Fairest

Four

Cinder lay on the ground, staring up at the Rampion’s vast engine, its ductwork and revolving life-support module. The system blueprints that she’d downloaded weeks ago were overlaid across her vision—a cyborg trick that had come in handy countless times when she was a working mechanic in New Beijing. She expanded the blueprint, zooming in on a cylinder that was no longer than her arm. It was tucked near the engine room’s wall, coils of tubing sprouted from both sides.

“That has to be the problem,” she muttered, dismissing the blueprint. She shimmied beneath the revolving module, dust bunnies gathering around her shoulders. She eased herself back to sitting. There was just enough space for her to squeeze in between the labyrinth of wires and coils, pipes and tubes.

Holding her breath, she pressed her ear against the cylinder, which was right where the blueprint had told her it would be. The metal was ice cold against her skin.

She waited. Listened. Adjusted the volume on her audio sensors.

What she heard was the door to the engine room open.

Glancing back, she spotted the gray pants of a military uniform in the yellowish light from the corridor. That could have been anyone on the ship, but the shiny black dress shoes …

“Hello?” said Kai.

Her heart thumped—every single time, her heart thumped.

“Back here.”

Kai shut the door and crouched down on the far side of the room, framed between the jumble of thumping pistons and spinning fans. “What are you doing?”

“Checking the oxygen filters. One minute.”

She placed her ear against the cylinder again. There—a faint clatter, like a pebble banging around inside. “A-ha.”

She dug a wrench from her pocket and set to loosening the nuts on either side of the cylinder. As soon as it was free, the ship fell eerily quiet, like a humming that she’d never noticed before had vanished, finally drawing attention to itself. Kai’s eyebrows shot upward—nervously, she thought.

Cinder upended the cylinder, peering into its depths, before she stuck her fingers in and pulled out a complicated filter. It was made up of tiny channels and crevices, all lined with a thin gray film.

“No wonder the takeoffs have been so rocky,” she muttered.

“I don’t suppose you could use some help?”

“Nope. Unless you want to find me a broom.”

“A broom?”

Raising the filter, Cinder banged the end of it on one of the overhead pipes. A dust cloud exploded around her, covering her hair and arms. Coughing, Cinder buried her nose in the crook of her elbow and kept banging until the biggest chunks had been dislodged.

“Ah. A broom. Right. There might be one up in the kitchen?… I mean, the galley.”

Blinking the dust from her eyelashes, Cinder glanced over at Kai and grinned. He was usually so self-assured that in the rare moments when he was flustered, it made all of her insides swap wrongside-up. And he’d been flustered a lot lately. Since the moment he’d woken up aboard the Rampion, it had been clear that Kai was twelve thousand kilometers outside of his element, yet he’d adapted as well as he could. He’d learned the terminology, he’d eaten the canned and freeze-dried meals without complaint, he’d traded in his fancy wedding clothes for the standard military uniform they all wore. He’d insisted on helping out where he could, even cooking a few of those bland meals, despite how Iko frequently pointed out that, as their royal guest, they should be waiting on him. Thorne had laughed, though, and the suggestion seemed to make Kai even more uncomfortable.

While Cinder couldn’t imagine him abdicating his throne and setting off on a lifetime of space travel and adventure, it was rather adorable watching him try to fit in.

“I was just kidding,” she said. “Engine rooms are supposed to be dirty.” She examined the filter again and, deeming it satisfactory, twisted it back into the cylinder and bolted it all in place. The almost imperceptible humming started up again, but the pebble clatter was gone.

Cinder squirmed feet-first out from beneath the module and ductwork. Still crouching, Kai peered down at her and smirked. “Iko’s right. You really can’t stay clean for more than five minutes.”

“It’s part of the job description.” She sat up, sending a waterfall of lint off her shoulders.

Kai brushed some of the larger chunks from her hair. “Where did you learn to do all this, anyway?”

“What, that? Anyone can clean an oxygen filter.”

“Trust me, they can’t.” He settled his elbows on his knees and let his attention wander around the engine room. “You really know what all this does?”

She followed the look—every wire, every spring, every manifold, every computer panel, every compression coil—and shrugged. “Pretty much. Except for that big, rotating thing in the corner. Can’t figure that one out. But how important could it be?”

Kai rolled his eyes.

Grasping a pipe, Cinder hauled herself to her feet and shoved the wrench back into her pocket. “I didn’t learn it anywhere. I just look at things and figure out how they work. Once you know how something works, you can figure out how to fix it.”

She ducked her head and tried to shake out the last bits of dust, but there seemed to be an endless supply.

“Oh, you just look at something and figure out how it works,” Kai deadpanned, standing beside her. “Is that all?”

Cinder fixed her ponytail and shrugged, suddenly embarrassed at his questions. “It’s just mechanics.”

Kai scooped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “No, it’s impressive,” he said, using the pad of his thumb to brush something off Cinder’s cheek—dust or grease or who knew what else. “Not to mention, weirdly attractive,” he said, before capturing her lips.

Cinder tensed, briefly, before letting herself melt into the kiss. The rush was the same every time, coupled with surprise and a rush of giddiness. It was their seventeenth kiss (her brain interface was keeping a tally, somewhat against her will), and she wondered if she would ever get used to this feeling. Being desired. Being wanted, when she’d spent her life believing that no one would ever see her as anything but a bizarre science experiment.

Especially not a boy.

Especially not Kai, who was smart and honorable and kind, and could have had any girl he wanted. Any girl.

She sighed contentedly against him, leaning into the embrace. Kai reached for an overhead pipe and pressed Cinder back against the main computer console. She offered no resistance. Though her body wouldn’t allow her to blush, there was an unfamiliar heat that flooded every inch of her body when he was this close. Every nerve ending sparked and thrummed, and she knew he could kiss her another seventeen thousand times and she would never grow tired of it.

She tied her arms around his neck and he responded by tightening his arm around her waist, molding their bodies together. The warmth of his chest seeped into her clothes. It felt nothing but right. Nothing but perfect.

But then there was the feeling, always lurking, always ready to cloud her contentment. The knowledge that this couldn’t last.

Not so long as Kai was engaged to Levana.

Angry at the thought’s invasion, she kissed Kai harder.

Her thoughts continued to rebel. Even if they succeeded and Cinder was able to reclaim her throne from her aunt, she would be expected to stay on Luna as their new queen. Not that she was an expert, but it seemed like it would be problematic to carry on this relationship on two different planets—

Er, a planet and a moon.

Or whatever.

The point was, there would be 384,000 kilometers of space between them, and that was a lot of space and—

Kai smiled, effectively breaking the kiss. “What’s wrong?” he murmured against her mouth.

Flinching, Cinder leaned back to look at him. His hair was getting longer, bordering on unkempt. As a prince, he’d always been groomed to near-perfection. But then he’d become an emperor. The weeks since his coronation had been spent trying to stop a war, hunt down a wanted fugitive, avoid getting married, and endure his own kidnapping. As a result, regular haircuts had become a dispensable luxury.

She hesitated before asking, “Do you ever think about the future?”

His expression turned wary. “Of course I do.”

“And … does it include me?”

His gaze softened in a way that made her pulse skip. Releasing the overhead pipe, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “That depends on whether I’m thinking about the good future or the bad one.”

Cinder shut her eyes and tucked her head under his chin. “As long as one of them does.”

“This is going to work,” Kai said, speaking into her hair. “We’re going to win.”

She nodded, glad he couldn’t see her face.

Because defeating Levana and becoming Luna’s queen was only half her worry—which seemed like plenty enough.

It was only the precursor to an entire galaxy’s worth of worries. She so badly wanted to stay just like this, cocooned in this little spaceship, together and safe and alone … but that was the opposite of what was really going to happen. Once they overthrew Levana, Kai would go back to being the emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth. And someday, he was going to need an empress.

She may have had a blood claim to Luna, and the hope that the Lunar people would choose anyone over Levana, even a politically inept teenager who was made up of 36.28 percent cybernetic and manufactured materials.

But she had seen the prejudices of the people in the Commonwealth. Something told her they wouldn’t be as accepting of her.

Even if they were, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be empress. She was still getting used to the idea of being a princess.

“One thing at a time,” she whispered, trying to still the hopelessness that swirled through her thoughts.

Kai kissed her temple (which her brain did not count as #18), then pulled away. “How’s your training going?”

She disentangled herself from his arms. “Fine.” She glanced around the engine. “Oh, hey, while I have you here, maybe you can help me with this.” Scooting around him, she opened a panel on the wall, revealing a bundle of knotted wires.

“That was a subtle change of subject.”

“I am not changing the subject,” she said, although a forced clearing of her throat negated her denial. “I’m rewiring the orbital defaults, so the ship’s systems will run more efficiently while we’re coasting. These cargo ships are really made for frequent landings and takeoffs, not the constant—”

“Cinder.”

She pursed her lips and unplugged a few wire connectors. “Training is going fine,” she repeated. “Could you hand me the wire cutters on the floor?”

Kai scanned the ground, then grabbed two tools and held them up.

“Left hand,” she said. He handed them to her. “Sparring with Wolf has actually gotten a lot easier. Although it’s hard to tell if that’s because I’m getting stronger, or because he’s … you know.”

She didn’t have a word for it. Wolf had been a shadow of his former self since Scarlet had been captured, and the only thing that seemed to be holding him together was his determination to get to Luna and rescue her as soon as possible.

“Either way,” she added, “I think he’s taught me as much about using my Lunar gift as he’s going to be able to. From here on, I’ll just have to wing it.” She examined the mess of wires, aligning it with a diagram over her retina display. “Not like that hasn’t been my primary tactic this whole time.” She furrowed her brow and made a few quick snips. “Here, hold these wires, and make sure they don’t touch.”

Edging against her, Kai took hold of the wires she indicated. “What happens if they touch?”

“Oh, the ship will probably self-destruct.” Pulling out two of the fresh-cut wires, she began to twist them together into a new sequence.

Kai barely seemed to breathe until she’d taken one of the threatening wires out of his grip. “Why don’t you practice on me?” he said.

“Practice what?”

“You know. Your mind-manipulation thing.”

She paused with the cutters hovering over a blue wire and peered at him from the corner of her eyes. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because I said I’d never manipulate you, and I’m sticking with that.”

“It isn’t really manipulation if I know you’re doing it.” He hesitated. “At least, I don’t think so. We could use a codeword, so I’ll know when you’re controlling me. Like … what were those called again?”

“Wire cutters?”

“Like wire cutters.”

“No.”

“Or something else.”

“I’m not practicing on you.” Slipping the cutters into her pocket, she finished splicing the rest of the wires and relieved Kai of his duty. “There, we’ll see how that goes.”

“Cinder, I have nothing better to do. Literally, nothing better to do. My time on this ship has taught me that I have zero practical skills. I can’t cook. I can’t fix anything. I can’t help Cress with surveillance. I know nothing about guns or fighting, or … Mostly, I’m just a really good talker, and it turns out that’s only useful in politics.”

“Let’s not overlook your ability to make every girl swoon with just a smile.”

It seemed to take Kai a moment to hear her over his own frustration, but then his expression cleared and he grinned.

“Yep,” she said, shutting the panel. “That’s the one.”

“I mean it, Cinder. I want to be useful. I want to help.”

Sighing, she turned back to face him. Frowned. Considered.

“Wire cutters,” she said.

He tensed, a quick trace of doubt clouding his gaze. But then he lifted his chin. Trusting.

With the slightest nudge at Kai’s will, she urged his arm to reach around her and pull the wrench from her back pocket. It was no more difficult than controlling her own cyborg limbs. A mere thought, and she could have him do anything.

Kai blinked at the tool. “That’s wasn’t so bad.”

“Oh, Kai.”

He glanced at her, then back to the wrench as his hand lifted the tool up to eye level, and his fingers, no longer under his control, began to twirl the wrench—over one finger, under the other. Slow at first, then faster, until the gleaming of the metal looked like a magic trick.

Kai gaped, awestruck, but there was an edge of discomfort to it. “I always wondered how you did that.”

“Kai.”

He looked back at her, the wrench still dancing over his knuckles.

She shrugged. “It’s too easy. I could do this while scaling a mountain, or … solving really complex mathematical problems.”

He narrowed his gaze, scrutinizing her, and she felt guilty for saying it. She was about to apologize when he said, “You have a calculator in your head.”

Laughing, she released her hold on Kai’s hand. The wrench clattered to the ground. Kai jumped back then, realizing he had control of his own limb again, stooped to pick it up.

“That’s beside the point,” said Cinder. “With Wolf, there’s some challenge, some focus required, but with Earthens…”

Kai shook his head. “All right, I get it. But what can I do? I feel so useless, milling around this ship while the war is going on, and you’re all making plans, and I’m just waiting.”

She grimaced at the frustration in his tone. Kai was responsible for so many people, and she knew that he felt like he’d abandoned them, even if he hadn’t been given a choice. Even if she hadn’t given him a choice.

He’d been kind to her. Since that first argument after he’d woken up aboard the Rampion, he’d been careful not to blame her for his frustrations. It was her fault, though. He knew it and she knew it and sometimes it felt like they were caught in a dance Cinder didn’t know the steps to. Each of them avoiding this very obvious truth so that they didn’t disrupt the mutual ground they’d discovered. The all-too-uncertain happiness they’d discovered.

“The only chance we have of succeeding,” she said, “is if you can persuade Levana to host the wedding on Luna. So right now, you can be thinking about how you’re going to accomplish that.” Leaning forward, she pressed a soft kiss against his mouth. (Eighteen.) “Good thing you’re such a great talker.”