Winter

Thirty-One

Winter was mesmerized by Scarlet’s confident hands as they skimmed over the ship’s controls. Behind the ship, enormous iron doors slammed shut, locking them in a vacuum-sealed chamber with a dozen other ships waiting to be released from Artemisia’s underground port. Tearing her attention away from Scarlet and the twinkling instruments, Winter glanced over her shoulder at the interlocking doors—so ancient they looked almost like they had existed on the moon even before colonization.

Now they divided her from the ports, the city, the palace.

And Jacin.

Scarlet was all nerves, tapping her fingers across the instruments. “How long is this going to take?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only ever left Artemisia on the maglev rails.”

“They just have to seal a couple doors, right?” Scarlet reached overhead and toggled a few switches. The lights inside the ship faded to black. “This would be a bad time for someone to look over and recognize you. They’d probably think I was kidnapping you.”

“You are, in a manner.”

“No. I’m saving you from your psychotic stepmother. There’s a difference.”

Winter pulled her attention away from the doors and scanned the nearby ships. Most seemed to be cargo ships. She wondered how many were taking supplies for the war efforts on Earth or carrying more of the queen’s soldiers. Still, most would be headed to the outer sectors for deliveries or to load up on goods to be brought back to the capital. It was much faster to fly than to take the maglev shuttles halfway around the moon.

“Are we going to Earth?”

Scarlet’s frown deepened. “Jacin said this ship wouldn’t make it that far. He said to go to Sector RM-9.”

Jacin. Brave Jacin. Always protecting her.

She’d abandoned him.

Scarlet tugged on one of the drawstrings of her hoodie, the end frayed and dirty. “Jacin said this sector we’re going to is where Wolf grew up. His family might still be there.”

Winter trailed her fingers along her harness and sang to herself, “The Earth is full tonight, tonight, and the wolves all howl, aa-ooooooooooh…”

“We need an ally. Someone we can trust. Maybe I can persuade Wolf’s parents to shelter us. Hide us, until we come up with a better plan, and in the name of all the stars, what is taking so long?”

Winter blinked at her. “Aa-ooooh?”

Scarlet huffed. “Would you focus? We need to find someplace we can hide from the queen.”

“She will find us anywhere. We will not be safe.”

“Don’t say that. The people like you, don’t they? They’ll protect you. Us.”

“I do not wish to put them in danger.”

“You need to get over that mode of thinking right now. This is us against her, Winter. From now on, I need you to think like a survivalist.”

Winter took in a shuddering breath, jealous of the embers that burned inside Scarlet. She felt hollow and cold on the inside. Easily shattered.

Scarlet popped one of her sweatshirt’s drawstrings into her mouth and gnawed on the plastic end. “RM-9,” she muttered to herself. “What does RM-9 mean?”

“Regolith Mining Sector 9. That is a dangerous sector.”

“Dangerous? Dangerous how?”

“Regolith sickness. Many deaths.”

Scarlet’s mouth quirked. “Sounds like the sort of place Levana wouldn’t look for you.” Scarlet clicked on a screen and opened up a map. “Perfect.”

The second set of massive doors began to slide apart, disappearing into the black cavern walls. Faint light spilled in.

“Scarlet?”

“What?” Scarlet looked up and gasped. “Finally.”

As the gap between the doors grew, Winter saw they were in a cave built into the side of a crater. Beyond its rim lay the rocky wasteland of Luna, its jagged rocks and pockmarked surface as unwelcoming as a black hole.

“Jacin saved us both,” she whispered, her chest aching.

Scarlet harrumphed and guided the ship forward, falling in line with the others. Ahead, the boosters on the ships nearest the exit flamed and thrust them into space. “He could have been a little more forthcoming with information. But, yeah. Remind me to thank him someday.”

“Levana will kill him.” She looked down. There was dried blood beneath her fingernails, smearing her dress, drenching her slippers. She blinked, and the bloodstains began to seep through the fabric, spreading.

Winter let out a weak breath. It’s not real, Princess.

“I’m sure he stayed behind for a reason,” said Scarlet. “He must have a plan.”

Their ship reached the front of the line and the whole galaxy opened up before them. A bold smile curled on Scarlet’s lips. “Here we go.”

As Scarlet’s fingers flew over the controls and the podship hummed around them, Winter glanced back one last time. There was a jerk. Her stomach flipped and then they were soaring out of the holding bay and Scarlet was laughing and the crystal dome that housed Artemisia was beneath them and growing smaller and smaller and …

Winter sobbed and pressed a hand to her mouth.

“Hey, hey, none of that,” said Scarlet, not bothering to hide her own effusive joy. “We made it, Winter, and I’m sure Jacin will be fine. He seems tough.”

Winter’s neck began to ache from being twisted in her seat, but she didn’t want to tear her gaze away from Artemisia, not even as the palace and the buildings blurred together and the lights twinkled and went out, invisible beneath the dome’s surface.

“She will kill him.”

“I know you’re worried, but look. We are out of that star-forsaken city. We’re alive and we’re free, so stop moping.”

Winter rested her cheek against her chair’s back. More tears were threatening to escape, but she held them back, focusing instead on her ragged breaths.

After a long silence, she felt a hand settle over hers.

“I’m sorry,” said Scarlet. “That wasn’t fair. I know you like him.”

Winter swallowed. “I love him like I love my own platelet-manufacturing plant.”

“Your own what?”

“I don’t know. My heart, I think. My body. I love him, every part of him.”

“Fine, you love him. But, Winter, he seemed to know what he was doing.”

“Protecting me,” Winter whispered. “He’s always protecting me.” She was startled by the unexpected scent of blood invading her lungs. She looked down and gasped.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Winter held the fabric of her dress away from her stomach. The blood had soaked the shimmering white material, turning it dark red. Even the cloth they’d taken from the servant was covered. The stench was so thick she could taste it.

“Winter?”

“It—it’s nothing,” she stammered, trying to imagine it away. The blood dripped down her legs.

“You’re hallucinating, aren’t you?”

Winter leaned back against the seat. She wrapped her fingers around the straps of her harness. It’s all in your head, Princess. It isn’t real. “I’m fine. It will go away soon.”

“Honestly,” Scarlet snapped, “why don’t you just use your glamour? Why let it drive you crazy like this?”

“I won’t.” Winter choked down another difficult breath.

“I get that, but why?”

“It is a cruel gift. I wish I hadn’t been born with it.”

“Well, you were born with it. Look at you, Winter. You’re a mess. Why don’t you just—I don’t know—make me think your hair is orange or something? Something harmless?”

“It’s never harmless.” The harness constricted. Her fingernails clawed at the straps.

“If I had the gift,” continued Scarlet, ignorant of the harness’s choking hold, the gushing blood, “I would have shown those snotty imbeciles a thing or two. See how they like being asked to do tricks.”

Winter’s hands were wet and slick and sticky.

“My grandfather was Lunar,” said Scarlet. “I never met him, but I do know he died in an insane asylum. I have to assume because he made the same choice you’re making now. He was down on Earth and trying to hide what he was, so maybe he had a reason. But you? Why do this to yourself? How does it make anything better?”

“It does not make anything worse.”

“It makes you worse. Why can’t you just … do good things with it?”

Winter laughed against the strain of the delusion. “They all believe they are doing good.” Her head fell to the side and she watched Scarlet with her bleary eyes. “My stepmother is not only powerful because the people fear her, she is powerful because she can make them love her when she needs them to. We think that if we choose to do only good, then we are only good. We can make people happy. We can offer tranquility or contentment or love, and that must be good. We do not see the falsehood becoming its own brand of cruelty.”

The ship trembled and their speed increased. Luna blurred beneath them.

“Once,” Winter continued, pushing the words out of her lungs. “Once I believed with all my heart that I was doing good. But I was wrong.”

Scarlet’s gaze darted to her, then back to the landscape. “What happened?”

“There was a servant who tried to kill herself. I stopped her. I forced her to change her mind. I made her happy. I was so sure I was helping her.” Her breaths came in strangled gasps, but she kept talking, hoping to push through the hallucination if she ignored it enough. “But all I did was give her more time to be tortured by Aimery. He was quite fond of her, you see.”

Scarlet went quiet, but Winter dared not look at her.

“The next time she tried to take her life, she succeeded. Only then did I realize that I hadn’t helped her at all.” She swallowed, hard. “That day I swore to never manipulate anyone again. Even if I believed I was doing good—for who am I to presume what is good for others?”

The harness tightened again, pressing against Winter’s sternum, cutting against her ribs. The blood was spilling over it now. Soon it would be sloshing around her ankles. The harness would cut right through her, chopping her into girl-shaped pieces. Razor wire slicing through her flesh.

Winter shut her eyes.

Stay with me, Princess.

After a suffocating silence, Scarlet murmured, “It just seems like there should be a way to manage it, without … this.”

The harness tightened, forcing the air out of her lungs. With a whimper, she tilted her head back to avoid it pressing against her windpipe.

“What—Winter?”

Stars danced behind her eyelids. Her lungs burned. Blood dripped off the curls of her hair and soaked into the harness straps. She stopped fighting it and let her body slump forward. The straps crushed her sternum, snapped her ribs.

Scarlet cursed, but the sound was distant and muffled.

Hands thumped against her like mittened fingers, leaning her back against the seat and feeling her throat. She heard her name but it was far away, trying to reach her across a whole sea of stars and everything was fading fast …

There was a series of loud clicks and the whir of the harness being reeled into the ship’s roof.

Winter collapsed into Scarlet’s arms, both of them crumpled over the center console. Scarlet struggled to lift Winter’s head and open her air passage while keeping the ship from colliding with Luna’s jagged terrain.

Air rushed back into Winter’s lungs. She gasped, swallowing it down hungrily. Her throat was still stinging, but the aches in her chest were fading into the lost depths of the hallucination. She coughed and forced her eyes open. The blood had receded, and now only the remnants of Ryu’s death were left, dried and smeared on her skirt.

“Are you all right?” Scarlet cried, half hysterical.

Winter met her bewildered face, still dizzy from the loss of air, and whispered, “The harness tried to kill me.”

Dragging a hand through her hair, Scarlet fell back into the pilot’s seat. Through the window, half a dozen distant domes were growing larger—a slow growth, giving way to the subtle impression of buildings underneath.

“The harness didn’t do anything,” Scarlet growled. “It’s your brain that’s the problem.”

Winter started to giggle, but it was cut short by sobs. “Y-you’re right,” she stammered, hearing Jacin’s voice in her head.

Stay with me, Princess. Stay with me—

But she was already so far away.

* * *

“My Queen, we have been experiencing minor glitches in the surveillance system. Random power failures that have been occurring throughout the palace.”

Levana stood before the grand windows of her solar, listening to the third-tier thaumaturge present his daily report, though she was lacking her usual focus. Her thoughts were a maze of distractions. Despite using every resource available to her and demanding that her security team review hours and hours of footage from the outer sectors, Linh Cinder and her companions had yet to be found. Wedding preparations were underway, but she had been too livid to even look at her husband-to-be since he’d arrived.

Now she had Winter to concern herself with. The ungrateful wretch of a princess had been nothing but an embarrassment to her since the day Levana had married her father. If Jacin succeeded, she would never again have to listen to her mindless mutterings. She would never again have to defend her from the mocking laughter of the court. She would never again have to see the looks of desire following the doltish girl down the palace corridors.

Levana wanted the princess gone. She wished to let go of the resentment that had plagued her for so long. Her life was beginning anew, finally, and she deserved this fresh beginning without the cumbersome girl dragging her down, reminding her of a too-painful past.

But if Jacin failed …

Levana couldn’t stomach another failure.

“My Queen?”

She turned to the thaumaturge. “Yes?”

“The technicians need to know how you would like them to proceed. They estimate an hour or two will be required to locate the source of these system glitches and restore the defaults. They might need to disable portions of the system while they’re working on it.”

“Will this take them away from the search for the cyborg?”

“It would, Your Majesty.”

“Then it can wait. The cyborg is our top priority.”

He bowed. “We will keep you updated on further developments.”

Aimery gestured toward the door. “That will be all. Thank you for the report.”

The thaumaturge swept away, but another figure was standing inside the elevator when the doors opened.

Levana straightened at the sight of Jacin Clay. There was a shadow across his face, a loathing that he normally worked so hard to disguise. Levana’s gaze slipped down to his hands. They were covered in blood. There was a stain on the knee of his pants too, dried black.

He stepped off the elevator, but Jerrico stopped him in his tracks, a palm on Jacin’s chest.

“Sir Clay?” she said.

“It’s done.” His tone carried all the horror that the simple words concealed.

A smile tickled Levana’s mouth. She spun away to hide it—an act of generosity. “I know it could not have been easy for you,” she said, hoping sympathy carried in her voice. “I know how you cared for her, but you have done the right thing for your crown and your country.”

Jacin said nothing.

When she could school her face again, Levana turned back. Aimery and Jerrico were impassive, while Jacin looked like he would rip out Levana’s still-beating heart if he had the chance.

She took pity on him, choosing to forgive these rebellious instincts. He had loved the girl, after all, hard as it was to fathom.

“What did you do with the body?”

“I took it to the menagerie’s incinerator, where they take the deceased animals.” None of his anger faded as he recounted the task, though he made no movement toward Levana. Still, Jerrico did not relax. “I killed the white wolf, too, to cover the blood, and left the wolf’s body behind. The gamekeepers will think it was a random attack.”

Levana frowned, her mood dampening. “I did not tell you to destroy the body, Sir Clay. The people must see proof of her death if she is no longer to be a threat to my throne.”

His jaw tightened. “She was never a threat to your throne,” he growled, “and I wasn’t about to leave her there to be pecked apart by whatever albino scavengers you keep down there. You can find some other way to break the news to the people.”

She pressed her lips against a sour taste in her mouth. “So I shall.”

Jacin swallowed, hard, regaining some composure. “I hope you won’t mind that I also disposed of a witness, My Queen. I thought it would be contrary to your objectives if word got out that a royal guard had murdered the princess. People might question if it was under your order, after all.”

She bristled. “What witness?”

“The Earthen girl. I didn’t think anyone would miss her.”

“Ah, her.” With a scoff, Levana brushed her hand through the air. “She should have been dead weeks ago. You have done me a service by ridding me of her.” She tilted her head, examining him. It was amusing to see so much emotion revealed when it was normally so impossible to aggravate him. “You’ve exceeded my expectations, Sir Clay.” She placed a hand on his cheek. A muscle twitched beneath her palm and she tried to ignore the glower searing into her. His anger was expected, but he would soon realize it was for the best.

If he didn’t, she could always force him to.

Levana felt lighter already, knowing she would never have to see her stepdaughter’s face again.

She dropped her hand and floated back to the windows. Beyond the curved dome she could see the barren landscape of Luna, white craters and cliffs against the black sky. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes,” said Jacin.

She raised an eyebrow.

“I wish to resign from the royal guard. I ask to be reassigned to the sector where my father was sent years ago. This palace holds too many memories for me.”

Levana’s face softened. “I am sure it does, Jacin. I am sorry that I had to ask this of you. But your request is denied.”

His nostrils flared.

“You have proven yourself to be loyal and trustworthy, traits I would be remiss to lose. You may take leave for the rest of today, with my gratitude, but tomorrow you will report for your new assignment.” She grinned. “Well done, Jacin. You are dismissed.”