A cocoon.
An encasement of ice.
A spaceship harness strangling her, the belt cutting into her flesh.
“Go!”
Winter clawed at the straps, struggling to get out. Those same strong arms tried to hold her still. Tried to secure her thrashing. She snapped her teeth, and the body shifted out of her reach. She was pulled away from the door, their bodies repositioned, so the arms could restrain her without being in danger themselves. She struggled harder. Kicked and writhed.
And screamed.
stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and
Her throat was hoarse.
Maybe she’d been screaming for a long time.
Maybe the sound was imprisoned inside this cocoon, trapped like she was. Maybe no one would ever hear her. Maybe she would scream until her throat bled and no one would ever know.
Her heart split in two. She was an animal. A killer and a predator.
The screams turned to howls.
Sad and broken howls.
Haunting and furious howls.
“Winter? Winter!”
The arms around her were unrelenting. She thought there might be a voice, familiar and kind, somewhere far in the distance. She thought there might be good intentions in that voice. She thought that if she could follow the sound, it would lead her to somewhere safe and calm, where she was no longer a murderer.
But she was already suffocating beneath the weight of her crimes.
Animal. Killer. Predator. And the wolves all howl, aa-ooooooooooh …
Eighty-Eight
Cinder checked the gun’s ammunition, counting the bullets while she ran. She was breathing hard, but she didn’t feel tired or even sore. Adrenaline was pumping hot through her veins and for once she was aware of it only because she could feel herself trembling with the surge of it, not because her brain interface was telling her so.
The sounds of battle were echoing in the palace, dim and far away. Many floors below. They were inside, she could tell. There would be a lot of casualties, she knew.
She felt like they might be winning. She could win.
But it would fall apart if she didn’t finish what she’d come to do. If she didn’t find a way to end Levana’s tyranny for good, the people would be back under her control by morning.
She took the stairs two at a time. Her hair prickled on the back of her neck as she arrived in the fourth floor corridor. She peered down the empty hall with its artwork and tapestries and shimmering white tiles, listening for any sound indicating an ambush.
Not that ambushes came with warning sounds.
Everything was eerie and haunted after the chaos of the courtyard.
It was no comfort to Cinder that she had reached the throne room without incident. It wasn’t like Levana to make things easy for her, which meant that either Levana was so distraught from the video she was no longer thinking straight, or—more likely—Cinder was walking into a trap.
She held the gun with one hand, the knife in the other, and tried to calm her stampeding heart. She did her best to come up with some sort of plan for when she reached the throne room, assuming Levana was in there, probably with an entire envoy of guards and thaumaturges.
If the guards weren’t already under someone’s control, she would steal them away and form a protective barrier around herself. The moment an opportunity presented itself, she would shoot Levana. No hesitation allowed.
Because Levana wouldn’t hesitate to kill her.
She found herself standing outside the throne room doors, the Lunar insignia carved across their surface. She gulped, wishing she could sense how many people were inside, but the room was too well sealed. Whatever lay beyond these doors was a mystery.
An ambush, common sense whispered to her. A trap.
Licking the salt from her lips, she braced herself and kicked one of the doors open, wedging inside before it could slam back on her. Her body was tense, braced for an impact, a punch, a bullet, anything other than the stillness that greeted her.
Only two people were in the room, making it feel infinitely larger than it had during the wedding feast. The audience chairs were still there, but many of them had been shoved against the walls or crushed in the destruction she had wreaked.
The throne, though, had not moved, and Levana was seated on it like before. Rather than looking smug and cruel as usual, she was slumped on the enormous throne with an air of defeat around her. She wore the colors of the Eastern Commonwealth flag in her gown, a mockery of everything Kai and his country stood for. Her glamour had returned. She had her face turned away from Cinder, hiding behind her wall of glossy hair, and Cinder could see only the tip of her nose and a hint of ruby lips.
The second person in the room was Thorne. Her heart sank, but was lifted by a slim hope. Perhaps it was only a Lunar glamoured to look like Thorne. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, not daring to go any farther into the room.
“Well, it’s about time,” said Thorne, his voice comfortingly sardonic. “You have no idea how awkward these last few minutes have been.”
Cinder’s heart squeezed, her hope fading. It was definitely Thorne and he was standing precariously close to the ledge of the throne room, the one Cinder had jumped from. His hands were behind his back, most likely bound. The glowing bow tie was gone and his purple suit reduced to just the dress shirt, now unbuttoned at the collar. There was a hole in the thigh of his pants and dried blood above his knee. A lump beneath the fabric suggested hasty bandaging.
Cinder reached for him with her thoughts, but Levana had already claimed him, holding his feet as tight-gripped as iron shackles.
Thorne’s gaze swooped down over Cinder’s bloodstained clothes and the weapon in each of her hands. One eyebrow tilted up. “Rough day?”
Cinder didn’t respond. She was still waiting for that surprise attack. A shot through the heart. A guard appearing out of the shadows and tackling her to the ground.
Nothing happened.
No sound but her own heavy breathing.
“Your leg?” she asked.
Thorne shrugged. “Hurts like hell, but it won’t kill me. Unless the prisons were full of grimy bacteria and the wound gets infected, which, let’s face it, is entirely plausible.”
Glancing behind her to make sure no one was sneaking up from the corridor, Cinder took a hesitant step forward.
Thorne took a step back. One step closer to the edge.
Cinder paused.
“Do not come any closer,” said Levana. Her voice was meek and tired, a far cry from the haughty glee with which she’d ordered Cinder’s execution. She still did not lift her head. “I suggest you do not raise your weapons, either. Unless you think he is as lucky as you are.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s luckier.”
Thorne nodded in agreement, but said nothing, and Cinder didn’t move. Peering at him, she mouthed a single word—Cress?
His indifference dissolved and he gave the smallest shake of his head. She didn’t know if this meant that he didn’t know where she was, or if something bad had happened and he didn’t want to discuss it at the moment.
Cinder was distracted from her curiosity by her hand twitching. She was lifting the gun toward her own head.
It was halfway there when she gritted her teeth and forced her limb to stop. To her relief, it did.
Snarling, she lowered the weapon back to her side.
Levana laughed, but the sound came off as more brittle than charmed. “I thought that might be the case,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “I am … not myself at the moment. Though it seems, neither are you.”