Sixty
“I can’t believe you kidnapped me!” Kai yelled, spinning back to face her before Cinder could brace herself. “We’re on a spaceship, Cinder. In space!” He pointed at the wall. It wasn’t actually an exterior wall, but Cinder didn’t feel the need to point that out. “I can’t be on a spaceship. I have a country to run. I have people who need me. We are on the verge of a war. Do you understand that? War. Where people die. I cannot be up here, messing around with you and your band of misfits! Do you even know that you are housing one of her mutants up there?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s Wolf. He’s harmless.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, not harmless…”
He laughed, but it was sharp and delirious. “I can’t—how could—what were you thinking?”
“You’re welcome,” she muttered, defiantly crossing her arms.
He glowered, rather ungratefully. “Take me back to Earth.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Cinder—” He huffed. Reconsidered. Softened … just a bit.
The change put an instant dent in Cinder’s defenses, prompting a strange tingle behind her rib cage. She dug her fingertips into her elbows.
“As someone who understands why you did this, and admires your ability to actually accomplish it, I am—pleading with you. Cinder. Please. Take me back.”
She filled up her lungs. “No.”
The softness was gone, instantly. Tipping his head back, Kai strung both hands through his hair. It surprised her how familiar the gesture was.
“When did you become so frustrating?”
She scuffed the toe of her boot against the floor.
“Fine! As your emperor, I command you to return me to Earth. Immediately.”
Cinder rocked on her heels. “Kai … Your Majesty. You may recall that I’m Lunar. And Lunars are forbidden from being granted citizenship in the Eastern Commonwealth. Therefore … you’re no longer my emperor.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
She was surprised at how the words stung. Like before, in the palace, indignation reared up fast and burning. “You have no idea how seriously I’m taking this.”
“Are you? Do you even know what the consequences are going to be for what you’ve done?”
“Yes, actually. I know this is a war. I am aware that more people are going to die before this is over. But we didn’t have a choice.”
“Your choice was to stay out of the way! Your choice was to do nothing! This is my job, my responsibility. I’m the emperor. Let me handle it.”
“By letting you marry her? That’s handling it?”
“It’s my decision.”
“It’s a stupid one!”
Kai spun away, his hands clawed into his hair. Whatever product had been used to style it for the wedding was making it messier than usual, and stars, he looked good.
Cinder smothered the thought, annoyed with herself.
“Please,” he said, his voice strained as he faced her again. “Please tell me this isn’t some … some petty act of jealousy. Please tell me this isn’t all because I asked you to the ball, or that time in the elevator, or—”
“Oh, you can’t be serious. I hope you don’t really think so little of me.”
“You shot me, Cinder, and then you kidnapped me. I honestly don’t know what to think.”
“Well, believe it or not, we didn’t just do this for you. We’re trying to save the whole world from your power-crazy fiancée. I refuse to let Levana become empress. I refuse to give her free rein over the Commonwealth. But we need more time.”
“More time for what? All you’ve done is make her angrier, so that when she retaliates, her wrath is going to be that much worse. Was that a part of your master plan, or are you just making this up as you go along?”
Cinder’s blood began to boil and she desperately, desperately wished she could tell him that, yes, of course they had a grand master plan that was guaranteed to work. Guaranteed to rid them all of Queen Levana and her tyranny forever. But there was no guarantee. Only a string of hope, and the knowledge that losing wasn’t an option.
She swallowed, hard. “I have a plan, to end this for good. But I need your help.”
Kai pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cinder. I hate Levana as much as you do. But she’s the one pulling the strings here. She has this army … it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Those little skirmishes that killed sixteen thousand people a couple weeks ago? Laughable compared to what she’s really capable of. Plus she has an antidote to letumosis, and we desperately need it—you know how much we need it. So while the idea of marrying Levana and crowning her empress makes me want to gouge out my own eyes, I don’t have a choice.”
“Gouge out your own eyes?” she said softly. “She could make you do that, you know.”
His expression darkened. “So could you, I’m told.”
She looked away. “Kai—Your Majesty—”
He waved his arms through the air. “Kai is fine. I don’t care.”
Cinder pressed her lips. It felt like a victory, but an unearned one. “You have to trust me. We can defeat her. I know we can.”
“How? Even if … let’s say you did. Let’s say you even managed to kill her. There’s still a whole posse of thaumaturges ready to take her place, and from what I’ve seen, they’re not much better.”
“We’ll choose the person to replace her. We … already have her replacement, actually.”
He snickered. “Ah. I see. Because you think the Lunar people will bow to just any … one…” He trailed off, eyes widening. And, for a moment, his anger was gone. “Unless … wait. You don’t mean…?”
She looked at the floor.
He took a single step toward her. “Did you find her? Princess Selene? Is that what this is all about?”
Cinder took the pliers out of her pocket, needing something to fiddle with while her nerves sparked and sputtered. She remembered that her metal hand was still bare, but Kai hadn’t glanced at it once through the whole argument.
“Cinder?”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “Yeah. I found her.”
Kai pointed toward the cargo bay. “Is it that blonde girl?”
She shook her head, and Kai frowned. “The girl from France? What was her name … Scarlet something?”
“No. Not Scarlet.” She squeezed the pliers, trying to direct all her frazzled energy into them.
“Then where is she? Is she on this ship? Can I meet her? Or is she still on Earth somewhere? Is she in hiding?”
When Cinder said nothing, Kai frowned. “What’s wrong? Is she all right?”
“I have to ask you something, and I want you to be honest.”
His eyes narrowed, instantly suspicious, which bothered her more than she cared to admit. She loosened her grip on the pliers. “Do you really think I brainwashed you before? When we met? And all those times, before the ball…”
His shoulders drooped. “Really? You’re changing the subject to talk about this?”
“It’s important to me.” She turned away and started gathering the tools she’d used to fix Iko. “I understand if you do. I know how it must have looked.”
Kai fidgeted with his ceremonial sash, then, after a moment, pulled it over his head and bunched it up in his fists. “I don’t know. I never wanted to believe it, but I’ve had to wonder. And when you fell, and I saw your glamour … Cinder, do you have any idea how beautiful your glamour is?”
Cinder cringed, knowing that he didn’t mean it as a compliment. Painful to look at were the words he’d used at the time.
“No,” she said, distracting herself by returning each tool to its designated place on the magnetic wall. “I can’t see it.”
“Well, it’s … it was a lot to take in that night. But then, Levana has manipulated me plenty of times, so I know what it feels like. And it never felt like that with you.”
She released the last tool.
“Of course, the media wants to think that’s what happened. It would be convenient.”
“Right.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “A convenient excuse for inviting a cyborg to the ball.”
He blinked. “For inviting a Lunar to the ball.”
The knot that had been tied up in her stomach for weeks began to unravel, just a little. “Not that it makes a difference what I say, but … I never did. Manipulate you, I mean. And I never will.” She hesitated. It was a promise that she didn’t know if she’d be able to keep. Not if he didn’t agree to help them. “And I did try to tell you about being cyborg. I mean, kind of. I’m sure I considered it at least twice.”
Kai started to shake his head and she held her breath. “No, you were right before. If you’d told me, I probably never would have spoken to you again.” He stared down at the sash twisted between his fists. “Although, I like to think I would act differently now.”
He met her gaze and she noticed, with a start, that his ears had gone pink. And then his lips quirked into the faintest of smiles.
It was the smile she’d been waiting for.
It didn’t last long.
“Cinder. Look. I am glad I’m not married right now, but this was still a huge mistake. I can’t risk angering Levana. Whatever you’re planning, you have to leave me out of it.”
“I can’t. I need your help.”
He sighed, but it was shaky, and she could tell his resolve was crumbling.
“You think Selene can overthrow her?”
Biting the inside of her cheek, she nodded. “I do.”
“Then I hope she intends to do it soon.”
Dragging her hands down her sides, Cinder felt nervousness pressing against her rib cage. “Kai, she may not be exactly what you were hoping for. I don’t want you to be disappointed. I know you put a lot into trying to find her and—”
“Why? What’s wrong with her?”
Cringing, she knotted her fingers together. Metal and skin. “Well. She was rescued from that fire, but it destroyed a lot of her body. She lost some limbs. And a lot of her skin had to be grafted. And … she’s just not … entirely whole.”
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean? Is she in a coma?”
“Not anymore.” She braced herself for his reaction. “But she’s a cyborg.”
His eyes widened, but then his attention was darting around the room as though he couldn’t look at Cinder while he adjusted to that information. “I see,” he said slowly, before meeting her gaze again. “But … is she all right?”
The question caught her by surprise and she couldn’t help a startled laugh. “Oh, yeah, she’s great. I mean, half the people in the world want to kill her and the other half want to chain her to a throne on the moon, which is just what she’s always wanted. So she’s fantastic.”
He stared at her like he was once again questioning her sanity. “What?”
Cinder shut her eyes and tried to bury her mounting panic. Opening them again, she spread her hands, placating. Hesitated.
She looked at the ceiling.
Took in a breath.
Met his gaze again.
“It’s me, Kai. I’m Princess Selene.”