Winter

Ninety

Cinder glanced toward Levana, who was peering at the newcomers over one of the throne’s carved arms. Then Levana looked at the second gun, lying forgotten near the doorway.

Scarlet gasped as her body lurched forward of its own accord.

Cinder dove for it too, sliding across the slick floor. There were too many weapons, too many threats, and she did not have enough hands.

Instead of grabbing the gun, she shoved it and watched as it went careening past Scarlet, toward the audience’s raised dais. A second later the weight of Scarlet’s body landed on top of her. Scarlet grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back, nearly snapping her neck. Cinder cried in pain and rolled over, shoving Scarlet off her. Maintaining her grip on the gun, she whipped her arm around, sending the back of her metal hand into Scarlet’s temple.

She grimaced at the impact, but it worked. Letting go, Scarlet skidded halfway across the room and lay sprawled across the floor.

The guilt didn’t have time to sink in—when she heard a roar, fear drew her attention back toward Wolf. Snarling, furious. He was already charging toward her.

The gun. The knife. It was Wolf but it wasn’t Wolf and she didn’t have the strength to fight him off, not now, not again …

Cinder scrunched up her face as a drop of sweat slid into her eyes and raised the gun.

But Wolf’s focus was on Scarlet’s fallen body, and when he leaped, he cleared Cinder entirely. She spun around, stunned, as Wolf scooped Scarlet into his arms and cradled her against him.

Wolf, who was a monster, who was one of the queen’s uncontrollable beasts …

He was still Wolf after all.

Gulping, choking, gulping again, Cinder raised herself up. She lost balance and fell onto one knee. “Wolf,” she stammered. “Please … help Cress, and Thorne … Please…”

He raised his head, green eyes burning at first, but then he looked over to where Cress was clutching her stomach, deathly pale. To where Thorne was crumpled against a fallen chair, looking like he wanted to go to Cress but was terrified that his own body couldn’t be trusted if he got close enough.

Wolf gave an understanding nod.

Relieved that, if nothing else, she could trust Wolf to get her friends out of here and start tending to their wounds, Cinder tried again to stand. This time she succeeded. She stumbled toward the throne, gripping the gun in one hand and the knife in the other. When she rounded the dais, she saw Levana on her knees, one hand dug into the folds of her dress while she clung to the back of the throne with the other. Her coronation gown billowed around her, elegant and distinguished, a sharp contrast to her grotesque face. She had given up on trying to use her glamour.

Cinder hated her own mind for labeling the queen as grotesque. She had once been a victim, as Cinder had once been a victim. And how many had labeled Cinder’s own metal limbs as grotesque, unnatural, disgusting?

No. Levana was a monster, but it wasn’t because of the face she’d kept hidden all these years. Her monstrosities were buried much deeper than that.

Another drop of sweat fell into Cinder’s lashes and she swiped it away with the back of her wrist. Then she lifted the gun, aiming at Levana’s heart.

At the same time, Levana lifted the hand that had been tucked into the luxurious fabric. She held the gun that Cinder had shoved toward the dais. Her arm trembled as if the weapon were impossibly heavy and it was clear from the way she held it that she had never held a gun before. She was a queen, after all. She had minions to do the killing for her.

The queen locked her teeth in concentration, and Cinder felt the muscles in her right arm pull in tight against her bones. The tendons started to cramp, the ligaments tightened.

She grimaced and looked at the gun in her hand. At her finger on the trigger.

She tried to pull the trigger.

Urged her finger to pull. Begged it.

Pull the trigger.

Pull it.

Her hand began to shake, the gun wobbling at the end of her arm. Her breaths came in short, stifled gasps as the trigger dug into the pad of her finger.

But she couldn’t pull it. She couldn’t.

Levana’s terror began to melt away. Her lips twitched in what could have been relief if her brow hadn’t been furrowed with so much concentration. She kept a firm hold of Cinder’s arm, the finger, the gun.

Levana’s tongue snaked out of her mouth, wetting her parched lips.

“Ah,” she whispered, gaze flashing with pride. “You are tired too, I see.”

Cinder snarled. An earthquake rumbled inside her body. She settled her focus on the queen’s trembling hand and lashed out with her thoughts.

Levana’s eyes widened. Her hair clung to the scar tissue on her face. She looked down at her own hand, as much a traitor as Cinder’s.

Cinder forced Levana’s arm to bend. She guided the gun upward, every centimeter a battle. Every moment a struggle.

Levana flushed red. She pinched her teeth in renewed concentration, and Cinder felt her own arm following suit. Her traitor of a hand lifted the gun and pressed the barrel against her own temple. She was the mirror image of her aunt, each of them primed to shoot.

“This is how it should have ended the night of the ball,” Levana whispered. “This is how it should be.” She smiled a mad woman’s smile and stared at the place where the gun pressed against Cinder’s damp skin.

Cinder remembered the night clearly, like a nightmare she’d never forget. Levana had controlled her arm, forcing her to take Jacin’s gun and hold it against her temple. Cinder had been sure she was going to die, but her cyborg programming had saved her.

It would not save her this time.

“Good-bye, niece.”

Cinder could not take back her own arm, but her body burned with resolve. She would keep her finger from squeezing the trigger. She would not let Levana pull it. She would not.

The finger twitched. Throbbed, torn between two masters. Such a tiny limb. A tiny, tiny finger.

The rest of her willpower tightened around Levana’s own hand. She could feel the bioelectricity sizzling in the air between them. She listened to the crackle of energy. There was an ebb and flow to their strengths and their weaknesses. Cinder would think she was making progress, curling Levana’s finger inward, only to feel her own finger twitch against her control. A drop of sweat tickled the inside of her elbow. A stray hair clung to her lips. The smell of iron assaulted her nostrils. Every sense was a distraction. Every moment she could feel herself growing weaker.

But Levana’s brow was drawn too. Levana was sweating too, her face contorted with the strain. They were both struggling for breath, and then—

A snap cracked loud inside Cinder’s head.

She gasped, and her hand dropped to her side. Her muscles ached from the strain, but they were her muscles again. She gulped down a breath, dizzy from the effort.

Levana sobbed with frustration. Her body sagged. “Fine. Fine. I surrender.” She spoke so quietly, Cinder wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Though she was still controlling Levana’s hand and still had the gun poised at Levana’s temple, the queen seemed to have forgotten it was there. Her face crumpled, her body wilting into the enormous gown. “I relinquish my crown to you, my country, my throne. Take it all. Just … just let me be. Let me have my beauty again. Please.”

Cinder studied her aunt. Her scars and her matted hair and her sealed-shut eyelid. Her trembling lip and defeated shoulders. She was too exhausted for even her glamour. Too weak to fight anymore.

A shock of pity stole through her.

This miserable, awful woman still had no idea what it meant to be truly beautiful, or truly loved.

Cinder doubted she ever would.

She gulped, though it was difficult around her parched tongue.

“I accept,” Cinder said, dazed. She kept hold of Levana’s trigger finger but allowed Levana to lower the gun. Cinder held out her hand and Levana stared at it for a moment before reaching forward and setting the gun into Cinder’s palm.

In the same movement, she grabbed the forgotten knife and lurched forward, driving the blade into Cinder’s heart.

The breath left her all at once, like her lungs imploding on themselves. Like a lightning bolt striking her from her head to her toes. Shock exploded through her chest and she fell backward. Levana fell with her, her face tight with rage. She had both hands on the knife handle now and when she twisted it, every nerve in Cinder’s head exploded with agony. The world went foggy, vague, blurred in her vision.

Instinct alone prompted her to raise the gun and fire.

The blast knocked Levana away. Cinder didn’t see where the bullet had gone, but she saw a line of blood arc across the back of the throne.

Her vision glazed over, all white and dancing stars. Her body was pain and blackness and hot and sticky with blood. Stars. It wasn’t just in her head, she realized. Someone had painted stars on the throne room ceiling. A galaxy spread out before her.

In the silence of space, she heard a million noises at once. Faraway and inconsistent. A scream. A roar, like an angered animal. Pounding footsteps. A door crashing against a wall.

Her name.

Muddled. Echoing. Her lungs twitched, or maybe it was her whole body, convulsing. She tasted blood on the back of her tongue.

A shadow passed in front of her. Brown eyes, filled with terror. Messy black hair. Lips that every girl in the Commonwealth had admired a thousand times.

Kai looked at her, the wound, the knife handle, the blade still buried. She saw his mouth forming her name. He turned and screamed something over his shoulder, but his voice was lost to her—so loud, but far, far, far away.