“I don’t know. Soon, I hope. And, Ém? Please don’t let Gilles put up a plaque about me.”
The waitress shrugged. “I make no promises, Scarling. You are our little hero.”
Scarlet clicked off the portscreen and tossed it onto the bed. Sighing, she glanced out the window. Below, she could see the destruction of the courtyard and hundreds of people trying to put it back together.
Artemisia was beautiful in its own way, but Scarlet was ready for fresh air and home-cooked food. She was ready to go home.
A knock sounded at the door and it opened, just a bit at first, Wolf hesitant on the other side. Scarlet smiled and he dared to come in, shutting the door behind him. He was holding a bouquet of blue daisies and looking immensely guilty.
“I was eavesdropping,” he confessed, hunching his shoulders beside his ears.
She smirked, teasingly. “What’s the point of superhuman hearing if you don’t eavesdrop once in a while? Come in. I didn’t expect you back so soon.”
Wolf took another step and paused. He had a slight limp from the bullet that had hit his side, but it was healing fast. That was one thing to be said for the alterations—Wolf had certainly been made to be tough.
On the outside, at least.
He frowned at the flowers, his ferocious teeth digging into his lower lip.
He’d left to go back to the house that morning—his childhood home. Though his mother’s body had already been taken out to one of the great graveyards in the wasteland of Luna, it had been important to him that he see the house one last time. To see if there was anything worth saving there, anything to remember his parents by, or even his brother.
Scarlet had offered to go with him but he wanted to do it alone.
She understood. Some things had to be done alone.
“Did you … find anything?”
“No,” he said. “There was nothing I wanted. Everything from my childhood was gone, and … she didn’t have much, you know. Except these.”
He approached her, unable to hold eye contact, and handed her the bouquet of flowers. Over half of their delicate stems had been crushed or snapped in Wolf’s indelicate fists.
“When I was a kid, I used to pick wildflowers for my grand-mère. She would keep them in a jar until they started to wilt, then press them between parchment paper so they’d last forever. I bet she has an entire box full of dried flowers somewhere.” She trailed a finger around some of the soft petals. “That’s what we’ll do with these. In honor of Maha.” She arranged the flowers in a half-full water glass that had been brought with her breakfast.
When she turned back, Wolf had nudged aside the portscreen and lowered himself onto the edge of the enormous bed. Scarlet was pretty sure the linens had been made by slave labor, and the thought made her uncomfortable every time she crawled into them.
As soon as he was sitting, Wolf’s leg started bouncing with anxious energy. Scarlet squinted at it. This wasn’t mourning.
He was nervous.
“What is it?” she said, sinking beside him. She set her hand on his knee and it froze.
His bright eyes found her. “You told your friend we’re dating.”
Scarlet blinked, and a sudden laugh tickled her throat, but at Wolf’s distraught face she held it back. “It seemed easier than trying to explain the whole alpha mate system.”
He looked down at his fidgeting hands. “And … you told her you’ll be going back to the farm.”
“Of course I’m going back to the farm.” She cocked her head, starting to grow anxious herself. “I mean, not tomorrow, but once things have calmed down.”
Wolf’s opposite knee started to bounce instead.
“Wolf?”
“Do you still—” He scratched behind his ear. “Do you still want me to come back with you? Now that I’m … that I…” He sucked in a quick breath. “Do you still want me?”
Wolf seemed like he was in pain. Actual pain. Her heart softened.
“Wol—” She paused and swallowed. “Ze’ev.”
His eyes snapped to her, surprised. The portscreen chimed, but Scarlet ignored the comm. She shifted on the bed so she could face him and tucked one foot beneath his thigh. She said firmly, “I still want you.”
His jogging leg slowly stilled. “It’s just … I know I’m not what you had in mind.”
“Is that so? Because I was envisioning a big strapping fellow who can chop firewood and master the post-hole digger, and you certainly fit that description. I mean, my grandma and I got along just fine, but honestly … I’m looking forward to having the help.”
“Scarlet—”
“Ze’ev.” She tilted his face toward her. She didn’t flinch when she looked at him. Not at his enormous teeth or his monstrous hands. Not at the inhuman slope to his shoulders or the way his jaw protruded from his cheekbones. It was all superficial. They hadn’t changed him. “You’re the only one, Ze’ev Kesley. You’ll always be the only one.”
His eyebrows rose in recognition of the words he’d once said to her.
“I’m not going to say it won’t take some getting used to. And it might be a while before we can convince the neighbor kids not to be terrified of you.” She smoothed down a lock of his hair. It popped right back up. “But we’ll figure it out.”
His body sagged. “I love you,” he whispered.
Scarlet slipped her hands through his crazy hair. “Really? I couldn’t tell.”
The portscreen chimed again. Scowling, she reached over and silenced it, then leaned into Wolf, nudging his nose with hers. Wolf hesitated for only a moment before kissing her. Scarlet sank against him. It was as tender a kiss as any half-man, half-wolf mutant had ever given.
When he pulled away, though, he was frowning. “Do you really think the neighbor kids will be afraid of me?”
“Definitely,” she said. “But I have a feeling you’ll win them over in the end.”
His eyes crinkled. “I’ll do my best.” Then his smile turned wicked. His hand gathered the material at the small of Scarlet’s back and he fell back on the bed, pulling her down beside him.
“Scarlet! Scar—oh.”
They both froze. Groaning, Scarlet pushed herself up onto her elbows. Iko was half inside her suite, gripping the door handle. Her android body was covered in bandages, which were purely aesthetic, but there weren’t a whole lot of android supply shops on Luna and she’d told Scarlet she was sick of everyone staring at her.
“Sorry! I should have knocked. But you weren’t answering your comms and—” Iko beamed, with more happiness than a person who ran on wires and power cells should have possessed. “Cinder’s awake!”
Ninety-Two
DIAGNOSTICS CHECK COMPLETE. ALL SYSTEMS STABILIZED. REBOOTING IN 3 … 2 … 1 …
Cinder’s eyes sprang open, met with a white ceiling and blinding lights. She jerked upward and hissed at the shock of pain in her chest.
The woman who had been hunkered over Cinder’s hand cried out and fell off her rolling stool, landing hard on the ground. Metal fuse pullers clattered beside her.
Kai jumped up from a chair in the room’s corner and rushed to Cinder’s side, pushing his messy hair out of his eyes. “It’s all right,” he said, supporting Cinder as she pressed both hands against her chest. She could feel a lump of bandaging there, on top of the ache.
She pried her startled attention off the woman—a stranger—and turned to Kai.
Blinked. Noticed first how handsome he looked, and second how exhausted.
A spurt of data began to scroll against her vision in sterile green text.
EMPEROR KAITO OF THE EASTERN COMMONWEALTH
ID #0082719057
BORN 7 APR 108 T.E.
FF 107,448 MEDIA HITS, REVERSE CHRON
POSTED 13 NOV T.E.: IN A STATEMENT RELEASED THIS MORNING, EMPEROR KAITO INFORMED THE PRESS THAT HE HAS DELAYED HIS RETURN TO EARTH FOR AN INDETERMINATE AMOUNT OF TIME, STATING THAT HIS PRESENCE IS NECESSARY AT THIS TIME TO OVERSEE THE RECONST
RUCTION OF THE LUNAR CAPITAL—
Cinder squeezed her eyes shut and willed the text to descend out of her vision. She waited for her heart rate to calm before opening her eyes again.
Her lap was draped with a white linen blanket so thin she could see a groove in the fabric where the flesh of her left thigh met the top of her prosthetic leg. Her left hand was splayed out, palm up, on top of the blanket. The palm chamber was open, revealing a multitude of disconnected wires inside.
“What are you doing to my hand?” she croaked.
The woman climbed to her feet and straightened her white lab coat. “Fixing it.”
“Here, drink this.” Kai held out a glass of water. Cinder stared at it for longer than she should have, her brain working through mud, before she took it from him. “This is Dr. Nandez,” Kai said, watching her drink. “She’s one of Earth’s best cybernetic surgeons. I had her flown up yesterday to … to look at you.” His lips tightened, as if he wasn’t sure if he’d overstepped some boundary between them.
Handing the glass back to Kai, Cinder studied the doctor, who stood with her arms crossed, tapping the fuse pullers against her forearm. Cinder reached for the back of her head, where her panel was shut tight.
“I’m not dead?”
“You almost were,” said Kai. “The knife penetrated one of your prosthetic heart chambers, which drove your body into survival mode. That chamber shut down while the rest of your heart was able to keep functioning … more or less.” Kai glanced at the doctor. “Did I get that right?”
“Close enough,” said Dr. Nandez with a weak smile.
Cinder’s heart throbbed with every breath. “My retina display is functioning again.”
The doctor nodded. “You were in need of a new processing unit—the one you were installed with wasn’t designed for full underwater submersion. You were lucky it went into preservation mode, otherwise you wouldn’t have had any function over your hand or leg either.”
“I didn’t, for a while.” Cinder tried to move her cybernetic fingers, but they sat unmoving on the bedspread. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Your reaction was warranted.” Dr. Nandez gestured at Cinder’s hand. “May I?”
An awkwardness started to creep up Cinder’s spine—her palm open and vulnerable, right in front of Kai.
But then she felt silly and vain, so she nodded.
Dr. Nandez wheeled herself back to Cinder’s side and set a portscreen on the bed. A holograph flickered in the air above the screen—an exact replica of Cinder’s hand and internal wiring. The doctor adjusted the image and bent over Cinder’s hand again.
“You should lie back down,” Kai said. “You were stabbed, you know.”
“I remember.” Grimacing, she pressed her hand harder against her wound. The pressure eased some of the throbbing.
“Forty-two stitches, and something tells me you may have just pulled some of them out. Here, lie down.”
She allowed Kai to guide her back onto the pillows. She sank into the soft, crisp bedding with a sigh, though the doctor’s surgical light was once again blinding her and Kai had taken on a supernatural glow.
“Levana’s dead?” she murmured.
“Levana’s dead.”
With that confirmation, and the stark memory of a gunshot and a splatter of blood burned into her mind, she opened her brain to all the other questions. They tumbled like a waterfall into her thoughts. Cress, Thorne, Scarlet, Wolf, Winter, Jacin, Iko—
“Everyone’s alive,” Kai said as if her thoughts were written in plain green text on her irises. “But Cress is … her vitals are stable, and they’re hopeful for a recovery, but she hasn’t come out of suspension yet. Scarlet had a mild concussion, but she’s all right. Thorne lost two fingers, but he’s a prime candidate for prostheses if he wants them. Wolf is … well, they can’t undo the bioengineering without risking serious damage, but he’s alive and seems, you know, like Wolf. Jacin suffered some injuries, but nothing life threatening, and Princess Winter…” His gaze dropped.
Cinder felt a jolt in her wrist, and her thumb twitched uncontrollably for a moment before there was another zing and it stopped.
“She’s been inconsolable since the revolt. They’ve had to keep her restrained. And a lot of people died, on both sides, but … it worked. The outer sectors responded in droves, far too many for the thaumaturges to control at once. People were still coming in from the outer sectors for hours after the fighting was over.”
Another zap of electricity, then the snap of a metal latch. “Give that a try,” said Dr. Nandez, turning off the holograph.
Cinder lifted her hand. It had been polished to a sparkling finish and she could see echoes of her dark hair in the surface. She curled her fingers one at a time, then rolled her wrist back and forth. Spreading her fingers, she tested the functionality of the tools inside them—all except the gun, which she hoped to never fire again.
Resealing her fingertips, she peered at the doctor. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” said Dr. Nandez, standing. “I’ll be back to check on you in a few hours.”
As soon as she left, Cinder felt the air change. A sudden tension, a sudden stillness.
She licked her parched lips. “Are you the king of Luna now?”
Kai looked surprised at the question. “No. As Levana was never the true queen, she didn’t have the legal power to appoint anyone as king consort. I am technically a widower, but I think I can get that little mishap annulled.”
“‘Little mishap’?” For something she had risked her life to prevent multiple times, Cinder wasn’t sure she could consider Kai’s marriage a “little mishap.”
“A temporary mistake,” he said, shoving away the surgeon’s light so it was no longer blinding Cinder. “With all that was going on, we never even had time to consummate.”
Cinder coughed. “Unnecessary information.”
“Really? You weren’t curious?”
“I’d been trying not to think about it.”
“Well—think no more. I’m still thanking all the stars, one by one.”
Cinder would have laughed, except it hurt too much.
Pacing around the bed, Kai claimed the doctor’s stool. The wheels clacked on the floor as he pulled himself so close his knees pressed against the bed frame. “What else do you need to know before I let you get some rest?”
She ran her tongue against the roof of her mouth, wishing she would have drank more water. “Am I … do they think I’m…?”
“The queen?”
She nodded.
“Yes, Cinder. You’re the queen of Luna.” The words were unrelenting. So unapologetic. “They ran your DNA while you were unconscious and you’re definitely Selene. According to Lunar law, that means you were the princess regent until your thirteenth birthday, at which time you became the queen of Luna. Levana was the impostor. They’re calling you ‘the lost queen.’ They’ve been celebrating your return since the night of the battle. Of course, they will want to have a ceremony eventually—more for tradition than anything else.”
Cinder bit her lip, thinking of the years she’d spent under Adri’s care. A mechanic, a servant, a piece of property. All that time she’d been royalty, and she had no idea.
“Even the thaumaturges, the ones who are still alive, say their loyalty is to the Lunar throne and whoever sits on it. At least, that’s what they’re saying now. We’ll see how they feel once things start to change around here.” Kai scratched behind his ear. “The army is being problematic. We’re recalling all those who were sent to Earth, but some of the soldiers are … well, not convinced the war is over. Some have gone rogue on Earth and the Earthen militaries are doing their best to track them down, but we’re hoping to—”
She reached for his hands, silencing him.
She was still working through the fact that she was the queen.
She was the queen of Luna.
She reminded herself that this was what she wanted. This responsibil
ity, this duty, this right was what she’d been fighting for all along. The chance to rid the world of Levana and change the country she’d been born to. To change it for the better.
Kai’s fingers covered hers. Only then did she realize she’d grabbed him with her cyborg hand.
“I’m sorry,” said Kai. “You don’t need to worry about all that right now. Torin and I are taking care of everything. Making sure the injured are taken care of, getting the city cleaned up … oh, and the antidote. We’re preparing some big shipments for Earth, and the technicians have been working to produce more batches. We’ve already sent more than a thousand doses home with the diplomats and they say we’ll have triple that amount ready to go out tomorrow evening, although…” He hesitated, a shadow crossing his face. “The antidote is produced using shell blood, and there’s a whole complicated mess of laws surrounding the shells, and the antidote, and I didn’t feel comfortable doing anything without you. That’s something we’re going to have to deal with, when you’re ready.” He trailed off, though Cinder could see the struggle warring in his eyes. The relief of having the antidote at his disposal, coupled with the horrible things Levana had been doing to obtain it.
She tried to smile, but she knew how drained she must look. “Thank you, Kai.”
He shifted his head, chunks of hair falling across his brow. “I’m sorry. I should let you sleep. It’s just … it’s really good to see you awake. To talk to you about all this.”
“How long was I out?”
“Almost three days.”
She turned her eyes toward the ceiling. “Three days. What a luxury.”
“A much deserved one.” Kai lifted her hand and pressed his lips against her knuckles. “Take your time recovering. The hard part is over.”
“Is it?”
He hesitated. “Well. The dangerous part is over.”
“Can you do something for me?”
Kai frowned, like he didn’t want to encourage any crazy ideas, but the moment was brief. “Anything.”
“Have all the Earthen leaders gone back to Earth?”
“No. We were able to sneak all the Earthens out of Artemisia during the fighting, once we got the ports open, but most of them came back after they learned you succeeded. I think they’re all waiting to meet you.”
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