Cinder gawked at him as panic gripped her lungs. “Reinstate me as queen?”
The doctor cleared his throat. “I understand you are frightened right now, and confused. Do not think too much. All I’m asking is that you find a way out of this prison. I know you can do that. Then come to Africa. I will guide you through the rest. Please. We cannot let Levana win.”
She couldn’t respond, couldn’t even begin to fathom what he was asking of her. A princess? An heir?
She shook her head. “No. I can’t. I can’t be a queen or a princess or—I’m nobody. I’m a cyborg!”
Dr. Erland folded his hands together. “If you won’t let me help you, Cinder, then she will have already won, won’t she? Soon Queen Levana will take you away. She will find a way to marry Kai and become empress. She will wage war against the Earthen Union and, I have no doubt, be victorious. Many will die, the rest will become slaves, just like us Lunars. It is a sad fate but unavoidable, I suppose, if you are not willing to accept who you truly are.”
“That isn’t fair! You can’t just throw this on me and expect me to be able to do anything about it!”
“I don’t, Miss Linh. All I expect is for you to find a way out of this prison and come meet me in Africa.”
She stared at him, mouth agape, as those words gradually seeped into her brain.
Escape from prison.
Go to Africa.
It seemed almost simple when he said it like that.
The doctor must have seen something change in her face for he lightly tapped her wrist again, then stood with the groans of old joints growing older. “I believe in you,” he said as he reached the doorway and rapped on the grate. “And whether or not he knows it right now, Kai believes in you too.”
The cell door opened, Dr. Erland tipped his hat to her, and he was gone.
Cinder waited until two sets of footsteps had ricocheted down the corridor before shuddering and collapsing over her knees, folding her hands over her ears. Her brain was downloading information faster than she could sort it: old articles about the princess’s disappearance, interviews with conspiracy theorists, images of the scorched rubble of the nursery where her burned flesh had been found. Dates. Statistics. The transcript of Levana’s coronation as the crown passed to her, next in line for the throne.
Princess Selene’s birth date. 21 December 109 T.E. She was almost a month younger than she’d always believed. It was a small fact, an insignificant fact, and yet for a moment she had the distinct impression that she had no idea who she was anymore. No clue who she was supposed to be.
And then came the cyborg draft. All the names of those who had been drawn flashed before her. Their pictures, their ID numbers, their birth dates, the dates they’d been pronounced dead, honorably, for their sacrifice for the good of the Commonwealth.
She heard a clock ticking inside her head.
Cinder’s breath came in jagged gasps as the information flooded her brain. Panic churned in her stomach. Bile seeped into her mouth, burning as she swallowed it down.
Queen Levana would come for her, and she would be executed. That was her fate. She’d been resolved to it. She’d been prepared for it. Not to be an heir. Not to be a queen or a savior or a hero.
It would be so simple to let it happen. So simple not to fight back.
Amid the jumbled information clattering through her head, her thoughts landed again on that same quiet moment captured in time.
Kai’s carefree smile at the market.
Huddling in a ball, Cinder cut off the netlink.
The noise silenced. The images and videos snipped to black.
If she didn’t try to stop Levana, what would happen to Kai?
Though she tried to block out the question, it continued to plague her, echoing in her thoughts.
Maybe Dr. Erland was right. Maybe she had to run. Maybe she had to try.
She felt for the prosthetic limbs in her lap and wrapped her hands around them. Lifting her head, she looked up at the grate in the prison door. The guard had never closed it.
A tingle passed down her spine. A strange new electricity was thrumming beneath her skin, telling her she wasn’t just a cyborg anymore. She was Lunar now. She could make people see things that weren’t there. Feel things they shouldn’t feel. Do things they didn’t mean to do.
She could be anyone. Become anyone.
The thought both sickened and frightened her, but the resolve made her calm again. When the guard returned, she would be ready.
As her hands stopped shaking, she slid the stiletto knife out from the new titanium-plated finger and maneuvered the blade against her wrist. The cut was still fresh where she’d started to remove her ID chip before, so they would not be able to track her. This time, there was no hesitation.
Soon, the whole world would be searching for her—Linh Cinder.
A deformed cyborg with a missing foot.
A Lunar with a stolen identity.
A mechanic with no one to run to, nowhere to go.
But they would be looking for a ghost.
Acknowledgments