Cress (19 page)

She beamed and grabbed his free hand, leading him over the desert’s ripples and tides. Her fantasies took over, eclipsing her fatigue. The towels had nearly rubbed the soles of her feet raw and her calves were sunburned where her sheet didn’t protect them and her brain was swirling with thirst, but they were close. So close.

And yet, as she slipped along the powdery sand, it seemed that the oasis never came any closer. It always lingered at the horizon, as if the shimmering trees were receding with each step she took.

She plowed on, desperate. The distances were deceptive, but soon they would reach it. If only they kept moving. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other.

“Cress?”

“Captain,” she panted, “it’s … it isn’t far.”

“Cress, is it getting any closer?”

She stumbled, her pace slowing drastically until she stopped, gasping for breath. “Captain?”

“Do you see it getting closer? Do the trees look bigger than they were before?”

She squinted at the water, the trees, the most gorgeous sight, and swiped her sleeve over her face. She was so hot, but no sweat was left behind on the cloth.

The truth was so painful, she almost didn’t have the strength to say it. “N-no. But that’s … how could…”

Thorne sighed, but it was not a disappointed sigh, merely resigned. “It’s a mirage, Cress. It’s the light playing tricks on your eyes.”

“But … I can
see
it. There are even islands in the lake, and trees…”

“I know. Mirages always seem real, but you’re only seeing what you want to see. It’s a trick, Cress. It’s not there.”

She was mesmerized by how the water rippled in little waves, how the trees trembled like a breeze was teasing their branches. It looked so real, so tangible. She could almost smell it, almost taste the cool wind blowing toward her.

Cress barely managed to stay standing, her fear of being scorched by the hot sand alone giving her the strength.

“It’s all right. Lots of people see mirages in the desert.”

“But … I didn’t know. I should have known. I’ve heard stories, but I didn’t … I didn’t think it could look so real.”

Thorne’s fingers brushed against the sheet, finding her hand. “You’re not going to cry, are you?” he said, his tone a mixture of gentle and stern. Crying was not allowed, not with water so precious.

“No,” she whispered, and she meant it. Not that she didn’t want to cry, but because she wasn’t sure her body could make enough tears.

“Good, come on. Find us a sand dune to sit down for a while.”

Cress peeled her attention away from the fleeting, bitter illusion. Scanning the nearest dunes, she led him toward a southward-facing slope. The moment she was over the crest, it was as if a thin string that had been holding her up snapped. Cress let out a pained groan and collapsed into the sand.

Thorne brought the blanket and parachute square out of the pack and laid it out for them to sit on, to keep them off the hot sand, then pulled the corners over their heads like a canopy that blocked out the sun’s brightness.

He put an arm around Cress’s shoulders and tugged her against him. She felt so dumb, so betrayed—by the desert, by the sun, by her own eyes. And now the truth was settling upon her.

There was no water.

There were no trees.

Nothing but endless sand, endless sun, endless walking.

And they may never make it out. They couldn’t go on forever. She doubted she could go on for another day like this, and who knew how long it would take to reach the end of the desert. Not when every sand dune multiplied into three more, when every step toward the mountains seemed to send them even farther into the distance, and they didn’t even know that the mountains would offer any protection when they got there.

“We are not going to die here,” Thorne said, his voice soft and reassuring, like he’d known exactly where her thoughts had been taking her. “I’ve been through much worse than this and I’ve survived just fine.”

“You have?”

He opened his mouth, but paused. “Well … I was in jail for a long time, which wasn’t exactly a picnic.”

She adjusted the towels on her feet. The hair-ropes had begun to cut into her skin.

“The military wasn’t much fun either, come to think of it.”

“You were only in it for five months,” she murmured, “and most of that was spent in flight training.”

Thorne tilted his head. “How’d you know that?”

“Research.” She didn’t tell him just how much she’d researched into his past, and he didn’t ask.

“Well—so maybe this is the worst I’ve been through. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to survive. We’ll find civilization, we’ll comm the Rampion, and they’ll come get us. Then we’ll overthrow Levana and I’ll get loads of reward money and the Commonwealth will pardon my crimes or whatever and we’ll all live happily ever after.”

Cress nestled against Thorne’s side, trying to believe him.

“But first, we have to get out of this desert.” He rubbed her shoulder. It was the kind of touch that would have filled her with giddiness and yearning if she hadn’t been too tired to feel anything. “You have to trust me, Cress. I’m going to get us out of this.”

Twenty-One

“There,” said Dr. Erland, snipping off the ends of the surgery thread. “That’s all I can do for him.”

Cinder wet her lips and found that they had begun to split from dryness. “And? Will he … is he going to…?”

“We have to wait and see. He’s lucky the bullets didn’t puncture a lung, or he wouldn’t have made it this far, but he did lose a lot of blood. I’ll monitor the anesthetics closely for the next day or two. We want to keep him sedated. Levana’s soldiers are designed as disposable weapons—they are very effective when they’re in good health, but their genetic alterations make it difficult for them to rest, even when their bodies need time to recover from injury.”

She stared down at Wolf’s wounds, now sewed together with dark blue thread that formed ugly bumps and ridges where open flesh had been before. Numerous other scars littered his bare chest, long since healed. It was obvious that he had been through a lot. Surely this wouldn’t be the end of him, after everything?

A table beside her held a tray with the two small bullets the doctor had removed—they seemed too small to have done so much damage.

“I can’t let anyone else die,” she whispered.

The doctor looked up from cleaning the surgical tools. “They may be treated as disposable assets to the queen, but they are also resilient.” He dropped the scalpel and tweezers into a blue liquid. “With proper rest, it’s possible that he’ll make a full recovery.”

“Possible,” she repeated dumbly. It wasn’t enough.

She slumped down onto the wooden chair beside Wolf’s bed and slipped a hand into his, hoping he would appreciate the touch, even though she wasn’t Scarlet.

She crushed her eyes shut, the wave of remorse flooding over her.
Scarlet.
Wolf would be furious when he woke up. Furious and devastated.

“Now perhaps you might deign to tell me how you managed to be in the company of both a Lunar soldier and a Lunar royal guard, of all the possible allies in this galaxy.”

She sighed. It took a while to gather her thoughts and find the beginning of such a story. Ultimately she decided to tell him about tracking down Michelle Benoit, and how she’d been hoping to find out more about the woman who had protected her secret to the death. How she’d been searching for clues about her past, who had brought her to Earth, and why anyone would put so much faith into a child who, at the time, was a mere three years old and on the brink of death after the queen’s attempted murder.

She explained how they’d followed the path of clues to Paris, where she learned that Michelle Benoit was dead, but she found her granddaughter instead. Scarlet … and Wolf. How they became allies. How Wolf was training her to use her mental abilities and to fight.

She told him about the attack aboard the Rampion and how Sybil Mira had taken Scarlet, and now it was only her and Wolf … and this guard, who she wanted to trust, felt she
needed
to trust, and yet she didn’t even know his name.

“He said that he serves his princess,” Cinder said, the words wispy and thin. “Somehow, he knew about me.”

Erland rubbed at his frizzy hair. “Perhaps he overheard Thaumaturge Mira, or the queen herself talking about you. We’re lucky that his fealty is to the true crown. Many of Levana’s minions would just as soon kill you and claim a reward than see you recognized as queen.”

“I figured as much.”

He sneered, like he wasn’t happy to have to acknowledge the guard could be an ally after all. “And speaking of recognizing you as the true queen…”

She shriveled into her seat, squeezing Wolf’s hand.

“Miss Linh, I have spent years planning for the time when I would find you again. You should have come to me straightaway.”

Cinder wrinkled her nose. “That’s precisely why I
didn’t.
”

“And what does that mean?”

“When you came to my jail cell and dropped this whole princess thing on me … how was I supposed to react? All of a sudden I went from being nobody to being long-lost royalty, and you expected me to jump up and accept this
destiny
that you’d worked out in your head, but did you ever consider that maybe that’s not the destiny I want? I wasn’t raised to be a princess or a leader. I just needed some time to figure out who I was … am. Where I came from. I thought maybe those answers were in France.”

“And were they?”

She shrugged, remembering the underground lab they’d found on the Benoit farm, with the suspended-animation tank where she had slept, half alive, for eight years. Where some nameless, faceless person had given her a new name, a new history, and new robotic limbs.

“Some of them were.”

“And how about now? Are you ready to accept your destiny, or are you still
searching
?”

She frowned. “I know that I am who you say I am. And someone has to stop Levana. If that someone has to be me, well … yes. I accept that. I’m ready.” She glanced down at Wolf and bit back her next words.
At least, I thought I was ready, before I ruined everything.

“Good,” said the doctor. “Because it’s time we developed a plan. Queen Levana cannot be allowed to rule any longer, and she certainly cannot be allowed to rule
Earth.
”

“I know. I agree. I had a plan, actually.
We
had a plan.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“We were going to use the wedding to our advantage, especially with all the media that’s going to be there. We were going to get past palace security, and I was going to sneak into the ceremony and … stop it.”

“Stop the wedding?” Erland said, sounding unimpressed.

“Yes. I was going to tell everyone who I am. With all the cameras and the media and the whole world watching, I was going to insist that Kai couldn’t marry her. I was going to tell the world about Levana’s plans to invade all the Earthen countries, so that the other leaders would refuse to accept her as a world leader. And then I would demand that Levana relinquish her crown … to me.” She pulled away from Wolf, finding that her palm had grown too warm. She rubbed it nervously on her pant leg.

Dr. Erland’s expression had gone dark. He reached forward and pinched Cinder hard above her elbow.

“Ow, hey!”

“Hmph. For a moment I thought you must be another one of my hallucinations, as surely your plan couldn’t be
that
stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. The news would go viral in minutes. There’s nothing Levana could do to stop it.”

“It certainly would go viral. Everyone would be clamoring to witness the tirade of the crazy cyborg who fancies herself a princess.”

“They could test my blood, like you did. I can prove it.”

“No doubt Her Majesty would stand by patiently while you did so.” He huffed, as if he were talking to a small child. “Queen Levana has her talons so deep into the Commonwealth that you would be dead before you finished the word
princess.
Your Emperor Kai would do anything to appease her right now. To ensure that war doesn’t break out again and to get his hands on that letumosis antidote. He wouldn’t risk angering her just to validate the claim of a sixteen-year-old girl who is already a wanted criminal.”

She crossed her arms. “He
might.
”

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she sulked in her chair.

“Fine,” Cinder said. “What do you suggest? You clearly know all about this political revolution stuff, so please enlighten me, O wrinkled one.”

Dr. Erland grabbed his hat off a small writing desk and pulled it onto his head. “You can begin by learning some manners, or no one will ever believe
you
could be royalty.”

“Right. I’m sure that poor etiquette is the number one reason for most failed revolutions.”

“Are you quite finished?”

“Not hardly.”

He pinned her with a glare and she glared right back.

Finally, Cinder rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m finished.”

“Good. Because we have a lot to discuss, beginning with how we are going to get you to Luna.”

“
Luna?
”

“Yes. Luna. The rock in the sky that you are destined to rule. I trust you’re familiar with it?”

“You expect me to go to Luna?”

“Not
today,
but eventually, yes. You’re wasting your time with this wedding business and viral media. The people of Luna don’t care what the people of Earth think. Proclaiming your identity here won’t persuade them to rebel against their monarch, or crown you as their queen.”

“Of course it will. I’m the rightful heir!”

She drew back, stunned by her own words. She didn’t think she’d ever felt so invested in her identity, and determined to claim her place. It was a strange feeling, bordering on pride.

“You
are
the rightful heir,” said the doctor. “But you have to convince the people of Luna, not the people of Earth. The Lunar people must be informed that you are alive. Only with them on your side can you expect to have any success in claiming your birthright. Of course, Levana will not give up easily.”