Winter

Thirty-Six

“Wow,” Scarlet whispered. “Good speech.”

Cinder’s heart was thundering. “Thanks. Kai wrote most of it.”

She peered down the empty row of houses. The few people she had spotted before were still milling around, staring up at the dome. More miners and factory workers should have returned by now, but the streets stayed empty. The dome was a vacuum of silence.

It should have frightened Cinder, knowing that she had made her first move. She had been running for so long. Levana had kept her on the defensive since the moment she’d seen her at the Commonwealth ball.

No more. She felt energized. Ready. Far from looking like a fool in the video, she had sounded like a queen. She sounded like a revolutionary. She sounded like she could actually pull this off.

“Come on,” said Scarlet, marching ahead. “Let’s go see what’s happening.”

Cinder hurried after her. They heard shouting coming from the central square and the distant citizens were drifting toward the residential streets, though they frequently paused to look back. As Cinder and Scarlet got closer, the shouting turned into barking orders.

The sector guards had shoved their way into the loitering crowd, gripping long, slender clubs in their fists.

“Move along,” a guard shouted. All but his eyes were concealed beneath his helmet and face mask. “Four minutes to curfew! Loitering is strictly prohibited, and no video is changing that.”

Cinder and Scarlet ducked behind a delivery cart.

The citizens were clustered into small groups, their hair and uniforms covered in regolith dust. A few had their sleeves rolled up, revealing the RM-9 tattoos on their forearms. Most lowered their eyes when the guards approached them, recoiling at the prospect of those clubs being turned on them. But few seemed to be leaving.

One guard grabbed a man by his elbow and shoved him away from the bubbling fountain at the dome’s center. “Get along, all of you. Don’t make us file a report of misconduct.”

Gazes shifted between the tired workers. The crowd was thinning. Their tired shoulders drooping as they dispersed. Groups dissolved without even an angry word shouted back at the guards.

Cinder’s heart squeezed.

They weren’t fighting.

They weren’t defending themselves.

They were cowed by their oppressors every bit as much as before.

Disappointment swarmed over her and she stumbled, slouching against the cart. Had she not been persuasive enough? Had she failed to convey how important it was that they all stand up, unified and resolute? Had she failed?

Scarlet laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’s only one sector,” she said. “Don’t be discouraged. We don’t know what else is happening out there.”

Though her words were kind, Cinder could see her frustration mirrored on Scarlet. It might be true—they didn’t know what was happening in the rest of the sectors and they had no way of knowing. What she saw here, though, did little to give her confidence.

“Don’t touch me!” a man yelled.

Cinder glanced around the cart. A guard was staring down a skinny man with sickly pale skin. Despite the gaunt bent to his body, the man stood before the guard with clenched fists.

“I will not return to my home in recognition of curfew,” he said. “Threaten to report me all you like—after a video like that, the queen and her minions are going to have their hands full rounding up people guilty of much bigger crimes than staying out a few extra minutes.”

Two other guards stopped ushering the people away and moved toward the man. Their gloved hands tightened on their clubs.

The remaining workers stopped to watch. Curious. Wary. But also, Cinder thought—angry.

The first guard loomed over the man. His voice was muffled behind the mask, but his arrogance was clear. “Our laws are for the protection of all people, and no one will be exempt from them. I suggest you go home before I’m forced to make an example of you.”

“I’m perfectly capable of making an example of myself.” The man snarled at the guards that were converging around him, then at the people who had hesitated at the edges of the square. “Don’t you get it? If the other sectors saw that video too—”

The guard wrapped his free hand around the back of the man’s neck and shoved him down, forcing the man onto his knees. His words were cut off with a strangled grunt.

The guard raised his club.

Cinder pressed a hand over her mouth. She reached out with her gift, but she was too far away to stop it, too far to control him.

The other two guards joined in, their clubs falling onto the man’s head, back, shoulders. He fell onto his side and covered his face, screaming from the force of the blows, but they wouldn’t relent—

Cinder gritted her teeth and took a step into the road, but another voice cut through the man’s cries before she could speak.

“Stop!” a woman screamed. She shoved her way through the crowd.

One of the guards did stop. No, he froze.

The other two hesitated, seeing their companion with his club held halfway through a swing. The woman’s face was contorted in concentration.

“Unlawful use of manipulation,” bellowed another guard. He grabbed the woman and pulled her arms behind her back. Before he could bind them, though, another miner had stepped forward—an elderly man with his back bent under years of work. His gaze was sharp, though, as he raised one hand.

The guard’s body turned to stone.

Another civilian stepped forward. Then another, their expressions made of grim determination. One by one, the guards dropped their clubs. One by one, their bodies were claimed by the people.

A young boy rushed toward the man who had been beaten. He lay limp on the ground, groaning in pain.

The woman who had stepped forward first snarled at the guards. “I don’t know if that girl was Princess Selene or not, but I do know she’s right. This might be our only chance to stand together, and I, for one, refuse to be afraid of you anymore!” Her face was strained, full of resentment.

As Cinder watched, the guard she was controlling reached for the knife at his belt and lifted it, pressing the blade against his own throat.

Horror cascaded over her like ice water.

“No!” Cinder screamed. She ran forward, releasing the glamour of the plain girl. “Don’t! Don’t kill them!” Barreling into the center of the crowd, Cinder held her hands toward the gathered civilians. Her pulse was racing.

She was met first with rage, the remnants of years of tyranny and yearning for revenge turned to disgust at her interruption.

But then, slowly, there was recognition, matched with confusion.

“I understand these men have been the queen’s weapons. They have abused and degraded you and your families. But they are not your enemies. Many guards were removed from their loved ones and forced into the queen’s employment against their will. Now, I don’t know about these guards, specifically, but killing them without offering a fair trial or showing any mercy will only further the cycle of distrust.” She met the eyes of the woman who held the guard and his knife in thrall. “Don’t become like the queen and her court. Don’t kill them. We’ll take them prisoner until further notice. We might still find a use for them.”

The guard’s arm began to lower, removing the knife’s imminent threat. He was watching Cinder, though, not the woman. Maybe he was relieved that she’d intervened. Maybe he was embarrassed at his lack of power. Maybe he was plotting to kill all of these rebellious citizens the moment he had a chance.

It occurred to her that this same scenario could be playing out in countless other sectors, without her there to stop it. She wanted the people to defend themselves from Levana’s regime but she hadn’t considered how she might also be sentencing thousands of guards to death.

She tried to tamp down the sting of guilt, telling herself this was war now, and wars came with casualties. But it didn’t make her feel much better.

She approached the fountain and stepped up onto the edge. The water sprayed against her calves.

The crowd around her had grown and was still growing. People who had wandered off to their residences returned in force, drawn by the commotion and the spreading whispers of rebellion. With the guards subdued, their heads were lifted.

She imagined hundreds of thousands, even millions of Lunars gathering together like this, daring to envision a new regime.

Then a man’s voice shouted, “It’s a trick! This is Levana testing us! She’ll slaughter us all for this.”

The crowd rustled, made nervous by the accusation. Their eyes roved over Cinder’s face, her clothes, the metal hand she wasn’t hiding. She felt like she was at the ball again, the center of unwanted attention, forging ahead with single-minded resolve and the knowledge that she couldn’t turn back now, even if she wanted to.

“This isn’t a trick,” she said, loud enough that her words echoed off the nearest factory walls. “And it isn’t a test. I am Princess Selene, and the video you just saw was broadcast to almost every sector on Luna. I am organizing a rebellion that will span the entire surface of Luna—starting here. Will you join me?”

She hoped to be met with cheers, but uncomfortable silence greeted her instead.

The elderly man she’d seen before cocked his head. “But you’re only a kid.”

She glared at him, indignant, but before she could speak a familiar face emerged in the crowd. Maha came to stand before her. Despite her small stature, she carried every ounce of Wolf’s fearlessness in her stance.

“Didn’t you hear the video? Our true queen has returned! Will we cower in fear and ignore this one chance we have to make a better life for ourselves?”

The old man gestured toward the sky. “One pretty speech will not make for an organized rebellion. We have no training and no weapons. We have no time to prepare. What do you expect us to do—march into Artemisia with shovels and pickaxes? We’ll be slaughtered!”

It was clear from the scattered frowns and bobbing heads that he wasn’t alone in his thoughts.

“What we lack in training and time,” said Maha, “we’ll make up for in numbers and determination, just like Selene said.”

“‘Numbers and determination’? You’ll take two steps into Artemisia and her thaumaturges will have you cutting open your own throats before you even see the palace.”

“They can’t brainwash all of us!” someone yelled from the crowd.

“Exactly,” agreed Maha. “Which is why we have to do this now, when all of Luna can move forward together.”

“How do we even know the other sectors will fight?” said the man. “Are we expected to risk our lives for some fantasy?”

“Yes!” Maha screamed. “Yes, I will risk my life for this fantasy. Levana took both of my sons away from me and I could do nothing to protect them. I couldn’t stand up to her, even though it killed me to let them go. I will not waste this chance now!”

Cinder could tell her words meant something to the gathered civilians. Eyes dropped to the ground. A handful of children, covered in the same dust as everyone else, were pulled into the shelter of their parents’ arms.

The man’s face tightened. “I have wished for change my whole life, which is precisely how I know it’s not going to be that simple. Levana may not be able to send manpower into every sector if we all riot at once, but what will stop her from halting the supply trains? She can starve us into submission. Our rations are already too low as it is.”

“You’re right,” said Cinder. “She could cut your rations and halt the supply trains. But not if we control the maglev system. Don’t you see? The only way this can work is if we all band together. If we refuse to accept the rules Levana has forced on us.”

She caught sight of Scarlet in the crowd, then Iko, too, with Wolf and Thorne. Thorne was wearing a guard uniform but had taken off the helmet and face mask. She hoped his open grin would be enough to halt anyone’s misplaced hatred.

Their presence bolstered her.

She tried to meet the eyes of as many citizens as she could. “I have no doubt the other sectors are dealing with the same fears you have. I suggest we select volunteers to act as runners to your neighboring sectors. We’ll tell them that I’m here and that everything I said on that video is true. I will be marching into Artemisia, and I will reclaim my birthright.”

“And I will be with you,” said Maha Kesley. “I believe you are our true queen, and we owe you our allegiance on that alone. But as a mother reunited with her son, I owe you so much more.”

Cinder smiled at her, grateful.

Maha returned it. Then she dropped to one knee and bowed her head.

Cinder tensed. “Oh, Maha, you don’t have to…” She trailed off as, all around her, the crowd started to follow suit. The change was gradual at first but spread like ripples in a pond. Her friends alone stayed standing, and Cinder was grateful for their lack of reverence.

Her fears started to melt away. She didn’t know if her video had persuaded every civilian to join her cause, and maybe not even most of them.

But the sight before her was proof that her revolution had begun.