Winter (The Lunar Chronicles 4)

“No,” said Queen Levana, smiling. It was clear she’d thought a lot about this moment. “It has proven to be too difficult to manipulate her, so an exception is to be made. Her punishment shall be immediate death by … oh, what shall it be? Poison? Drowning? Burning?”

Her eyes narrowed with the last word and Cinder had a stark memory—a nightmare she’d dreamed a hundred times. A bed of red-hot coals charring her skin, her hand and leg crumbling into ash.

“Dismemberment!” a man yelled. “Starting with those horrendous appendages!”

His suggestion was met with a roar of approval from the crowd. Levana allowed the tittering for a moment before she raised a hand for silence. “A rather vile suggestion, for a rather vile girl. I’ll allow it.”

Cheers exploded through the room.

Kai leaped to his feet. “Are you savages?”

Levana ignored him. “Another idea comes to mind. Perhaps the honor of enacting this punishment should be none other than my newest, most loyal subject. I do believe she is quite eager to please.” Levana curled her fingers. “Linh Adri. Won’t you step forward again?”

Adri looked about ready to faint. She took two uncertain steps forward.

“Here is an opportunity to prove that you are loyal to me, your future empress, and that you despise your once-adopted daughter as much as she deserves.”

Adri gulped. She was sweating. “You … you want me to…”

“Dismember her, Mrs. Linh. I suppose you’ll need a weapon? What would you like? I’ll have it brought up. A hatchet perhaps, or an axe? A knife seems like it could get messy, but a nice sharp axe—”

“Stop this,” said Kai. “It’s revolting.”

Levana leaned back in her chair. “I am beginning to think you do not appreciate your wedding gift, my dear. You are free to leave if these proceedings unsettle you.”

“I won’t let you do this,” he hissed between his teeth, his face flushed.

Levana shrugged at Kai. “You can’t stop me. And you won’t stop the coronation. There is far too much at stake to risk it all for some girl … some cyborg. I know you’ll agree.”

Kai’s knuckles whitened and Cinder imagined him striking the queen, or attempting some equally stupid thing.

“Wire cutters,” she said, the tone of voice and the random declaration enough to draw everyone’s attention back to her. Kai’s brow furrowed, but only in that moment between confusion and when her manipulation hit. She felt for his energy, crackling and heated, and did her best to soothe it. “It’s all right,” she said, relieved to see his muscles relax.

He would probably be angry about this later.

Snarling, Levana shoved away the tray of appetizers and stood, knocking the servant onto his side. He scrambled away. “Stop manipulating my husband.”

Cinder laughed, her gaze slipping back to the queen. “Don’t be a hypocrite. You manipulate him all the time.”

“He is mine. My husband. My king.”

“Your prisoner? Your pet? Your trophy?” Cinder took a step forward, and a guard was there, a hand on her shoulder, holding her back, while another half-dozen guards jumped to attention. Cinder sniffed. It was nice to know she could make Levana jumpy, even with her hands bound. “It must be so rewarding to know that every relationship you have is based on a lie.”

Levana’s lip curled, and for a moment, a scrambled, inconsistent picture cascaded over Cinder’s retina display. Something was wrong with the left side of Levana’s face. One half-shut eyelid. Strange ridges along her cheek. Cinder blinked rapidly, wondering if Levana’s anger was causing her to lose control of the glamour, or if this was her own optobionics trying to make sense of the anomaly before them.

She flinched at the overload of visual data, trying to disguise her loss of focus.

The guards started to relax as their queen did.

“You are the lie,” said Levana, her voice level. “You are a fraud.”

Cinder’s attention was caught on the queen’s mouth, usually so perfect and crimson red. But something was off now. A weird downward curl to one side that didn’t fit the queen’s usual apathetic smile.

There was damage there beneath the glamour. Scarring of some sort. Maybe even paralysis.

Cinder stared, her pulse thundering through her head. An idea, a hope, began to build in the back of her thoughts.

“Believe me, I’ve been called worse,” she said, schooling her expression back into nonchalance, though she could tell it was too late. Levana had seen the change in her, or perhaps felt it. The queen was instantly guarded again, suspicious.

Levana could guard herself all she wanted. She could glamour everyone in this room—everyone in her kingdom.

But she couldn’t fool Cinder. Or, rather, she couldn’t fool Cinder’s internal computer.

She stopped fighting the onslaught of data being pieced together by her brain-machine interface. The glamour was a biological construct. Using a person’s natural bioelectricity to create tiny electric pulses in the brain, to change what they saw and thought and felt and did. But the cyborg part of Cinder’s brain couldn’t be influenced by bioelectricity. It was all machine, all data and programming and math and logic. When faced with a Lunar glamour or when a Lunar tried to manipulate her, the two parts of her brain went to war, trying to figure out which side should be dominant.

This time, she let the cyborg side win.

The chaotic jumble of information returned full force. Pieces scrambling to right themselves, like watching a puzzle made up of pixels and binary code work itself out in her head. Like bringing a camera into focus, every glamour in the room was replaced with truth. The purring snow-leopard shawl was nothing more than a faux-fur drape. The fishbowl shoes were nothing more than clear acrylic. Levana was indeed wearing an elaborate red gown, but there were places where it clung too tight or draped too loose, and the skin revealed on her left arm was …

Scar tissue. Not unlike Cinder’s skin around her prostheses.

As the world righted itself and the patchwork reality stopped scrambling and flipping and seaming together, Cinder commanded her brain to start recording.

“I am guilty of the crimes you listed,” she said. “Kidnapping and conspiracy and all the rest of it. But these are nothing compared to the crime you committed thirteen years ago. If there is anyone in this room who is guilty of royal treason, it is the woman sitting on that throne.” She fixed her eyes on Levana. “My throne.”

The crowd stirred and Levana smirked, feigning indifference though her hands were shaking, and the details of them were flicking between lithe, pale fingers, and a pinkie that was shriveled, and the constant changes were making it hard for Cinder to focus.

“You are nothing but a criminal,” said Levana, her voice writhing, “and you will be executed for your crimes.”

Cinder flexed her tongue, testing it, and raised her voice. “I am Princess Selene.”

Levana leaned forward. “You are an impostor!”

“And I am ready to claim what’s mine. People of Artemisia, this is your chance. Renounce Levana as your queen and swear fealty to me, or I swear that when I wear that crown, every person in this room will be punished for their betrayal.”