Cinder

“You should not be worried about the prince, Miss Linh.”



“I shouldn’t?”



“She is coming today? That is what he told you?”



She nodded.



“Then you must leave. Quickly. You can’t be here when she arrives.”



He shooed her off the table. Cinder hopped down, but made no move toward the door. “What does this have to do with me?”



“We have your blood samples, your DNA. We can do without you for now. Just stay away from the palace until she’s gone, do you understand?”



Cinder planted her feet. “No, I don’t.”



The doctor looked from her to the netscreen still showing her stats. He appeared confused. Old. Frazzled. “Screen, display current newsfeed.”



Cinder’s stats vanished, replaced by a news anchor. The headline above him announced the emperor’s death. “…Highness is preparing to make a speech in just a few minutes on the death of His Imperial Majesty and the upcoming coronation. We will be broadcasting live—”



“Mute.”



Cinder folded her arms. “Doctor?”



He turned pleading eyes to Cinder. “Miss Linh, you must listen very carefully.”



“I’ll turn my audio interface volume to max.” She leaned back against the cabinets, disappointed when Dr. Erland didn’t so much as blink at her sarcasm.



Instead he blew out a disgruntled sigh. “I am not sure how to say this. I thought I would have more time.” He rubbed his hands together. Paced back toward the door. Squared his shoulder and faced Cinder again. “You were eleven when you had your operation, correct?”



The question was not what she’d been expecting. “Yes…”



“And before that, you don’t remember anything?”



“Nothing. What does this have to do with—”



“But your adoptive parents? Surely they must have told you something about your childhood? Your background?”



Her right palm began to sweat. “My stepfather died not long after the accident, and Adri doesn’t like to talk about it, if she even knows anything. Adopting me wasn’t exactly her idea.”



“Do you know anything about your biological parents?”



Cinder shook her head. “Just their names, birth dates…whatever was in my files.”



“The files on your ID chip.”



“Well…” Irritation burst inside her. “What’s your point?”



Dr. Erland’s eyes softened, trying to comfort, but the look only unnerved her.



“Miss Linh, from your blood samples I have deduced that you are, in fact, Lunar.”



The word washed over Cinder as if he were speaking a different language. The machine in her brain kept ticking, ticking, like it was working through an impossible equation.



“Lunar?” The word evaporated off her tongue, almost nonexistent.



“Yes.”



“Lunar?”



“Indeed.”



She pulled back. Looked at the walls, the exam table, the silent news anchor. “I don’t have magic,” she said, folding her arms in defiance.



“Yes, well. Not all Lunars are born with the gift. They’re called shells, which is a slightly derogatory connotation on Luna, so…well, bioelectrically challenged doesn’t sound much better, does it?” He chuckled awkwardly.



Cinder’s metal hand clenched. She briefly wished she did have some sort of magic so she could shoot a bolt of lightning through his head. “I’m not Lunar.” She wrenched her glove off and waved her hand at him. “I’m cyborg. You don’t think that’s bad enough?”



“Lunars can be cyborgs as easily as humans. It’s rare, of course, given their intense opposition of cybernetics and brain-machine interfaces—”



Cinder faked a gasp. “No. Who would be opposed to that?”



“But being Lunar and being cyborg are not mutually exclusive. And it isn’t altogether surprising that you were brought here. Since the instatement of the non-gifted infanticide under Queen Channary, many Lunar parents have attempted to rescue their shell children by bringing them to Earth. Of course, most of them die and are executed for the attempt, but still…I believe this was the case with you. The rescuing part. Not the execution part.”



An orange light flickered in the corner of her vision. Cinder squinted at the man. “You’re lying.”



“I am not lying, Miss Linh.”



She opened her mouth to argue—which part? What exactly had he said that triggered the lie detector?



The light went away as he continued speaking.



“This also explains your immunity. In fact, when you defeated the pathogens yesterday, your being Lunar was the first possibility to cross my mind, but I didn’t want to say anything until I’d confirmed it.”



Cinder pressed her palms against her eyes, blocking out the blaring fluorescents. “What does this have to do with immunity?”



“Lunars are immune to the disease, of course.”



“No! Not of course. This is not common knowledge.” She strung her hands back against her ponytail.



“Oh. Well, but it is common sense when you know the history.” He wrung his hands. “Which, I suppose, most people don’t.”



Cinder hid her face, gasping for air. Perhaps she could rely on the man being insane and not have to believe anything he said after all.



“You see,” said Dr. Erland, “Lunars are the original carrier hosts for letumosis. Their migration to the rural areas of Earth, mostly during the reign of Queen Channary, brought the disease into contact with humans for the first time. Historically, it’s a common situation. The rats that brought the bubonic plague to Europe, the conquistadors who brought smallpox to the Native Americans. It sounds so second era that Earthens take their immunities for granted now, but with the migration of the Lunars, well…Earthen immune systems just weren’t prepared. Once even a handful of Lunars arrived, bringing the disease with them, it began spreading like wildfire.”



“I thought I wasn’t contagious.”



“You aren’t now, because your body has developed means of ridding itself of the disease, but you may have been at one point. Besides, I suspect that Lunars have different levels of immunity—while some can rid their bodies of the disease entirely, others carry it around without ever developing outward symptoms, spreading it everywhere they go and being none the wiser of the trouble they’re causing.”



Cinder waved her hands before him. “No. You’re wrong. There’s some other explanation. I can’t be—”



“I understand this is a lot to take in. But I need you to understand why you cannot be present when the Her Majesty arrives. It’s far too dangerous.”



“No, you don’t understand. I am not one of them!”



To be cyborg and Lunar. One was enough to make her a mutant, an outcast, but to be both? She shuddered. Lunars were a cruel, savage people. They murdered their shell children. They lied and scammed and brainwashed each other because they could. They didn’t care who they hurt, so long as it benefitted themselves. She was not one of them.



“Miss Linh, you must listen to me. You were brought here for a reason.”



“What, to help you find a cure? You think this is some sort of twisted gift of fate?”



“I am not talking fate or destiny. I am talking survival. You cannot let the queen see you.”



Cinder shrank against the cabinet, more baffled by the second. “Why? Why would she care about me?”



“She would care very much about you.” He hesitated, his sea-blue eyes wild with panic. “She…she hates Lunar shells, you see. Shells are immune to the Lunar glamour.” He twirled his hands through the air, searching. “Their brainwashing, as it were. Queen Levana can’t control shells, which is why she continues to have them exterminated.” His lips hardened. “Queen Levana will stop at nothing to ensure her control, to terminate any resistance. That means killing those who could resist her—people like you. Do you understand me, Miss Linh? If she were to see you, she would kill you.”



Gulping, Cinder pressed her thumb against her left wrist. She couldn’t feel her ID chip, but she knew it was there.



Extracted from the deceased.



If Dr. Erland were right, then everything she knew about herself, her childhood, her parents, was wrong. A made-up history. A made-up girl.



The idea that Lunars were fugitives no longer sounded so odd.



She turned toward the netscreen. Kai was there now, in the pressroom, talking at a podium.



“Miss Linh, somebody went through a great deal of trouble to bring you here, and now you are in extreme danger. You cannot jeopardize yourself.”



She barely heard, watching as text began to scroll along the bottom of the screen.



JUST ANNOUNCED: LUNAR QUEEN LEVANA TO COME TO THE EASTERN COMMONWEALTH FOR PEACE ALLIANCE DISCUSSIONS. JUST ANNOUNCED: LUNAR QUEEN LEVANA…



“Miss Linh? Are you listening to me?”



“Yeah,” she said. “Extreme danger. I heard you.”



Chapter Twenty



THE LUNAR SPACECRAFT DID NOT APPEAR MUCH DIFFERENT from Earthen spacecrafts, except that its body shimmered as if inlaid with diamonds, and a string of gold runes encircled its hull in an unbroken line. The ship was too bright in the afternoon sun and Kai had to squint against the glare. He did not know if the runes were magic or if they were only meant to seem so. He did not know if the ship was made out of some fancy, glittery material, or if they’d just painted it that way. He did know it hurt to look at.



The ship was larger than the personal shuttle the queen’s head thaumaturge, Sybil, had come to Earth on and yet still relatively small for all the importance it carried: smaller than most passenger ships and smaller than any cargo ship Kai had seen. It was a private ship, meant only for the Lunar queen and her entourage.



The ship landed without a jolt. Heat rose up from the concrete in blistering waves. The fine silk of Kai’s shirt was clinging to his back and a trickle of sweat had begun down his neck—in the evening the welcome pad would be sheltered by the palace’s stone walls, but now it was under full assault by the late August sun.



They waited.



Torin, at Kai’s side, did not fidget. His face was impassive, expectant. His calmness only unsettled Kai even more.



On Kai’s other side, Sybil Mira stood dressed in her official white coat with its embroidered runes, similar to those on the ship. The material seemed lightweight, yet it covered her from the top of her throat to the knuckles of each hand, and the flared tails hung past her knees. She must have been sweltering, but she looked fully composed.