Cress (21 page)

“Maybe the intergalactic laws need to be revisited.”

“Perhaps, Your Majesty.”

Kai collapsed back into his chair. “Do you think he was just trying to get a rise out of me, or are all those ships really going to invade the Commonwealth once the alliance is forged? Somehow, I’d just assumed Levana would be content to call herself empress. I didn’t think she’d want to bring her whole army here and let them make themselves right at home.” Saying the words out loud made him flinch with how naïve he sounded. Kai cursed beneath his breath. “You know, I’m beginning to think I entered into this marriage thing a bit hastily.”

“You made the best decision you could at the time.”

Kai rubbed his hands together, attempting to dispel the feeling of vulnerability the thaumaturge’s presence had given him. “Torin,” he said, sliding his eyes toward his adviser, “if there was a way to avoid this marriage
and
keep us from going to war
and
get that antidote … you would agree that that would be the best course of action, wouldn’t you?”

Torin lowered himself slowly into the chair that the thaumaturge had vacated. “I’m almost afraid to ask, Your Majesty.”

Clearing his throat, Kai called for Nainsi. A second later, her short, glossy-white body appeared in the doorway. “Nainsi, have you found anything new?”

As she approached the desk, her sensor flashed, once at him, and once at Torin. “Permission clearance for Adviser Konn Torin requested.”

Torin’s eyebrow jutted up, but Kai ignored it. “Clearance granted.”

Nainsi came to a stop beside the desk. “I’ve run a full report on Michelle Benoit, including a detailed timeline of her activities, occupations, achievements, and military service, and biographical information on eleven persons who seemed close enough to warrant attention. My data retrieval system is broadening the search to neighbors and potential acquaintances beginning in the year 85
T.E
.”

“Who is Michelle Benoit?” Torin asked, in a tone that suggested he didn’t really want to know the answer.

“Michelle Benoit was born in 56
T.E.
,” said Nainsi, “and is noted most for her twenty-eight years of service in the European Federation armed forces, twenty of which were served as wing commander. She received a Distinguished Service Medal for piloting the diplomatic mission to Luna in the year 85
T.E
. The mission included—”

“We think she might have something to do with Princess Selene,” Kai interrupted, tapping some fast instructions into the built-in netscreen on his desk. A moment later, a satellite photo of farmlands in southern France appeared across the screen. “She owns this farm”—he pointed to a dark spot, where the ground had been recently scorched—“and this field is where Cinder landed the first time she returned to Earth, right before the attack. So, we assume that Cinder believes that Michelle Benoit is attached to the princess as well.”

Torin’s face darkened, but he seemed to be withholding judgment until Kai finished. “I see.”

“Nainsi, have you found anything useful?”

“
Useful
is a subjective term relative to the actions that are taken prior to receiving information and the resulting—”

“Nainsi. Have you found anything
relevant
?”

“Relevant to what?” said Torin. “What are you hoping to find?”

“Princess Selene.”

Torin sighed. “Again?”

“Yes. Again,” said Kai. He gestured toward the sky. “Aren’t you the one who told me we had to try to stand up against Levana?”

“I didn’t mean by chasing ghosts.”

“But think about it. She’s the true heir to the Lunar throne. You honestly don’t think finding her would give us an advantage?”

Torin’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but to Kai’s relief, he seemed to be considering the question. “I don’t want you to be distracted from the things that are truly important.”

Kai snorted. “The important things, like jade centerpieces and whether my wedding sash should have flying bats or a pair of cranes embroidered on it?”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“
Clearly.
”

Rubbing his forehead, Torin eyed Nainsi for a long moment, before casting his gaze toward the ceiling. “Your Majesty. According to Linh Cinder’s own warnings, Queen Levana already means to murder you because you were attempting to find the princess before. What will her retaliation be when she realizes you haven’t stopped?”

“It doesn’t matter—she already intends to kill me, so what else can she do? And Princess Selene would be the true heir. Her existence would negate any claim Levana has to her throne.”

Torin dropped his shoulders. “And you think that by finding a girl who’s, what? Fifteen years old?”

“Sixteen.”

“A sixteen-year-old girl. You believe that finding her is what the Commonwealth needs right now, more than anything else?”

Kai gulped, but his answer was solid. “I do.”

Torin settled back in his seat, resigned. “All right. Fine. I won’t try to dissuade you.” He eyed Nainsi again, this time with distrust, as if this were all the android’s fault. “Please, continue.”

Nainsi launched back into her report. “Michelle Benoit disappeared from her farm on 11 August; her identity chip was left in her home, having been removed from her wrist. Evidence did not indicate whether or not there had been a struggle. Two weeks later, her granddaughter, Scarlet, who had lived with Benoit for eleven years, traveled from their home in Rieux, France, to Paris. Tracking records indicate she was in Paris for two days before her identity chip went off the grid. Presumably, the chip was removed and destroyed. Timeline cross-examination indicates that her ID chip was last seen near an abandoned Paris opera house, at the same time that a nearby scan-bank machine recorded what appears to be the landing and takeoff of a 214 Rampion. Satellite feeds, however, picked up no such spaceship at that location. Deductive reasoning leads me to believe that this was the ship on which Linh Cinder is hiding and that Scarlet Benoit may have boarded the ship at that time.”

Kai frowned and was glad when even Torin looked intrigued by this information.

“Cinder made a special trip to Paris for this girl?”

“My logic aptitude suggests this is a possibility.”

“What else do we know about this … Scarlet?”

“According to her ID records, she came to live with Michelle Benoit in 115
T.E
., two years after the recorded death of Princess Selene. Her birth date indicates that she is eighteen years old. However, there is no hospital record of Scarlet Benoit’s birth, and her data was not input until she was four years old, so we cannot confirm the validity of any of her records.”

“You lost me.”

“Scarlet Benoit was not born in a hospital. Neither was her father, Luc Raoul Benoit. Without official records, we must treat any information about their births as circumspect. It is possible that everything we know about Scarlet Benoit is false information.”

Kai pressed his hands onto the desk. “Are you saying there’s a chance this girl, this Scarlet Benoit … is really Princess Selene?”

“It is a possibility that cannot be proved or disproved at this time, but I have found no evidence to warrant a dismissal of this hypothesis.”

Kai filled his lungs, feeling that he hadn’t taken a full breath in weeks. “And Cinder knows it. Cinder figured it out … and now … she has her. Cinder’s found the princess.”

“Your Majesty,” said Torin, “you are jumping to some large conclusions.”

“But it makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Torin scowled. “I will withhold my opinion on the matter until we have some information that is based on more than speculation.”

“Android speculation,” Kai said, pointing at Nainsi. “It’s better than regular speculation.”

He pushed himself out of his chair and began to pace in front of the grand picture window. Princess Selene was alive. He just knew it.

And Cinder had found her.

He almost laughed.

“I’m surprised to see you taking this all with such good humor, Your Majesty,” said Torin. “I would think you would be horrified with this turn of events.”

“Why? She’s alive!”

“If this girl
is
the missing princess, then she is currently being held captive by a dangerous felon, Your Majesty.”

“Wha—Cinder’s not dangerous!”

Torin seemed unexpectedly furious as he, too, launched himself to his feet. “Have you forgotten that she’s
Lunar
? She is a Lunar who had contacts working within this very palace. She coerced you—the most protected person in the country—into giving her a personal invitation to our annual ball, then infiltrated it with, I can only assume, the intention of provoking Queen Levana. She escaped from a high-security prison and has managed to evade capture by our entire military, which ultimately led to an attack that killed thousands of Earthens. How can you possibly say she isn’t dangerous?”

Kai straightened his spine. “Levana attacked us—not Cinder.”

Groaning, Torin rubbed his fingers over his temples. It had been a long time since Kai had seen that expression on his adviser. The expression that indicated he thought Kai was a moron.

Indignation flared inside him. “And for the record, she declined my invitation to the ball. She only came to
warn
me. And Dr. Erland…” He hesitated. He still didn’t know what to think about her relationship with Dr. Erland. “Levana wants her killed. I don’t see that we’ve given her much choice other than to run.”

“Your Majesty, I worry that your … your feelings for this girl are causing a bias that could jeopardize your ability to make logical decisions where she’s concerned.”

Kai’s face grew warm. Was he so transparent?

“I’m still trying to find her, aren’t I? I still have half the military out searching for her.”

“But are you trying to find her, or this princess?”

He gestured at Nainsi. “If they’re together, what does it matter? We can find them both!”

“And then you will give Luna a new queen, and Linh Cinder will be pardoned?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Is that such a horrible thing to hope for?”

“She’s still one of them. You’ve said yourself that she lied to you about everything. What do you know about her? She stole an ID chip out of a dead girl’s wrist. She helped a known thief escape from prison. Do I need to go on?”

Cringing, Kai spun back to face the window, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest. He hated that every word Torin had said was indisputable—while every hope Nainsi had given him was based on vague observations and hazy guesses.

“I understand that you feel partially responsible for condemning her to execution,” Torin said, his tone growing gentler. “But you have to stop idolizing her.”

“Idolize—” Kai faced him again. “I don’t idolize her.”

Torin gave him a speculative look, until Kai began to grow uncomfortable.

“I might
admire
her sometimes, but even you have to admit that it’s pretty impressive what she’s done. Plus, she stood up to Levana at the ball. You weren’t impressed by that? Just a little?”

Torin buttoned his suit jacket. “My point, Your Majesty, is that you seem to be putting an awful lot of faith in a girl you know virtually nothing about, and who has caused us all a great deal of trouble.”

Kai scowled. Torin was right, of course. He didn’t know anything about Cinder, no matter how much he felt that he did.

But he was the emperor. He had resources. He may not know much about Cinder, but if she could find out about the lost Lunar princess, then he could find out more about
her.
And he knew just where to start looking.

Twenty-Three

This time when Cress awoke, it was not sand engulfing her—although there was plenty of that—but arms. Thorne had pulled her against him so close that she could feel the rise and fall of his chest and his breath on the back of her neck. She groggily peeled her eyelids open.

Night had fallen. The moon had returned, larger than the night before and surrounded by a sea of stars that winked and glittered at them.

She was deathly thirsty and couldn’t find any saliva to wet her parched tongue. She started to shiver, despite the layers of sheets and blankets and the parachute and the heat rising off her scorched skin. Despite Thorne’s protective warmth.

Teeth rattling, she nestled against him as much as she could. His embrace tightened around her.

She looked up. The stars were moving, swirling over her head like a whirlpool trying to suck the whole planet into its depths. The stars were taunting her. Laughing.

She shut her eyes tight, and was met with visions of Sybil’s cruel smile. News headlines echoed in her head, spoken in a child’s nasally voice.
14 CITIES ATTACKED … LARGEST MASSACRE IN THIRD ERA … 16,000 DEATHS …

“Cress. Cress, wake up.”

She jolted, still shaking. Thorne was hovering above her, his eyes bright with moonlight.

He found her face, pressed his palm to her forehead, and cursed. “You’re running a fever.”

“I’m cold.”

He rubbed her arms. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not going to like this, but we need to get up. We need to keep moving.”

They were the cruelest words he could have said. She felt impossibly weak. Her whole body seemed to be made of sand that would blow apart with the slightest breeze.

“Cress, are you still with me?” He cupped her cheeks in both hands. His skin was cool, soothing.

“I can’t.” Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth when she spoke.

“Yes, you can. It will be better to walk at night when it’s cool than to try and move during the day. You understand that, right?”

“My feet hurt … and I’m so dizzy…”

Thorne grimaced. She thought of stroking her fingers through his hair. In all the pictures she’d seen of him, even his jail pictures, he’d been so polished, so neat. But now he was a wreck, with whiskers on his chin and dirt in his hair. It did not make him any less handsome.

“I know you don’t want to keep going,” he said. “I know you deserve a rest. But if we just lie here, you might never get up.”