up and turned away, shoving the wooden board through the handles. He hauled open the door.

Iko took two steps into the great hall and froze.

The room was not filled with hundreds of Lunar aristocrats and Earthen leaders and her handsome emperor. In fact, only a few dozen vibrantly dressed Lunars stood at the far end of the room. The rest of the floor was littered with chairs, many of them on their sides so there was hardly any space to walk in, making it difficult to traverse.

“He made us!” a Lunar woman cried, drawing Iko’s attention. “We didn’t want to help the Earthens but he threatened to bomb the city. Oh, please don’t tell the queen.”

Iko glanced back, but judging from the way Kinney’s mouth had fallen open, he was as surprised as she was. She started forging a path through the fallen chairs, and it occurred to Iko that whoever had scattered them had likely done it intentionally, to slow down anyone who tried to pursue them.

As they got closer, Iko saw an open door behind an enormous altar—a curtain pulled across it would normally have kept it hidden.

“That door leads into the servants’ halls,” said Kinney, “but they should have been guarded too.”

“Oh, you look terrible!” the first woman screamed, covering her mouth as she took in Iko’s injuries. “Why would anyone glamour themselves to look like that?”

Before Iko could process an indignant response, Kinney said, “Emperor Kaito is taking the other Earthens to the ports?”

The Lunars nodded, a few pointing to the open door. “That way,” said the offensive woman. “You can catch them if you hurry. And don’t forget to tell Her Majesty that we stayed behind!”

They ignored her and barreled toward the door.

Iko started to look up the most direct route to the ports, but it became obvious that Kinney knew which way to go, so she allowed him to lead. They hadn’t been running for long before her audio sensor picked up on voices echoing down the corridor.

They turned a corner and Iko saw the source of the noise up ahead—here were the hundreds of Lunar aristocrats, staggered in a messy line, waiting to pass through a doorway into a stairwell that would lead them down, down to the sublevels beneath the palace.

Among the chatter, her audio input recognized a voice.

Kai.

She picked up her speed. The Lunars, who didn’t notice her until she was right behind them, cried out with surprise, many throwing themselves against the walls to let her pass.

“Kai!”

The crowd shifted. Kai and his adviser, Konn Torin, stood beside the stairwell door, urging the crowd to move faster, to keep pace.

His eyes collided with her. Relief. Happiness. “Iko?”

She threw herself into Kai’s arms, for once not caring about the singed paneling on the side of her face or the holes in her torso. He squeezed her back. “Iko. Thank the stars.”

Just as fast as he had embraced her, he pushed her back to arm’s distance and glanced past her shoulder, but his joy fell when he saw only Kinney at her side. “Where’s Cinder?”

Iko, too, glanced back. Kinney was sneering contemptuously at Kai’s hand on Iko’s broken arm. She pressed her lips into her own sneer. “She’s looking for Levana. We think she went to the throne room.”

“Alone?”

She nodded. “She wanted me to make sure you were all right.”

Heaving a frustrated breath, Kai nudged Iko and Kinney against the wall, clearing a path for those Lunars still waiting to descend.

“We’re moving everyone down to the spaceship ports. It will be the safest place while the fighting continues and keep any more puppets out of Levana’s hands.” He squeezed Iko’s hand, and her wiring buzzed with delight. “Do you think you’d be able to open the ports to let the ships out if I got you down there?”

Kinney answered before she could. “I know the access code.”

Iko turned to him.

“I’ve had pilot training,” he said, with a nonchalant shrug.

Kai gave him an appreciative nod, and if he was stunned that a royal guard was helping them, it didn’t show. “Then let’s finish this, and go find Cinder.”