A heavy sigh was followed by a soothing male voice. “All this over a pesky Earthen? You guards are pathetic.”
Cress pressed her hands against her mouth to keep any sounds from escaping. She stared into the darkness, attempting to shallow her breathing, though she worried she might pass out if she didn’t get more air soon.
Someone groaned. Not far away from where she was hiding.
“He is definitely one of the cyborg’s allies. The question is, what are you doing in the palace?”
A beat, then Thorne’s voice. “Just kissing my girl,” he said, wheezing a little. Cress scrunched up her whole face and buried it against her knees, choking back a sob. “I didn’t realize that was a … a capital offense around here.”
The man sounded unamused. “Where is the girl you were with?”
“I think you scared her off.”
Another sigh. “We don’t have time for this. Put him in a holding cell—we’ll deal with him after the coronation. I’m sure he’ll make a delightful Earthen pet for one of the families. And keep looking for that girl—alert me the moment you find her. Increase security around the great hall. They’re plotting something, and Her Majesty will kill us all if the ceremony is interrupted.”
There was a thud and another grunt. Cress flinched, her head filling with all the things they could have done to Thorne to cause that grunt—all the things they could still do to him.
She bit her lip until she tasted blood, the pain alone keeping her from crying as she listened to them drag him away.
Seventy-Three
“Jacin.” Cinder’s tone was full of warning. “Iko did not sacrifice herself so you could crash us into a crater and kill us both.”
“Calm down. I know what I’m doing,” he responded, pretending to be calm while his heart was a hammer pounding against his chest.
“I thought you said you’ve never driven one of these before.”
“I haven’t.” He banked hard and the terrain-speeder careened to the left, fast and smooth.
Cinder gasped and reached for a bar overhead. A hiss of pain followed—probably her shoulder wound acting up again—but she didn’t say anything and Jacin didn’t slow down.
The vehicle was by far the slickest Jacin had ever piloted. Little more than a risky toy to some rich Artemisian, it hovered close to the rocky, uneven surface of Luna, soaring so fast the white ground blurred beneath them. The roof was see-through, making it feel as if they were out in the airless terrain rather than in a protective vehicle.
Though protective was a subjective word. Jacin had the feeling that if he clipped any rocks, this thing would crumple around them like an aluminum can.
Hell, maybe it was aluminum.
They launched off a cliff and the speeder engaged antigravity mode, keeping them on a smooth trajectory as they sailed over the crater below, before descending toward the other side and continuing on as if nothing had happened. Jacin’s stomach flipped—a product of both the high speed and not quite having adjusted to the weightlessness outside of the gravity-controlled domes.
“Just an observation,” Cinder said through her teeth, “but we have a lot of fragile and important vials in the back of this thing. Maybe we don’t want to crash?”
“We’re fine.” His attention dropped to the holographic map above the controls. Any other day this would have been a daring game, but now they were on a mission. Every spare corner of the speeder was full of antidote vials and every moment that passed meant people were dying.
And one of them was Winter.
A dome appeared on the horizon. Even from here he could see the lines of tree trunks on one side and the clear-cut stumps on the other.
Jacin maneuvered the speeder around a series of jagged rock formations. Cinder adjusted the holograph, repositioning the map so Jacin could see the best route to their destination. Most of the domes were clumped together in groups—both because they had been easier to build that way back when Luna was being colonized, but also so they could share ports that connected them to the outside terrain of Luna and allow for supply deliveries independent of the underground shuttle system.
The barrenness of the landscape made distances deceptive. It felt like hours had gone by since the lumber sector had first come into view, and every moment that ticked by drowned Jacin in anxiety. He kept seeing those soldiers carrying the suspended-animation tank between them like pallbearers. He tried to tell himself that he wasn’t too late. Surely they’d put Winter into the tank because they believed there was a chance to save her. Surely the tank would slow down the disease enough to keep her safe until he got there. It had to.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa—wall!” Cinder screamed, bracing for impact.
Jacin swerved at the last moment, tilting the speeder on its side as he careened along the dome’s exterior curve. The holograph magnified their destination—the dock’s entry flickering in the corner of Jacin’s vision. He considered his timing. Straighten the ship, reduce the propulsion, toggle the hoverblades. He jolted forward against the harness as the speeder slowed.
Slowed.
Slowed.
And dropped. A rock plummeting from a cliff.
Cinder yelped.
The dome and the rocky landscape disappeared as dark cave walls surrounded them. Jacin resumed auto-power and their descent turned from death-defying to gradual, bringing them to a steady, controlled hover. A lit landing strip and holding chamber opened before them and Jacin coaxed the speeder inside.
“I’m never getting into a vehicle with you again,” Cinder said, panting.
Jacin ignored her, his nerves still electrified, and not from the fall. Behind them, the holding door slammed shut, and another door opened, an enormous iron beast. Jacin coaxed the speeder forward, relieved when there was no sign of opposition to stop them.
The holographic map changed from the exterior layout of Luna to a map of this port and the surrounding sectors. Jacin gripped the flight controls, mentally tracing their route up to the clinic where Winter was waiting.
This was where they were supposed to get out and go the rest of the way on foot, hauling as many trays of antidote as they could up into the sectors.
Tearing his attention from the coordinates, he eyed the emergency evacuation stairwell that led to the surface. A sign indicated the nearest domes. LW-12 was the third on the list, complete with a helpful arrow indicating which stairwell would take them there.
Jacin calculated. His thumb caressed the power switch.
“Jacin,” said Cinder, following his gaze. “I don’t think we can—”
Her warning dissolved into a scream.
She was wrong. The terrain-speeder did fit up the stairwell, and he only nicked the walls a few times as they soared upward and emerged beneath the biodome of LW-12. By the time he leveled out, Cinder had slumped into the copilot seat with her hand over her eyes and her opposite knuckles tight around the bar.
“We’re here,” he said, adjusting the holograph again. It guided them beneath the canopy of trees toward the outer edge of the dome where a single street of residences and supply shops encircled the forest.
He noticed the thinning of the trees first, then the staggered shapes of people.
A lot of people.
An entire crowd of people was gathered at the forest’s edge. They were gawking at the neon-yellow terrain-speeder as it emerged from their peaceful woods. The crowd retreated, making space, or maybe afraid of being hit. Jacin lowered the speeder to the ground and cut the power.