“Enough.” Levana shoved the thaumaturge out of her way and stormed toward her throne, planting herself before it. “Barricade the maglev tunnels in and out of Artemisia. Shut down the ports. No one is to enter or leave this dome until that cyborg has been found and the civilians of Luna have repented for their actions. If anyone tries to get through the barricades, shoot them!”
“Wait,” said Europe’s Prime Minister Bromstad, stalking toward Levana. The throne room had mostly emptied of Lunar aristocrats, leaving only the servants who were trying to rid the room of bodies and the Earthens who were trying not to look as shaken as they were. “You can’t lock down the ports. You invited us to a wedding, not a war zone. My cabinet and I are leaving tonight.”
Levana raised an eyebrow, and that simple, elegant gesture made every hair on Kai’s neck stand on edge. She approached the prime minister, and though Bromstad held his ground, Kai could see him regretting his words. Behind him, the other leaders drew closer together.
“You want to leave tonight?” said Levana, the purr having returned to her inflections. “Well then. Allow me to help you with that.”
A nearby servant, who had been attempting invisibility, stopped scrubbing the floor and instead picked up a stray serving fork. On her knees, head bowed, the servant handed the fork to Prime Minister Bromstad.
The second his hand closed around the fork’s handle, fear surged through his face. Not just fear. But a fear in knowing that he was now holding a weapon, and Levana could make him do anything—anything—that she wanted to.
“Stop!” said Kai, grabbing Levana’s elbow.
She sneered at him.
“As I said before, I will not make you my empress if you attack a leader of an allied country. Let him go. Let them all go. There’s been enough bloodshed for one day.”
Levana’s eyes burned like coals, and there was a moment in which Kai thought she might kill them all and simply take Earth with her army, her pathway cleared with all the world leaders gone.
He knew the thought had crossed her mind.
But there were a lot of people on Earth—far more than on Luna. She could not control them all. A rebellion on Earth would be much more difficult to secure if she tried to take it by force.
The fork clattered to the floor and the air left Bromstad in rush.
“She will not save you,” Levana hissed. “I know you think she’s alive and that this little rebellion of hers will succeed, but it won’t. Soon, I will be empress and she will be dead. If she isn’t already.” Schooling her features, she slicked her hands down the front of her dress, like she could smooth out the disaster of the past hour. “I do not know that I will see you again, dear husband, until we stand together for our coronations. I am afraid the sight of you is making me ill.”
Thanks to a warning look from Torin, Kai managed to withhold commentary on this unexpected disappointment.
With a snap of her fingers, Levana ordered one of the servants to have a bath drawn in her chambers and then she was gone, blood clinging to the hem of her gown as she swept from the throne room.
Kai exhaled, dizzy from it all. The queen’s sudden absence. The iron tang of blood mixed with sharp cleaning chemicals and the lingering aroma of braised beef. The way his ears still echoed with gunfire and how he would never forget the image of Cinder launching herself off that ledge.
“Your Majesty?” said a shriveled, frightened voice.
Turning, he saw Linh Adri and Pearl crouched in a corner. Tears and dirt streaked their faces.
“Might we…” Adri gulped, and he could see the fluttering rise and fall of her chest as she tried to gather herself. “Might it be possible for you to … to send my daughter and me home?” She sniffed and brand-new tears pooled in her eyes. Scrunching up her face, she let her shoulders slump, her body barely supported in the corner of the room. “I’m ready … I want to go home now. Please.”
Kai clenched his jaw, pitying the woman almost as much as he despised her. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but it doesn’t look like anyone is leaving until this is over.”
Fifty-Three
The water hit her like concrete. The force pounded through her body. Every limb vibrated, first with the hard slap of the water, then from its icy cold.
It swallowed her down. She was still reeling from the hit as the air left her lungs in a burst of froth and bubbles. Already her chest was burning. Her body rolled over like a buoy, her heavy left leg dragging her down.
A red warning light filled up the darkness.
LIQUID IMMERSION DETECTED. SHUTTING DOWN POWER SUPPLY IN 3 …
That was as far as the countdown got. Blackness pulled at the back of Cinder’s brain, as if a switch had been turned off. Dizziness rocked her. She forced her eyes open and looked toward the surface, only able to orient herself because she could feel her leg pulling her down, down.
White sparks were creeping into the corners of her vision. Her lungs tightened, begging to contract.
Slippery weeds reached up to grasp at her, sliming her right calf where her pants had bunched around her knee. Willing herself to stay conscious, Cinder aimed her finger’s flashlight into the blackness at her feet and tried to turn it on, but nothing happened.
With just enough light from the palace filtering through the muck and water, Cinder thought she detected a series of pale bones caught among the gra.s.ses. Her metal foot sank into a rib cage.
She jolted, surprise clearing her thoughts as the bones crushed beneath her.