Winter (47 page)

“Oh, you want to argue
later
? Would that be before or after you’ve killed an innocent Earthen?”

Levana shrugged. “That remains to be seen.”

Kai sneered. “You can’t—” He abruptly cut off, forced to hold his tongue.

“You will soon learn, dear, that I do not like to be told that I
can’t.
” Levana shifted her attention on Adri again. “Linh Adri, you have heard the charges against you. How do you plead?”

Adri stammered, “I-I’m innocent. I swear I would never … I didn’t know … I…”

Levana sighed. “I want to believe you.”

“
Please
,” Adri begged.

Levana ate another prawn. Swallowed. Licked her bloodred lips. “I am prepared to offer you clemency.”

A rustle of curiosity spread through the crowd.

“This decision is contingent on your disowning all legal interest to the orphan child, Linh Cinder, and swearing fealty to me, the rightful queen of Luna and the future empress of the Eastern Commonwealth.”

Adri’s head was already bobbing. “Yes. Yes, I do. Gladly, Your Grace. Your Majesty.”

Cinder glared at the back of Adri’s head. Not because her decision was any big surprise, but because she couldn’t imagine it was going to be this easy. Levana was planning something and Adri was falling right into her hands.

“Good. All charges are absolved. You may pay your respects to your sovereign.” Levana held out a hand, and Adri, after a moment’s hesitation, scurried forward on her knees and placed a grateful kiss on the queen’s fingers. She started sobbing again.

“Does the child not show any gratitude?” said Levana.

Pearl squeaked, but slowly shuffled forward and kissed Levana’s hands.

A woman in the front row, her mouth full, clapped politely.

Levana nodded and two guards stepped forward to drag Adri and Pearl to the side of the room.

Cinder had already put thoughts of her stepmother aside, bracing herself, when Levana’s attention landed on her. She made no attempts to withhold her delight as she said, “Let us continue with our second trial.”

Fifty-One

Cinder lumbered to the spot where Adri had been groveling moments ago. She planted her feet and readied herself with an exhale that was meant to be steadying, though it was impossible to ignore the fluttering of her pulse or the list of thirty different hormones her retina display told her were flooding her system. Her brain was acutely aware of her fear.

Two guards flanked her on either side.

“Our second prisoner, Linh Cinder,” said Aimery, pacing in front of her, “has been charged with the following crimes: unlawful emigration to Earth, rebelliousness, assisting a traitor to the crown, conspiring against the crown, kidnapping, meddling in intergalactic affairs, obstruction of justice, theft, evading arrest, and royal treason. The punishment for these crimes is immediate death by her own—”

“No,” said Queen Levana, smiling. It was clear she’d thought a lot about this moment. “It has proven to be too difficult to manipulate her, so an exception is to be made. Her punishment shall be immediate death by … oh, what shall it be? Poison? Drowning?
Burning?
”

Her eyes narrowed with the last word and Cinder had a stark memory—a nightmare she’d dreamed a hundred times. A bed of red-hot coals charring her skin, her hand and leg crumbling into ash.

“Dismemberment!” a man yelled. “Starting with those horrendous appendages!”

His suggestion was met with a roar of approval from the crowd. Levana allowed the tittering for a moment before she raised a hand for silence. “A rather vile suggestion, for a rather vile girl. I’ll allow it.”

Cheers exploded through the room.

Kai leaped to his feet. “Are you
savages
?”

Levana ignored him. “Another idea comes to mind. Perhaps the honor of enacting this punishment should be none other than my newest, most loyal subject. I do believe she is quite eager to please.” Levana curled her fingers. “Linh Adri. Won’t you step forward again?”

Adri looked about ready to faint. She took two uncertain steps forward.

“Here is an opportunity to prove that you are loyal to me, your future empress, and that you despise your once-adopted daughter as much as she deserves.”

Adri gulped. She was sweating. “You … you want me to…”

“
Dismember
her, Mrs. Linh. I suppose you’ll need a weapon? What would you like? I’ll have it brought up. A hatchet perhaps, or an axe? A knife seems like it could get messy, but a nice sharp axe—”

“Stop this,” said Kai. “It’s revolting.”

Levana leaned back in her chair. “I am beginning to think you do not appreciate your wedding gift, my dear. You are free to leave if these proceedings unsettle you.”

“I won’t let you do this,” he hissed between his teeth, his face flushed.

Levana shrugged at Kai. “You can’t stop me. And you won’t stop the coronation. There is far too much at stake to risk it all for some girl … some
cyborg.
I know you’ll agree.”

Kai’s knuckles whitened and Cinder imagined him striking the queen, or attempting some equally stupid thing.

“
Wire cutters
,” she said, the tone of voice and the random declaration enough to draw everyone’s attention back to her. Kai’s brow furrowed, but only in that moment between confusion and when her manipulation hit. She felt for his energy, crackling and heated, and did her best to soothe it. “It’s all right,” she said, relieved to see his muscles relax.

He would probably be angry about this later.

Snarling, Levana shoved away the tray of appetizers and stood, knocking the servant onto his side. He scrambled away. “Stop manipulating my husband.”

Cinder laughed, her gaze slipping back to the queen. “Don’t be a hypocrite. You manipulate him all the time.”

“He is
mine.
My husband. My king.”

“Your prisoner? Your pet? Your trophy?” Cinder took a step forward, and a guard was there, a hand on her shoulder, holding her back, while another half-dozen guards jumped to attention. Cinder sniffed. It was nice to know she could make Levana jumpy, even with her hands bound. “It must be so rewarding to know that every relationship you have is based on a lie.”

Levana’s lip curled, and for a moment, a scrambled, inconsistent picture cascaded over Cinder’s retina display. Something was wrong with the left side of Levana’s face. One half-shut eyelid. Strange ridges along her cheek. Cinder blinked rapidly, wondering if Levana’s anger was causing her to lose control of the glamour, or if this was her own optobionics trying to make sense of the anomaly before them.

She flinched at the overload of visual data, trying to disguise her loss of focus.

The guards started to relax as their queen did.

“You are the lie,” said Levana, her voice level. “You are a fraud.”

Cinder’s attention was caught on the queen’s mouth, usually so perfect and crimson red. But something was off now. A weird downward curl to one side that didn’t fit the queen’s usual apathetic smile.

There was damage there beneath the glamour. Scarring of some sort. Maybe even paralysis.

Cinder stared, her pulse thundering through her head. An idea, a hope, began to build in the back of her thoughts.

“Believe me, I’ve been called worse,” she said, schooling her expression back into nonchalance, though she could tell it was too late. Levana had seen the change in her, or perhaps felt it. The queen was instantly guarded again, suspicious.

Levana could guard herself all she wanted. She could glamour everyone in this room—everyone in her kingdom.

But she couldn’t fool Cinder. Or, rather, she couldn’t fool Cinder’s internal computer.

She stopped fighting the onslaught of data being pieced together by her brain-machine interface. The glamour was a biological construct. Using a person’s natural bioelectricity to create tiny electric pulses in the brain, to change what they saw and thought and felt and did. But the cyborg part of Cinder’s brain couldn’t be influenced by bioelectricity. It was all machine, all data and programming and math and logic. When faced with a Lunar glamour or when a Lunar tried to manipulate her, the two parts of her brain went to war, trying to figure out which side should be dominant.

This time, she let the cyborg side win.

The chaotic jumble of information returned full force. Pieces scrambling to right themselves, like watching a puzzle made up of pixels and binary code work itself out in her head. Like bringing a camera into focus, every glamour in the room was replaced with truth. The purring snow-leopard shawl was nothing more than a faux-fur drape. The fishbowl shoes were nothing more than clear acrylic. Levana was indeed wearing an elaborate red gown, but there were places where it clung too tight or draped too loose, and the skin revealed on her left arm was …

Scar tissue. Not unlike Cinder’s skin around her prostheses.

As the world righted itself and the patchwork reality stopped scrambling and flipping and seaming together, Cinder commanded her brain to start recording.

“I am guilty of the crimes you listed,” she said. “Kidnapping and conspiracy and all the rest of it. But these are nothing compared to the crime you committed thirteen years ago. If there is anyone in this room who is guilty of royal treason, it is the woman sitting on that throne.” She fixed her eyes on Levana. “
My
throne.”

The crowd stirred and Levana smirked, feigning indifference though her hands were shaking, and the details of them were flicking between lithe, pale fingers, and a pinkie that was shriveled, and the constant changes were making it hard for Cinder to focus.

“You are nothing but a criminal,” said Levana, her voice writhing, “and you will be executed for your crimes.”

Cinder flexed her tongue, testing it, and raised her voice. “I am Princess Selene.”

Levana leaned forward. “You are an impostor!”

“And I am ready to claim what’s mine. People of Artemisia, this is your chance. Renounce Levana as your queen and swear fealty to me, or I swear that when I wear that crown, every person in this room will be punished for their betrayal.”

“That is
enough.
Kill her.”

At first, the guards did not move, and the brief hesitation was all the information Cinder needed. Levana, in her hysteria, had lost her mental grip on her protectors.

Before the thaumaturges could realize it had happened, Cinder slipped into their minds. Twelve royal guards. Twelve men who were, as Jacin had once told her, like brainless mannequins. Puppets for the queen to shuffle around as it pleased her. Twelve armed protectors, ready to obey her every whim.

Cinder’s retina display flared with information—her accelerated heart rate, the offset of bioelectrical manipulation, the adrenaline flooding her veins. Time slowed. Her brain synapses fired faster than she could recognize them, information being noted and translated and stored away before she could interpret it. Seven thaumaturges: two in black stood behind the queen, the four who had taken Cinder from her cell stood near the doors, and Aimery. The nearest guard stood 0.8 meters to her left. Six wolf soldiers: the nearest 3.1 meters away; the farthest, 6.4 meters. Forty-five Lunars in the audience. Kai and his adviser and five Earthen leaders along with seventeen additional representatives from the Union. Thirty-four servants kneeling like statues, trying to sneak glances at the girl who claimed to be their queen.

Twelve guards, with twelve guns and twelve knives, all belonging to her.

Threats were weighed, balanced, measured. Dangers turned into data, running through a mental calculator. The stiletto knife emerged from the tip of Cinder’s finger.

Every Earthen dived off their seats to take cover, including Kai. Only afterward did she realize she’d forced them to do it.

Then she used eleven of the twelve guards to open fire.

Eleven guns went off, all aiming at the six wolf mutants, while the guard closest to Cinder drew his knife and hacked through the binds around her wrists. In her hurry, she felt the blade clang against her metal palm.

Her hands burst free. Her body and mind were in harmony, just as Wolf had taught her. Her brain ticked down the list of threats.

The wolf soldiers lunged for the guards as another round of bullets exploded around them.

The nearest servant leaped to his feet and charged at Cinder, as if to tackle her.

Cinder grabbed him and shoved him toward a thaumaturge. They collided with a series of grunts, collapsing to the floor.

“
Kill her!
” Levana’s voice cracked.

More gunshots throbbed against Cinder’s eardrums. Bodies scrambled and chairs screeched and Cinder lost track of where the guards were and if any wolf soldiers had fallen and two aristocrats were running at her from either side and she urged the guards to focus on the thaumaturges, the thaumaturges,
now.
There was another volley of bullets and the aristocrats cried out and crumpled and tried to scurry out of the fray as soon as they were released.

A wolf soldier grabbed Cinder from behind. Pain ripped through her shoulder, his canine teeth tearing at her flesh. She screamed. Hot blood dripped down her arm. Lifting her cyborg hand, she stabbed wildly and the blade connected with flesh. The soldier released her with a roar and she spun, kicking him away.

Shaking from head to toe, she sought to reclaim the minds of the guards, but in that second of distraction the room had been emptied of the guards’ bioelectric waves. Ten of them were dead, ripped to shreds by the soldiers, who had turned on them with surprising ferocity, despite the bullet holes puncturing their chests and stomachs.

In the chaos, Cinder found Kai, who was staring at her, jaw hanging open.

She tore her eyes away and found the queen, still screaming and trying to cast around her orders, but the two remaining guards no longer belonged to her and the wolves did not care who they were attacking and the thaumaturges … dead. All dead. Cinder had killed them all. Except maybe Aimery, who she couldn’t find in the chaos. She wanted him, but she wanted someone else more.