Stars Above: A Lunar Chronicles Collection (The Lunar Chronicles) (34 page)

But when he was writing this speech, the similarities must have occurred to him. Right?

She held her breath, listening a little more closely to Kai’s words, wondering if he’d intended a meaning that went beyond this one ceremony.

Kai reached into his pocket and pulled out two golden rings. He handed one to Wolf, then took the bouquet from Scarlet and gave her the other.

“In preparing for this ceremony,” Kai said, setting the bouquet on the mantel behind him, “I did some research and learned that the word
Alpha
has held many meanings across history.”

A chuckle moved through the room. They all knew of the “alpha mate” relationship that Wolf and Scarlet had, and over the years it had developed into an inside joke among them. But Cinder also knew it was a joke founded on a deeper truth. Wolf and Scarlet took the designation seriously, in a way that even Cinder could admit was painfully romantic.

“
Alpha
can refer to the first of something,” said Kai, “or the beginning of
everything.
It can be attributed to a particularly powerful or charismatic person, or it can signify the dominant leader in a pack of animals, most notably, of course, wolves.” His serious expression tweaked briefly into a teasing smile. “It has meanings in chemistry, physics, and even astronomy, where it describes the brightest star in a constellation. But it seems clear that Ze’ev and Scarlet have created their own definition for the word, and their relationship has given this word a new meaning for all of us. Being an Alpha means that you’ll stand against all adversity to be with your mate. It means accepting each other, both for your strengths and your flaws. It means forging your own path to happiness and to love.” He nodded at Wolf. “Now I’ll have you place the ring on your bride’s finger and repeat after me.”

Wolf took Scarlet’s hands into his, as tenderly as he would pick up an injured butterfly, and slid the band onto her finger. His voice was rough and wavering as he recited—“I, Ze’ev Kesley, do hereby claim you, Scarlet Benoit, as my wife and my Alpha. Forevermore, you will be my mate, my star, my beginning of everything.” He smiled down at her, his eyes swimming with emotion. Scarlet returned the look, and though Wolf’s expression teetered between proud and bashful, Scarlet’s face contained nothing but joy. “You are the one. You have always been, and you will always be, the only one.”

Scarlet took the second ring—a significantly larger version of the same unadorned band—and pressed it onto Wolf’s finger. “I, Scarlet Benoit, do hereby claim you, Ze’ev Kesley, as my husband and my Alpha. Forevermore, you will be my mate, my star, my beginning of everything. You are the one. You have always been, and you will always be, the only one.”

Wolf folded his hands around hers. From where she sat, Cinder could see that he was shaking.

Kai grinned. “By the power given to me by the people of Earth, under the laws of the Earthen Union and as witnessed by those gathered here today, I do now pronounce you husband and wife.” He spread his hands in invitation. “You may kiss your—”

Wolf wrapped his arms around Scarlet’s waist, lifting her off the floor, and kissed her before Kai could finish. Or maybe she kissed him. It seemed mutual, as her hands wound through his disheveled hair.

The room exploded with cheers, everyone launching to their feet to congratulate the still-kissing couple. Scarlet had lost one of her red shoes.

“I’ll get the champagne,” said Thorne, heading toward the kitchen. “Those two are going to be thirsty when they finally come up for air.”

*   *   *

Cinder collapsed onto the stairs and leaned against the rail, where the crepe paper wrappings had come unstuck and were slowly unwinding themselves as the night went on. She was exhausted. Her right foot was throbbing and her left leg felt like it was filled with lead. She’d never danced so much in her life, not even at last year’s ball, when she’d been too self-conscious about everyone staring at her to spend more than a handful of songs on the ballroom floor. But this felt different. Cress had somehow compiled the perfect list of songs, and every time it seemed the party was dwindling, a song with just the right beat would come on and everyone would be up again, laughing and spinning. Kai and Winter had even taught the others a few basic waltz steps, and Iko had made it a point to steal multiple dances with every person in the room. She, of course, was tireless. Even Émilie had been folded easily into their festivities.

There had been feasting, too, though mostly on the
croquembouche
, which had so far contributed to both the lunch and dinner of the day, and was probably going to become a late-night snack as well.

And there was laughter. And teasing. And nostalgic remembrances of their many adventures, and the times when most of them had been crew members aboard the Rampion.

Kai appeared before Cinder, running a tired hand through his hair, and slumped down on the stair beside her. “Well? How do you think we did?”

She settled her head on his shoulder and watched Iko and Jacin waltz across the foyer, not really sure who was leading who. “I’d call it a brilliant success. All those journalists are going to be so disappointed when they find out they missed it.”

“They’ll have plenty to report on still. They don’t need to intrude on Wolf and Scarlet’s privacy anymore in order to do it.”

“Are you going to hold a press conference in place of the wedding in a couple days? Tell the world about your first foray into matrimonial officiating? Wax poetic about the historical importance of such a union?”

He turned his head and smirked down at her. “Nope. But I might tell them what an honor it was for me to be able to marry two of my closest friends, who happen to love each other very much.”

Her grin widened. “That won’t satisfy them at all.”

“I know. That’s half the appeal.”

Cinder took Kai’s hand and squeezed it. “There’s something I want to show you. Do you think anyone would notice if we slipped away for a bit?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Given that we make up a full quarter of the guest list, I would be a little insulted if they didn’t notice.”

“It was a rhetorical question.”

“Then by all means, lead the way.”

She stood and headed for the back door.

Darkness had fallen and the fields were lit only by the moon and the stars, casting the world in a wash of silver-blue. Cinder paused on the short porch, listening for the sounds of voices or footsteps or android treads, but it seemed the paparazzi had gotten bored with waiting for their prey to emerge from the farmhouse and retreated for the night.

Still holding Kai’s hand, she led him across the drive to the enormous hangar that housed Scarlet’s podship. Not wanting to turn on the hangar’s light and alert someone to their presence, she shut the door and turned on the flashlight in her cyborg finger, letting the thin beam of light guide them around the podship and a cluster of toolboxes stacked up on the floor. She found the cabinet at the back of the hangar, just where it had been the last time she’d been there. Releasing Kai’s hand, she crouched down and felt around the floor of the cabinet until her fingers brushed against the latch she knew was there. She yanked it upward, revealing an eerie blackness and a series of plastic rungs set into the concrete wall, disappearing into the shadows below.

Kai grunted in surprise. “You have my attention.”

Cinder shone the flashlight down into the hatch to see where she was heading before she grabbed the first rung and lowered herself down. Kai followed fast behind.

As soon as she heard his feet hit the ground, Cinder said, “Lights on.”

A generator started to hum, and overhead lights flickered to life, brightening the space that was as large as the hangar above, but intended for a much different purpose. Cinder swallowed as she looked around. Nothing had changed since she and Thorne had discovered this place two years before. She wondered if Scarlet had ever come down here to see the room her grandmother had kept a secret for so long—if she was curious, or willing to let it lie abandoned and forgotten for eternity.

There was the suspended animation tank where she had rested for most of her childhood.

There was the operating table where she had been transformed into a cyborg.

There were the machines that had kept her alive and stimulated her brain and monitored her vital signs, all while she went on sleeping her dreamless sleep.

The silence that engulfed her and Kai was as thick as the metallic-scented air of the secret room until Kai brushed past her and went to stand beside the empty tank. A blue gel in its base still showed the faint imprint of a child’s body.

“This is where she kept you,” he murmured.

Cinder licked her lips and glanced around. Part of her thought of the room as a sanctuary—the one place in the world that could have kept her safe for so long. But another part of her couldn’t help picturing it as a dungeon. “I was down here for eight years.”

“Do you remember any of it?”

“No, I was unconscious until the very end. I do have one faint memory of climbing up that ladder and leaving the hangar. It’s pretty hazy, though. If Thorne and I had never come here, I would have always thought it was a dream.”

Leaving the tank, Kai paced around the room, taking in the tools made for attaching cyborg prostheses and integrating complicated wiring into the human nervous system. The bright lights, now turned off, that hovered like octopus tentacles over the operating table. He scanned the netscreens on the wall, but didn’t try to turn them on. After making a complete circle around the room, he paused and said, “Imagine how proud she would be.”

“Michelle Benoit?”

He nodded. “She’d be so proud of Scarlet, and of you. I can only begin to imagine the sacrifices she made to keep you safe, and all so one day you could face Levana and end her tyranny. You not only succeeded, but you signed the Treaty of Bremen and dissolved the Lunar monarchy. You’ve changed the course of history in ways that I’m sure she never could have predicted, and now…” His mouth quirked to one side as he glanced up in the direction of the farmhouse. “… Now her granddaughter is married to a Lunar. Openly.
Happily.
When just a few years ago, that wouldn’t have been possible.” His smile turned to melancholy. “I’m sorry I never got to meet her.”

“Me too,” said Cinder.

Lacing their fingers together, Kai lifted the back of her hand to his mouth. “Was there any reason in particular you wanted to show me this?”

“I’m not sure. I figured you know all about my biological family and the world I was born into, and you’ve of course had the great pleasure of meeting my adoptive family on numerous occasions, so this was the last piece of the puzzle.” She waved her free arm around the room. “The missing link to my past.”

Kai looked around one more time. “It’s pretty creepy, actually.”

“I know.”

After another moment of reverent silence, Kai said, “I’m surprised Thorne hasn’t asked if he can start leading guided tours down here. I bet you could charge a hefty admission fee.”

Cinder snorted. “Please don’t plant that idea in his head.”

“Scarlet would never allow it anyway. Come on.” He started heading back toward the ladder. “It’s my turn to show you something.”

They could still hear music spilling out from the farmhouse, but Kai passed by it and headed into the fields that surrounded them. They hadn’t gone far before the mud from recent sprinklers sucked at their feet. They walked for a long time, stepping over the rows of sugar beets, letting the moonlight guide them. After a while the sound of music disappeared in the distance, and another sound took its place—the melodic burble of a small creek.

At the end of the field, the land dipped down into a narrow ravine that the creek had carved over time. There were a few trees scattered along its banks, the roots sometimes emerging from the tiny cliff side before plunging down into the soft silt. Kai found a grassy spot where they could watch the subtle glint of moonlight off the foaming water, and they sat beside each other. His arm wound its way around Cinder’s waist.

“All right, I give up,” said Cinder. “How did you know this was here?”

“Wolf mentioned it last night when he was showing us around the farm. The creek marks the end of their property. That side belongs to the neighbor.”

“It’s very nice,” she said somewhat haltingly, “but … why are you showing me a creek?”

“We’re not looking at the creek.” He pointed up. “We’re looking at the stars.”

She laughed and tilted her head back. The moon had begun to dip toward the horizon, three-quarters full and surrounded by swirls of stars that could never be seen from a metropolis like New Beijing.

“Also very nice,” she said. “But believe it or not, I’ve actually seen these stars before.”

“Well, aren’t you hard to impress,” he said wryly.

“Sorry. What I meant was, this is
breathtaking.
”

“Thank you. I thought it would be nice to look up at the night sky with you beside me for once, rather than just wishing you were beside me.”

Cinder felt a pang of guilt for being so flippant before, when the truth was …

“I do that too,” she said. “I’ll look out at the stars and pretend you’re with me, or wonder if you’re looking at the same constellations that I am, maybe at that same moment.” She nestled her body against his and smiled when Kai kissed the top of her head. It felt so natural. Like they’d done this every night for years, rather than having been separated for most of that time.

“I have a confession,” Kai mumbled into her hair.

She tilted her head to peer at him. “Careful. There could be paparazzi hiding behind these trees. Any confessions might end up on tomorrow’s newsfeeds.”

He pretended to consider this for a moment, eyes twinkling, before he said, “I could live with that.”

She sat up straighter so she could turn to look at him. “Out with it, then.”

“When I was figuring out what to say for the wedding, I kept thinking about you and me.”

Cinder jolted. “I knew it!”