“You’re right,” said Cinder. “She could cut your rations and halt the supply trains. But not if we control the maglev system. Don’t you see? The only way this can work is if we all band together. If we refuse to accept the rules Levana has forced on us.”
She caught sight of Scarlet in the crowd, then Iko, too, with Wolf and Thorne. Thorne was wearing a guard uniform but had taken off the helmet and face mask. She hoped his open grin would be enough to halt anyone’s misplaced hatred.
Their presence bolstered her.
She tried to meet the eyes of as many citizens as she could. “I have no doubt the other sectors are dealing with the same fears you have. I suggest we select volunteers to act as runners to your neighboring sectors. We’ll tell them that I’m here and that everything I said on that video is true. I will be marching into Artemisia, and I will reclaim my birthright.”
“And I will be with you,” said Maha Kesley. “I believe you are our true queen, and we owe you our allegiance on that alone. But as a mother reunited with her son, I owe you so much more.”
Cinder smiled at her, grateful.
Maha returned it. Then she dropped to one knee and bowed her head.
Cinder tensed. “Oh, Maha, you don’t have to…” She trailed off as, all around her, the crowd started to follow suit. The change was gradual at first but spread like ripples in a pond. Her friends alone stayed standing, and Cinder was grateful for their lack of reverence.
Her fears started to melt away. She didn’t know if her video had persuaded every civilian to join her cause, and maybe not even most of them.
But the sight before her was proof that her revolution had begun.
Thirty-Seven
Kai stood with his arms crossed, glaring at the window of his lavish guest suite but seeing nothing of the beautiful lake or city below. He had not managed to appreciate any of the luxuries of his fine prison, despite the suite being larger than most houses in the Commonwealth. Levana was feigning respect, giving him accommodations complete with an enormous bedroom and closet, two sitting parlors, an office, and a washroom that, at first glance, had seemed as though it had an actual pool in it, before Kai realized it was the bathtub.
Breathtaking, to be sure. It was even more luxurious than the guest suites in New Beijing Palace, though Kai and his ancestors had prided themselves on how they welcomed and treated their diplomatic guests.
The effect was ruined, however, by the fact that the double doors leading onto his outdoor balcony remained locked and Lunar guards were posted outside his chambers day and night. He had fantasized about breaking one of the windows and trying to scale down the wall of the palace—it was probably what Cinder would have done—but what was the point? Even if he avoided breaking his neck, he had nowhere to go. Though it pained him to think it, his place was here, beside Levana, doing his best to keep her occupied with wedding and coronation rubbish.
Which was not going well, given that he hadn’t seen Levana or any of her cohorts since they’d locked him in here after the ambush in the docks. The only visitors he’d had were mute servants bringing him overflowing platters of extravagant food that went largely untouched.
With an exasperated growl, he started pacing again, sure he would wear a hole through this stone floor before this ordeal was over.
He had succeeded in getting Cinder and the others to Luna, which had been his primary role in their planning, but it hadn’t gone smoothly and he was going mad not knowing what had happened. Had they gotten away? Was anyone hurt?
Even without a D-COMM link, he would have been tempted to send a comm to Iko or Cinder just to know what was happening, but Levana had confiscated his portscreen. It was maddening, but given the risk of a comm being traced, possibly for the best.
His anxiety would have been quelled if he could have moved forward with his other objectives. In addition to distracting Levana, he had also been tasked with gathering information about Scarlet Benoit, but he could learn nothing, nothing, while trapped in here.
It was like being stuck on the Rampion again, but a hundred times worse.
A bell echoed through his suite.
He bolted through the main parlor and yanked open the door. A liveried servant stood on the other side, a boy a few years younger than Kai. He was flanked by four Lunar guards.
“I am not a prisoner,” Kai started, wedging his foot into the door in case it was slammed shut as it had been countless times before. The servant stiffened. “I am the emperor of the Eastern Commonwealth, not some common criminal, and I will be treated with diplomatic respect. I have the right to hold counsel with my adviser and cabinet officials and I demand to hear Queen Levana’s reasons for detaining us in this manner!”
The servant’s mouth worked, speechless, for a moment, before he stammered, “I-I have been s-summoned to escort you to Her Majesty.”
Kai blinked, momentarily baffled, but he quickly gathered himself. “It’s about time. Take me to her immediately.”
The servant bowed and stepped back into the corridor.
Kai was marched through the palace feeling even more like a prisoner with the guards spread out at his back, though no one touched him. He did his best to observe the palace layout, picking out memorable landmarks when he could—an interesting sculpture, an intricate tapestry. Over a sky bridge and down a long, narrow corridor where holographic portraits were lined up like a gauntlet.
His feet stumbled once when he saw the last holograph. He had to look twice to be sure he wasn’t losing his mind.
The final holograph was a woman who looked, at first glance, just like Cinder.
His heart pounded, but as the holograph turned toward him, he realized his mistake. This was a mature version of Cinder, with flirtatious eyes and a vixen’s smile. Her cheekbones were more pronounced, her nose a bit narrower. In fact, the real similarities lay not between this woman and the Cinder he knew, but between her and the Cinder he’d seen at the base of the ballroom steps.
He checked the plaque, confirming his suspicions. QUEEN CHANNARY BLACKBURN.
Cinder’s unintentional glamour, painfully beautiful as it had been, looked so much like her mother.
“Your Majesty?”
He startled and whipped his attention away. He said nothing to the servant as he left the swaying holograph behind.
He had expected to be taken to the throne room, but as they walked through an iron-grated door and into a far less luxurious hallway, he grew suspicious. On his left they passed an elaborate vault door.
“What’s in there?”
Expecting to be ignored, he was surprised when the servant answered, “The crown jewels and regalia.”
The crown jewels. In New Beijing they stored priceless artifacts and heirlooms in one of the most secure underground vaults. There they kept gemstones the size of eggs, millennia-old gold-plated swords, even the crowns of the emperor and empress when they weren’t in use.
It was clear that this wing was not open for general palace tours. Where were they taking him?
They turned another corner and Kai was ushered through a door into some sort of computer control center, full of invisi-screens and holograph nodes. Maps and surveillance videos were flickering on every wall and there were at least thirty men and women analyzing the abundance of feeds and compiling the ongoing data.
Before he could begin to make sense of what they were doing, he was shoved through a door into an adjacent room. The door was shut, locking him behind soundproof glass.