“I understand that I am asking you to risk your lives. Levana’s thaumaturges are powerful, her guards are skilled, her soldiers are brutal. But if we join together, we can be invincible. They can’t control us all. With the people united into one army, we will surround the capital city and overthrow the impostor who sits on my throne. Help me. Fight for me. And I will be the first ruler in the history of Luna who will also fight for you.”
The video focused on Cinder’s indomitable expression for a heartbeat and cut out.
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 cl.u.s.tered 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 m.u.f.fled 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.