Fifty-One
Kai laughed, a rough sound that bordered on hyperventilating. He couldn’t tell if this unexpected turn of events was terrible, or very, very funny. “The palace security has been compromised? What exactly does that mean?”
“The royal guard hasn’t had time to document an official report, Your Majesty,” said Torin, “but we do know that all security cameras and scanners, including weapon scanners, have malfunctioned. Or at least that your guards are unable to access their feeds at this time.”
“How long have they been down?”
“Almost eleven minutes.”
Kai paced to the window. He caught sight of a groom in his reflection—a white silk shirt split by a red sash that hung from his shoulder. It made him think of blood every time he saw it. He’d spent the past hour pacing around his private chambers and avoiding his reflection as much as possible.
“Do you think Levana has anything to do with it?”
“It seems out of character for her to do anything that could upset today’s ceremony.”
Kai strung his fingers through his hair. Priya would have a fit when she saw him, after those specialty stylists had spent forty minutes adjusting every last hair on his head.
“Your Majesty, I might ask that you move away from the window.”
He turned around, surprised at the concern in Torin’s voice. “Why?”
“We have to assume that this breach constitutes a threat to your safety, but we can’t guess where that threat might come from.”
“You think someone’s going to try and assassinate me through a window? On the fourteenth floor?”
“We don’t know what to think, but I don’t want to take unnecessary risks until we have more information. The captain of the guard should be here shortly. I’m sure he has a plan in place for such circumstances. We may be forced to evacuate, or go into lockdown mode.”
Kai drew away from the window. Lockdown mode? He hadn’t known such a thing existed.
“Are we canceling the ceremony?” he asked, hardly daring to hope.
Torin sighed. “Not officially. Not yet. That course of action is a last resort. Queen Levana and her court have been confined to their quarters and, if necessary, will be escorted to a remote location. The ceremony is temporarily delayed, until we can ensure your safety and the safety of the queen.”
Kai briefly perched on the edge of one of the carved-wood chairs but, too anxious to sit, bounced back to his feet and resumed pacing. “She’s going to be furious. You might want to warn whoever has to break this news to her.”
“I suspect everyone is well aware.”
Kai shook his head, baffled. For weeks he’d lived in a mental fog, caught between misery and apprehension, fear and nerves and the constant desperate hopes that lingered in his head. Hope that there was a way out. Hope that the wedding day would never come. Hope that Princess Selene had been found and that, somehow, she would change everything.
And now—this.
There was no way it was a coincidence. Someone had purposefully hacked the palace security system. Who was capable of that? And what did they want to do, simply stop the wedding? There were plenty of people in the world who didn’t want this wedding to take place, after all.
Or were their motivations more dangerous, maybe even sinister?
He peered up at Torin. “I know you don’t like it when I talk about conspiracies, but come on.”
Torin exhaled a long, painful sounding breath. “Your Majesty, this time, we may be in agreement.”
Someone knocked, startling them both. Normally a speaker in the wall would have announced the arrival of whoever was on the other side, but that must have been a part of the failed system.
Which made Kai question—shouldn’t there have been a backup system? Or had that, too, been compromised?
Torin moved toward the door first. “Announce yourself.”
“Tashmi Priya, requesting to speak with His Majesty.”
Kai massaged his neck as Torin unbolted and opened the door. Priya stood stiffly before them, even more put together than usual in an emerald and silver sari.
“Any news?” asked Kai.
Priya’s expression was dazed, bordering on fearful. Kai braced himself for the worst, although he didn’t know what the worst could be.
But instead of speaking, Priya shut her eyes and collapsed, crumpling onto the carpet.
Kai gasped and dropped down beside her. On her other side, Torin lifted her wrist, checking for a pulse.
“What’s wrong with her?” Kai asked, before his eyes snagged on a small dart jutting from Priya’s back. “What—”
“She’ll be fine.”
Kai froze.
Looked up. At black pants and a silk top and—
Cinder. His heart lurched into his throat.
She wore the same uniform as the wedding staff. Her hair was a mess, as it always was. She wasn’t wearing gloves. She looked flustered.
Another girl entered behind her and shut the door. She was a little taller, with light brown skin and blue hair, though Kai couldn’t spare her more than a cursory glance.
Because Cinder was there.
Cinder.
Unable to lift his jaw, Kai pushed himself to his feet. Torin stood too and stepped around Priya, trying to inch his way in between them like a shield, but Kai hardly noticed.
Cinder held his gaze. It seemed as if maybe she was waiting for something. Bracing herself. Despite the fact that her metal hand had some sort of dangerous-looking appendage jutting from one of the fingers, she looked almost bashful.
The silence was unbearable, but Kai couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
Finally, Cinder gulped. “I’m sorry I had to—” She gestured at the unconscious wedding coordinator, then waved her hand like shaking it off. “But she’ll be fine, I swear. Maybe a little nauseous when she comes to, but otherwise … And your android … Nainsi, right? I had to disable her. And her backup processor. But any mechanic can return her to defaults in about six seconds, so…” She rubbed anxiously at her wrist. “Oh, and we ran into your captain of the guard in the hallway, and a few other guards, and I may have scared him and he’s, um, unconscious. Also. But, really, they’ll all be just fine. I swear.” Her lips twitched into a brief, nervous smile. “Um … hello, again. By the way.”
“Ugh,” said the other girl, rolling her eyes. “That was painful.”
Cinder shot her a glare, but then the girl took a single step toward Kai and dipped into a graceful bow. “Your Imperial Majesty. It is such a pleasure to see you again.”
He said nothing.
Cinder said nothing.
Torin, half positioned between Kai and Cinder, said nothing.
Finally the girl lifted her head. “Anytime now, Cinder.”
Cinder jumped. “Right. Sorry.”
She took a tentative step forward and looked about to speak again, but Kai finally found his voice.
“Are you insane?”
Cinder paused.
“Do you—are you—Queen Levana is in this palace. She’ll kill you!”
She blinked. “Yes. I know.”
“Which is why we need to stop wasting time,” the girl muttered under her breath.
Kai frowned at her. “Who are you?”
She brightened. “Oh, I’m Iko! You may not remember me, but we met at the market that day you brought in the android, only I was about this tall”—she held her hand at hip height—“and shaped kind of like an enormous pear, and significantly more pale.” She batted her eyelashes.
Kai returned his attention to Cinder.
“She’s right,” said Cinder. “We need to leave, now. And you’re coming with us.”
“I’m what?”
“He will do no such thing,” said Torin. He started to move toward Cinder, but then his foot stalled midair and reversed. Suddenly he was stepping over Priya, walking backward until the backs of his knees hit a settee and he sank down onto the cushion.
Kai gaped at him, beginning to think this was all some bizarre anxiety dream.
“I’m sorry,” said Cinder, holding up her cyborg hand. “But I have one more tranquilizer and, if you try to interfere, I’m afraid I’ll have to use it on you.”
Torin glared at her, putting as much seething hatred into the look as Kai had ever seen.
“Kai, I need to remove your ID chip.”
He faced her again and felt—for the first time—a twinge of fear. Something clicked and he glanced down to see her ejecting a short knife from one of her fingers.
She was cyborg. This he’d almost gotten used to.
But she was also Lunar, and while he’d known that for just as long, he’d never before seen her act Lunar. Not so blatantly. Not until now.
Cinder took a step toward him.
He took a step back.
She paused, hurt flickering in her eyes. “Kai?”
“You shouldn’t have come back here.”
She licked her lips. “I know how this must look, but I’m asking you to trust me. I can’t let you marry her.”
He let out an abrupt laugh. The wedding. He’d almost forgotten about it, and he was the one in groom’s clothes. “It’s not your decision to make.”
“I’m making it anyway.” She moved forward again, and with another step back, Kai found himself pressed against a small table. Cinder’s gaze dipped down and her eyes widened.
Kai followed the look.
Her foot was on the table. The child-size foot that had fallen off on the garden steps, its plating dented and the joints packed with dirt. He’d taken it out of his office when the security team had done the sweep for Levana’s spy equipment.
His ears grew hot, and he felt as if he’d just been caught hoarding something strange and overtly intimate. Something that didn’t belong to him.
“You, uh…” He gestured halfheartedly. “You dropped that.”
Cinder peeled her attention away from the foot and met his gaze, speechless. He couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking. He didn’t even know what it meant that he’d kept it.
The other girl, Iko, cupped her chin with both hands. “This is so much better than a net drama.”
Cinder briefly lowered her gaze to compose herself, then held her hand toward him. “Please, Kai. We don’t have much time. I need your wrist.” Her voice was gentle and kind, and somehow that gave him greater pause than anything. Lunars—always so convincingly gentle, so deviously kind.
Shaking his head, he pressed his vulnerable wrist against his side. “Cinder, look. I don’t know what you’re doing here. I want to believe you have good intentions, but … I don’t know anything about you. You lied to me about everything.”
“I never lied to you.” Cinder stole another look at the foot. “I maybe didn’t tell you the whole truth, but can you blame me?”
He frowned. “Of course I can blame you. You had plenty of opportunities to tell me the truth.”
The words seemed to surprise her, until she fisted her hands on her hips. “Right. And what if I’d said, oh, sure, Your Highness, I’d love to go to the ball with you, but first you should probably know that I’m cyborg. And then what?”
Kai looked away.
“You never would have talked to me again,” she answered for him. “You would have been mortified.”
“So you were just going to keep it hidden forever?”
“Forever?” Cinder waved her arm toward the window. “You are the emperor of an entire country. There was never going to be a forever.”
He was surprised how much the words stung. She was right. There wasn’t room for such absurdity between them—an emperor. A cyborg. Her words shouldn’t have hurt at all.
“What about being Lunar?” he said. “When was that going to come up?”
Cinder huffed, and he could tell she was growing exasperated. “We don’t have time for this.”
“How many times did you manipulate me? How much of it was just brainwashing?”
Her jaw fell open, as if she were appalled he could even suggest it. Then a fire stoked behind her eyes. “Why? Are you worried that you may have had actual feelings for a lowly cyborg?”
“I’m just trying to figure out what was real, and who this person is.” He gestured from her head to her toes. “One day you’re fixing portscreens at the market, the next you’re breaking out of a high-security prison. And now—you’ve disabled my palace security, you’re waving a knife at me, and you’re threatening to tranquilize my chief adviser if you don’t get what you want. What am I supposed to think? I don’t even know whose side you’re on!”
Cinder clenched her fists, but as his angry words settled, her eyes caught on something over his shoulder. The enormous picture window overlooking the Eastern Commonwealth. Her expression became distant. Calculating.
She took another step toward him. Kai flinched.
“I’m on my side,” she said. “And if you want what’s best for the Commonwealth, and this entire planet, you’d better be on my side too.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Now give me your wrist.”
He curled his fingers. “My responsibility is here. I have a country to protect. I’m not running away from that, and I’m certainly not running away with you.” He tried to lift his chin, though it was difficult when Cinder’s glare was making him feel about as important as a grain of salt.
“Really?” she drawled. “You’d rather take your chances with her?”
“At least I know when she’s manipulating me.”
“News flash: I have never manipulated you. And I hope I never have to. But you aren’t the only one with responsibilities and an entire country of people who are relying on you. So I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but you are coming with me, and you’re just going to have to figure out whether or not you can trust me when we’re not so pressed for time.”
Then she raised her hand and shot him.