They were the only ones dancing.
Kai must have noticed it too, for he floated his hand briefly away from her waist, gesturing to the gawking crowd, and said in a tone that was part encouragement, part command, “Please, you are my guests. Enjoy the music.”
Awkwardly, those nearby traded glances with their own partners, and soon the floor was filling with bustled skirts and coattails. Cinder risked glancing toward where they had abandoned Adri and Pearl—they were both standing still amid the shuffling crowd, watching as Kai expertly guided Cinder farther and farther away from them.
Clearing his throat, Kai murmured, “You have no idea how to dance, do you?”
Cinder fixed her gaze on him, mind still reeling. “I’m a mechanic.”
His eyebrows raised mockingly. “Believe me, I noticed. Are those grease stains on the gloves I gave you?”
Mortified, she glanced at their intertwined fingers and the black smudges on the white silk gloves. Before she could apologize, she felt herself being gently pushed away and spun beneath his arm. She gasped, for a moment feeling light as a butterfly, before she stumbled on her undersized cyborg foot and fell back into his embrace.
Kai grinned, coaxing her back to arm’s length, but he didn’t tease her. “So. That’s your stepmother.”
“Legal guardian.”
“Right, my mistake. She seems like a real treasure.”
Cinder scoffed and her body started to ease. Without sensation in her foot, it felt like trying to dance with a ball of iron soldered to her ankle. Her leg was beginning to ache from carrying it, but she resisted the urge to limp, picturing ever-graceful Pearl in her ball gown and heels, and wished her body into conformity.
At least her body seemed to be memorizing the pattern of the dance steps, making each movement slightly more fluid than the last, until she almost felt as if she knew what she were doing. Of course, the tender pressure of Kai’s hand on her waist didn’t hurt.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “About her, and my stepsister. Can you believe they think I’m the embarrassment?” She made it sound like a joke, but she couldn’t help analyzing his response, bracing for that moment when he asked her if it were true.
If she really were cyborg.
Then, as his smile started to crumble, she realized the moment had come far too soon, and she desperately wished she could take the comment back. She wished they could go on pretending forever that her secret was still safe. That he still did not know.
That he still wanted her to be his personal guest.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kai said, his voice lowering even though the noise of laughter and tapping heels had filled the air around them.
Cinder opened her mouth, but her words snagged in her throat. She wanted to refute Pearl’s claim, to call her a liar. But what would that get her? More lies. More betrayal. The fingers of her metal hand tightened on his shoulder, the hard, unforgiving confines of the limb. He didn’t flinch, just waited.
She wanted to feel relief now that they had no more secrets. But that wasn’t entirely true either. He still didn’t know she was Lunar.
She opened her mouth again, unsure what she was going to say until the faint words came to her. “I didn’t know how.”
Kai’s eyes softened, little wrinkles forming in their corners.
“I would have understood,” he said.
Almost imperceptibly, he inched closer, and Cinder found her elbow crawling up his shoulder in a way that felt impossibly natural. Still, he did not back away. Did not shudder or tense.
He knew, but he wasn’t disgusted? He would still touch her? Somehow, unbelievably, he still even, maybe, liked her?
She felt she would have cried if it had been an option.
Her fingertips tentatively curled around the hair at the back of his neck, and she found that she was shaking, sure he would push her away at any moment. But he didn’t. He did not pull away. Did not grimace.
His lips parted, just barely, and Cinder wondered if maybe she wasn’t the only one having trouble breathing.
“It’s just,” she started, running her tongue across her lips, “it isn’t something I like to talk about. I haven’t told anyone who…who…”
“Who didn’t know her?”
Cinder’s words evaporated. Her?
Fingers stiffening, she eased them out of his hair and settled her palm back on his shoulder.
The intensity in his gaze melted into sympathy. “I understand why you didn’t say anything. But now I feel so selfish.” His jaw flexed, his brow turned up with guilt. “I know, I should have guessed after you told me she was sick to begin with, but with the coronation and Queen Levana’s visit and the ball, I just…I guess I forgot. I know that makes me the biggest jerk in the world, and I should have realized that your sister had…and why you were ignoring my comms. It makes sense now.” He drew her closer, until she could almost lay her head on his shoulder, but she didn’t. Her body had gone rigid again, the dance steps forgotten. “I just wish you would have told me.”
Her gaze shifted over his shoulder, focusing on nothing. “I know,” she murmured. “I should have told you.”
She felt as though all her synthetic parts were squeezing together, crushing her inside.
Kai didn’t know.
And yet to have felt the comforting presence of acceptance, only to be confined by secrecy again, was even more unbearable than lying to him to begin with.
“Kai,” she said, shaking herself from the misery that threatened her. She pushed back to arm’s length, returning them to the acceptable distance of strangers—or of a mechanic dancing with her emperor. For the first time, Kai missed a dance step, eyes blinking in surprise. She ignored the guilt scratching at her throat.
“I came here to tell you something. It’s important.” She glanced around, ensuring that no one could hear them. Though she caught a few jealous scowls targeting her, no one was close enough to hear over the music, and the Lunar queen was nowhere to be seen. “Listen. You can’t marry Levana. No matter what she wants, no matter what she threatens.”
Kai flushed at the queen’s name. “What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t just want the Commonwealth. She’s going to start a war with Earth either way. It’s just that being empress here will pave the way for her.”
It was his turn to look around, simultaneously molding his look of panic into cool indifference, though up close, Cinder could see the worry in his eyes.
“And there’s more. She does know about Nainsi…about what Nainsi found out. She knows you were trying to find Princess Selene, and she’s taken the information you found and is hunting her down now. She has people out looking for her…if they haven’t found her already.”
Eyes widening, Kai looked back at her.
“And you know,” she continued, not allowing him to interrupt, “you know that she won’t forgive you for trying to find the princess.” She gulped. “Kai, as soon as you marry her, and she has what she wants…she’s going to kill you.”
The color drained from his face. “How do you know all this?”
She took in a deep breath, somehow exhausted from getting all the information out, as if she’d only reserved enough energy to bring her to this moment. “The D-COMM chip I found in Nainsi. There was this girl, its programmer…ugh. It’s complicated.” She hesitated, thinking she should give the chip to Kai while she had the chance. He may be able to get more information out of the girl, except in her hurry to leave for the ball, she’d stashed it in her calf compartment. Her gut sank. To retrieve it now would be to reveal herself to Kai and everyone around her.
She gulped, shoving aside the rising distress. Was saving her own pride more important to her?
“Is there somewhere we can go?” she asked. “Away from the crowd? I’ll tell you everything.”
He glanced around. In their dancing, they had traveled almost the entire length of the ballroom, and now they stood before a set of massive door
s that opened out onto the royal gardens. Beyond the steps, a willow tree was weeping from the heavy rain, a coy pond nearly overflowing. The pummeling of the storm came in waves, almost drowning out the noise of the orchestra.
“The gardens?” he said, but before he could move, a shadow fell across them. Glancing up, Cinder saw the unhappy expression of a royal official, looking at Kai with lips so tight they’d started to go white. He did not acknowledge Cinder.
“Your Majesty,” he said, his face drawn. “It is time.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
CINDER LOOKED UP AT THE MAN, HER LINK TO THE NET database informing her that he was Konn Torin, royal adviser. “Time?” she said, turning back to Kai. “Time for what?”
Kai stared at her, part apologetic, part afraid. Her gut twisted.
Time to seal the fate of the Eastern Commonwealth.
“No,” she hissed. “Kai, you can’t—”
“Your Majesty,” said Konn Torin, still without deigning to meet Cinder’s eye. “I have allowed you your freedom, but it is time to put an end to this. You are embarrasing yourself.”
Kai let his gaze fall, before shutting his eyes altogether. He rubbed at his brow. “Just a moment. I need a moment to think.”
“We do not have a moment. We have been over this time and again—”
“There’s new information,” Kai said, his tone harsh. Konn Torin’s face darkened, and he cast a suspicious glare at Cinder. She shivered at the disapproving frown—for once, this was hatred directed at her not because she was a cyborg, but because she was a normal girl, unworthy of the attention of the emperor.
For once, she couldn’t disagree.
If the understanding showed on her face, the adviser ignored it. “Your Majesty. With all due respect, you no longer have the luxury of being a lovesick teenager. You have a duty to fulfill to your people now.”
Dropping his hand, Kai met Konn Torin’s gaze, his eyes hollow. “I know,” he said. “I will do what is best for them.”
Cinder gathered up the material of her skirt in both hands, hope stirring inside of her. He understood her warnings. He understood the mistake he would be making if he agreed to marry Levana. She had succeeded.
But then he turned toward her, and the hope shattered at seeing the helplessness etched in deep lines across his brow.
“Thank you for warning me, Cinder. At least I won’t be going into this blindly.”
She shook her head. “Kai. You can’t.”
“I don’t have a choice. She has an army that could destroy us. An antidote that we need…. I have to take my chances.”
Cinder stumbled back as if his words had landed the blow that he had protected her from before. He was going to marry Queen Levana.
Queen Levana would be empress.
“I’m sorry, Cinder.”
He looked as crushed as Cinder felt, and yet while her body became heavy and immoveable, Kai somehow found the strength to turn away with head lifted and start walking toward the platform at the far end of the ballroom, where he would announce his decision to those who had gathered.
She searched her brain for anything she could do to change his mind. But what else was there?
He knew Levana would still start a war. He knew Levana would probably try to kill him after the wedding. He probably knew about more cruel and evil deeds she’d committed than Cinder did, and none of it made a difference. Somehow, he was still naive enough to think that more good than bad could come from the union. He would not stop it from happening.
The only other person who had the power to stop the marriage alliance was the queen herself.
A fist clenched over Cinder’s heart.
Before she knew what she was doing, she was storming after Kai. She grabbed his elbow and spun him back around to face her.
Without hesitating, Cinder wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Kai froze, his body as tense as an android’s against her, but his lips were soft and warm. Though Cinder had intended for it to be a short kiss, she found herself lingering. Hot tingles coursed through her body, surprising and scary but not unpleasant, surging like electricity through her wires. This time, they did not overwhelm her. This time, they did not threaten to burn her from the inside out.
The desperation melted and, for the briefest of moments, the ulterior motives were gone. She found herself kissing him for no other reason than she wanted to. She wanted him to know that she wanted to.
She didn’t realize how badly she wanted Kai to kiss her back until it became quite clear that he wouldn’t.
Cinder pried herself away. Her hands lingered on his shoulders, still shaking from the raw energy inside her.
Kai gaped at her, lips left hanging open, and though Cinder’s gut reaction was to back away and apologize profusely, she swallowed it down.
“Perhaps,” she said, testing her voice before raising it loud enough that she was sure the crowd would hear her. “Perhaps the queen will not accept your proposal, once she finds out you’re already in love with me!”
Kai’s eyebrows rose higher. “Wha—?”
Beside him, the adviser took in a hissing breath, and a series of gasps and rustles passed through the crowd. It occurred to Cinder that the music had stopped again as the musicians stood and tried to get a look at what was happening.
A burst of jovial, tittering laughter split through the awkwardness. The sound, though filled with the sweetness of a child’s giggle, sent a chill down Cinder’s spine.
Pulling her hands away from Kai’s neck, she slowly turned. The crowd followed the noise as well, swiveling in unison like puppets on strings.
And there was Queen Levana.
She was leaning against one of the columns that flanked the doorway to the gardens, holding a goblet of gold wine in one hand and pressing the fingers of the other against her smiling red lips. Her figure was perfection. Her posture could not have been more poised had she been carved from the same stone as the pillar. She wore a royal blue dress that shimmered with what were probably diamonds yet gave the very distinct impression of stars in an endless summer sky.
The orange light blinked beside Cinder’s vision. The queen’s glamour, the endless lie.
In addition to the queen, a Lunar guard stood just within the doorway, stark red hair swept up from his brow like a candle flame. A man and woman dressed in the distinctive uniforms of royal thaumaturges also lingered nearby, awaiting their mistress’s order. Every one of them was strikingly beautiful and, unlike their queen, their beauty didn’t seem to be an illusion. Cinder wondered if that was a requirement for serving the Lunar throne—or if she just happened to be the only Lunar in the galaxy who hadn’t been born with brilliant eyes and flawless skin.
“How charmingly naive,” said the queen, followed by another spill of laughter. “You must misunderstand my culture. On Luna, we consider monogamy to be nothing more than archaic sentimentality. What do I care if my husband-to-be is in love with another…”—she paused, her dark eyes sweeping over Cinder’s dress—“woman?”
Terror wrapped around Cinder’s throat as the queen’s eyes seemed to pierce right through her. The queen knew she was Lunar. She could tell.
“What does concern me,” continued Queen Levana, her voice a sweet lullaby that sharpened with her next words, “is that it appears my betrothed has fallen in love with an insignificant shell. Am I mistaken?”
The thaumaturges nodded in agreement, their eyes fixed on Cinder. “She certainly has the smell of one,” said the woman.
Cinder wrinkled her nose. According to Dr. Erland, she wasn’t actually a shell, and she wondered if the woman was making that insult up to mock her. Or maybe she was smelling the gasoline fumes from the car.
Suddenly, her netlink recognized the woman, and Cinder forgot about the affront. She was the diplomat who had been in New Beijing for weeks, whose picture had been all over the news feeds, though she’d never paid her much attention.
Sybil Mira,
head thaumaturge to the Lunar queen.
Mistress Sybil, the girl had said over the D-COMM chip. This was the woman who had forced her to make the spy equipment, who had put the chip in Nainsi.
Cinder tried to relax, surprised that her control panel hadn’t short-circuited with all the adrenaline coursing through her veins. What she wouldn’t have given for a weapon, even a measly screwdriver to protect herself with—anything other than this useless foot and slight silk gloves.
Kai abandoned Cinder, marching toward the queen. “Your Majesty, I apologize for this disruption,” he said, Cinder only catching his words as she adjusted her audio interface. “But we need not make a scene in front of my guests.”
The queen’s charcoal eyes flashed with the warm ballroom light. “It seems you’re perfectly capable of making a scene without my help.” Her smile turned to a playful pout. “Oh, dear, it seems that I’m more hurt than I thought I was by your fickleness. I believed I was to be your personal guest tonight.” Again, her eyes caressed Cinder’s face. “You can’t think her prettier than me.” She reached out a fingernail and traced it along Kai’s jaw. “My dear, are you blushing?”
Kai slapped Levana’s hand away, but before he could respond, she turned toward Cinder and her expression filled with disgust. “What is your name, child?”
Cinder downed a painful gulp, barely forcing her name from her throat. “Cinder.”
“Cinder.” A condescending laugh. “How fitting. Ashes. Dirt. Filth.”
“That’s enough—” started Kai, but Levana breezed past him, the sparkling dress swaying over her hips. She held her wine glass aloft, as if prepared to compliment the prince on such a pleasant dinner party.
“Tell me, Cinder,” she said, “what poor sapling Earthen did you steal that name from?”
Cinder’s hand went to her wrist and gripped the silk glove and flesh that concealed her ID chip, barely sore from the small incision she’d made earlier. A weight settled in the pit of her stomach.
The queen sniffed. “You shells,” she said, her voice rising for the crowd. “You think you’re so clever. So you stole a chip from a dead Earthen’s wrist. So you managed to slip into the government’s system. So you think you pass as human, that you can exist here without any repercussions. You are fools.”
Cinder: Book One in the Lunar Chronicles Page 26