Winter

“That is enough. Kill her.”

At first, the guards did not move, and the brief hesitation was all the information Cinder needed. Levana, in her hysteria, had lost her mental grip on her protectors.

Before the thaumaturges could realize it had happened, Cinder slipped into their minds. Twelve royal guards. Twelve men who were, as Jacin had once told her, like brainless mannequins. Puppets for the queen to shuffle around as it pleased her. Twelve armed protectors, ready to obey her every whim.

Cinder’s retina display flared with information—her accelerated heart rate, the offset of bioelectrical manipulation, the adrenaline flooding her veins. Time slowed. Her brain synapses fired faster than she could recognize them, information being noted and translated and stored away before she could interpret it. Seven thaumaturges: two in black stood behind the queen, the four who had taken Cinder from her cell stood near the doors, and Aimery. The nearest guard stood 0.8 meters to her left. Six wolf soldiers: the nearest 3.1 meters away; the farthest, 6.4 meters. Forty-five Lunars in the audience. Kai and his adviser and five Earthen leaders along with seventeen additional representatives from the Union. Thirty-four servants kneeling like statues, trying to sneak glances at the girl who claimed to be their queen.

Twelve guards, with twelve guns and twelve knives, all belonging to her.

Threats were weighed, balanced, measured. Dangers turned into data, running through a mental calculator. The stiletto knife emerged from the tip of Cinder’s finger.

Every Earthen dived off their seats to take cover, including Kai. Only afterward did she realize she’d forced them to do it.

Then she used eleven of the twelve guards to open fire.

Eleven guns went off, all aiming at the six wolf mutants, while the guard closest to Cinder drew his knife and hacked through the binds around her wrists. In her hurry, she felt the blade clang against her metal palm.

Her hands burst free. Her body and mind were in harmony, just as Wolf had taught her. Her brain ticked down the list of threats.

The wolf soldiers lunged for the guards as another round of bullets exploded around them.

The nearest servant leaped to his feet and charged at Cinder, as if to tackle her.

Cinder grabbed him and shoved him toward a thaumaturge. They collided with a series of grunts, collapsing to the floor.

“Kill her!” Levana’s voice cracked.

More gunshots throbbed against Cinder’s eardrums. Bodies scrambled and chairs screeched and Cinder lost track of where the guards were and if any wolf soldiers had fallen and two aristocrats were running at her from either side and she urged the guards to focus on the thaumaturges, the thaumaturges, now. There was another volley of bullets and the aristocrats cried out and crumpled and tried to scurry out of the fray as soon as they were released.

A wolf soldier grabbed Cinder from behind. Pain ripped through her shoulder, his canine teeth tearing at her flesh. She screamed. Hot blood dripped down her arm. Lifting her cyborg hand, she stabbed wildly and the blade connected with flesh. The soldier released her with a roar and she spun, kicking him away.

Shaking from head to toe, she sought to reclaim the minds of the guards, but in that second of distraction the room had been emptied of the guards’ bioelectric waves. Ten of them were dead, ripped to shreds by the soldiers, who had turned on them with surprising ferocity, despite the bullet holes puncturing their chests and stomachs.

In the chaos, Cinder found Kai, who was staring at her, jaw hanging open.

She tore her eyes away and found the queen, still screaming and trying to cast around her orders, but the two remaining guards no longer belonged to her and the wolves did not care who they were attacking and the thaumaturges … dead. All dead. Cinder had killed them all. Except maybe Aimery, who she couldn’t find in the chaos. She wanted him, but she wanted someone else more.

Clearheaded, Cinder bent down to retrieve a gun from one of the fallen guards. She lifted her arm, gritting her teeth against the searing pain in her shoulder, and aimed for the spot between the queen’s eyes.

For a split second, Levana looked terrified.

Then Kai was between them, face slack from manipulation.

Sweat dripped into Cinder’s eyes, blurring the world around her.

The heavy doors crashed open, followed by the sound of boots pounding in the hallway.

Reinforcements had arrived.

Heartened, Levana sent every remaining person in the room charging at Cinder. The Earthens and the aristocrats may not have weapons, but there were a lot of hands and a lot of nails and a lot of teeth. The new guards would be close behind.

What had her sentence been? Death by dismemberment.

Cinder lowered the gun, pivoted, and ran. Past the puppet Lunars in their glittering clothes. Past the mindless servants and the dead thaumaturges and the splatters of blood and the fallen chairs and Pearl and Adri cowering in a corner. She sprinted toward the only escape—the wide-open balcony hanging above the water.

The pain in her shoulder throbbed and she used the reminder to run faster, her feet pounding against the hard marble.

She heard gunshots, but she had already jumped. The black sky opened up before her and she fell.

Fifty-Two

Kai was rooted to the ground, a statue surrounded by turmoil. Levana was screaming—no, screeching—her normally melodic voice turned harsh and unbearable. She was yelling orders—Find her! Bring her back! Kill her!—but no one was listening. There was no one left to listen.

Nearly all of the guards were dead. The thaumaturges, dead. The wolf soldiers, dead. A handful of servant and aristocrat bodies littered the floor as well, tossed among the blood and broken furniture, the victims of hungry hybrid soldiers let loose on an unsuspecting, unarmed crowd.

Beside him, Levana ripped the jeweled necklace off some Lunar woman and threw it at a servant girl who was cowering on the floor, splattered with blood. “You! Bring me more guards! I want every guard and thaumaturge in the palace in this room at once. And you—clean up this mess! What are you all standing there for?”

The servants dispersed, half crawling, half slipping toward the hidden exits in the walls.

Awareness began to burrow its way through the shock, and Kai glanced around, spotting a group of Earthen leaders clustered in a corner. Torin was among them. He looked stricken. His suit was disheveled.

“Are you hurt?” Kai asked.

“No, sir.” Torin made his way to Kai, gripping the backs of chairs to keep from slipping on the bloody floor. “Are you?”

Kai shook his head. “The Earthens—?”

“All accounted for. No one seems to be injured.”

Kai tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry and the saliva got stuck until he tried a second time.

He spotted Aimery emerging from one of the servants’ alcoves, the only surviving thaumaturge from the trials, though more had since arrived. The members of the court who hadn’t yet run from the throne room were plastered to the back walls, sobbing hysterically or jabbering to one another as they tried to relive the traumatic event, piecing together their stories. Who had seen what and which guard had shot whom and did that girl really believe she was the lost princess?

Cinder, half-starved and surrounded by enemies, had caused so much destruction in so little time, right in front of the queen. It was unnatural. Impossible. Sort of amazing.

A laugh burbled up Kai’s throat, trembling uncontrolled in his diaphragm. His emotions were shredded with fear and panic and awe. Hysteria hit him like a punch to the gut. He pressed a hand over his mouth as the crazed laughter spilled out, turning fast into panicked breaths.