Winter Read online

Whoever it was, they didn’t have time to wait for them to leave.

  Cinder loaded a bullet into her projectile finger. They’d found plenty of ammunition aboard the Rampion, but she couldn’t help wishing Kai had been able to procure more tranquilizer darts for her on Earth.

  Too late. No time to think.

  Wolf popped open the hatch and jumped down first. Cinder once again took control of his body, in case there were Lunars down there, but she had nothing to do with the growl or flash of teeth.

  Cinder swung herself down beside him. The floor clanged as Iko dropped next, followed by the tentative thuds of Cress’s footsteps on the ladder.

  Three figures that had been inspecting the crates swung around to face them. Cinder registered the uniforms of a black-coated thaumaturge and two Lunar guards at the same moment a gun fired.

  Her left leg kicked out from under her, the shock wave vibrating up through her hip and into her spine. The bullet had hit her metal thigh.

  Cress cried out and froze on the ladder, releasing the rungs only when Iko grabbed her and yanked her off. Cinder urged Wolf’s legs to move. They scurried behind a pallet loaded with Commonwealth merchandise just as another bullet pinged on the wall overhead. A third hit the crate, splintering the wood on the other side.

  The firing stopped.

  Cinder pressed her back to the crate, reorienting herself. She stretched out her thoughts, finding the Lunars’ bioelectricity sizzling in the room, but of course the guards were already under the thaumaturge’s control.

  The ramp that would let them escape from the ship was on the opposite side of the cargo bay.

  Eerie silence fell, leaving Cinder jumpy as she strained to listen for footsteps coming toward them. She expected the Lunars would try to surround them. Their weapons wouldn’t stay quiet for long.

  Wolf’s limbs were still for once, and it occurred to Cinder that she was holding him so still. Only his expression was alive. Fierce, wild. He was her best weapon, but under her control he would be clunky and awkward—not half as brutal as he could be on his own. Their training aboard the Rampion had focused on stopping an enemy. Disarming them. Removing a threat.

  She wished now they would have spent more time practicing how to turn people into weapons. It was a skill that Levana and her minions excelled at.

  Wolf met her gaze, and a thought occurred to her. Cinder was controlling his body, but not his mind or his emotions. What if she changed tactics? She could still protect him from the thaumaturge’s power while allowing him to do what he did best.

  “Get the thaumaturge,” she whispered, then released Wolf’s body and snatched at his thoughts instead. She fed him a vision of the first terrible thing that came to mind: the fight aboard the Rampion between them and Sybil Mira. The day Scarlet had been taken.

  Wolf vaulted over the crate. Gunshots blared, bullets pinged, the walls shook.

  Iko roared and launched herself past Cinder, tackling a guard who appeared in the corner of Cinder’s vision. His gun fired; the bullet struck the ceiling. Iko punched him and his head cracked against the metal floor. His body stopped flailing, unconscious.

  Cinder jumped to her feet, holding her cyborg hand like a gun, and spotted the second guard creeping around to their other side. His face was blank—unafraid. Then, as she watched, it cleared. His eyes focused on Cinder, bewildered.

  The thaumaturge had lost control of him.

  The moment was fleeting. The guard snarled and aimed his gun at Cinder, but he was too late. Already she had a grip on his bioelectricity. With a thought, she sent him spiraling into unconsciousness. He dropped to his knees and collapsed face-first to the floor with a crunch. Blood spurted from his nose. Cinder recoiled.

  A scream echoed through the bay.

  Cinder could no longer see Wolf, and terror struck her. In taking control of the guard, she’d forgotten about protecting Wolf’s mind from—

  The screaming stopped, followed by a thud.

  A second later, Wolf appeared from behind a shelf stacked with suitcases, snarling and shaking out his right fist.

  Pulse thrumming, Cinder turned to see Iko with her arm wrapped around an extra-pale Cress.

  They ran for the ramp, and Cinder was grateful that it was lowered to face away from the palace entrance. As they crept downward, she scanned their surroundings, with both her eyes and her Lunar gift. In this wide-open space, she could sense a cluster of people in the distance and she could tell there were both Earthens and Lunars in the mix.

  Their route to the maglev doors, at least, was unblocked. If they were careful, they could stay hidden behind this row of ships.

  At least, until one of those Lunars picked up on Wolf’s sizzling energy and questioned what a modified soldier was doing here.

  She waved her arm and they skimmed around the side of the ramp. A breath passed while Cinder waited for a sign they’d been noticed. When none came, they darted to the next ship, and the next. Every thump of their feet pounded in her ears. Every breath sounded like a windstorm.

  A shout startled her and together they ducked behind the landing gear of an elaborately painted ship from the African Union. Cinder held her hand at the ready, the bullet still loaded in her finger.

  “Over there!” someone yelled.

  Cinder peered around the telescoping legs of the spacecraft and spotted a figure bolting between ships. Thorne, running away from them at full speed.

  Not yet controlled by a Lunar.

  Heart leaping, Cinder reached out for his mind, hoping to get to him before one of the Lunars on the other side of the dock …

  Success.

  Like with Wolf, she thrust an idea into his head.

  Get back here.

  Startled, Thorne tripped and fell, rolled a couple times, and sprang again to his feet. Cinder flinched with guilt, but was relieved when Thorne changed directions. He skirted around a couple podships, dodging a volley of bullets from a cluster of guards that had emerged from the main ramp of Kai’s ship.

  “I’ve got him,” said Cinder. “Come on.”

  Keeping half her focus on Thorne, the rest on her own careful movements, Cinder stayed close to Wolf as they ducked in and out of the safety of the spacecraft, weaving their way to the wide platform that stood shoulder height around the perimeter of the docks. Their exit loomed before them. Enormous double doors carved in mysterious Lunar runes. A sign above them indicated the way to the maglev platform.

  They reached the last ship. They’d run out of shelter. Once they were on the platform, they would be on raised, wide-open ground.

  Cinder glanced back. Thorne was on his stomach beneath the tail of a solo-pilot pod. He waved at them to go ahead, to hurry.

  “Iko, you and Cress go first,” said Cinder. If they were seen, they at least couldn’t be manipulated. “We’ll cover you.”

  Iko put herself between Cress and the palace doors and they ran for the short flight of steps. Cinder swung her embedded gun from side to side, searching for threats, but the guards were too focused on finding Thorne to notice them.

  A hiss drew her attention back to the platform. Iko and Cress were at the doors, but they were still shut.

  Cinder’s stomach dropped.

  They were supposed to open automatically.

  But—no. Levana had been expecting them. Of course she had taken precautions to ensure they wouldn’t be able to escape.

  Her face contorted, desperation crashing into her. She struggled to come up with another way out. Would Wolf be strong enough to pry open the doors? Could they fire their way through?

  As she racked her brain, a new expression came over Cress, replacing her wide-eyed terror with resolve. Cinder followed her gaze to a circular control booth that stood between the maglev and palace entrances. Before Cinder could guess her plan, Cress had dropped to her hands and knees and started crawling along the wall.

  A gun fired. Cress flinched but kept going.

  It was followed by another shot, and another
, each making Cinder duck down farther. With the third shot there was a shatter of glass.

  Cinder spun around, her heart in her throat, and sought out Thorne. He hadn’t moved, but now he was holding a handgun, and had it aimed behind him. He’d shot out a window on Kai’s ship.

  He was causing another distraction, trying to draw more attention to himself, to keep it away from Cress.

  Throat dry as desert sand, Cinder looked back to see that Cress had made it to the booth. She was clutching her portscreen, the fingers of her other hand dancing over an invisi-screen. Iko was still by the doors, crouched into a ball, ready to spring up and run at the slightest provocation.

  Beside Cinder, Wolf was focused on Thorne, ready to rush into the fight the second one broke out.

  Footsteps came pounding down the ramp of Kai’s ship and additional Lunar guards swarmed the aisles. It wasn’t the guards that concerned Cinder, though. They wouldn’t be skilled enough to detect Thorne in their midst. It was their thaumaturges that worried her, but she couldn’t find them.

  Doors whistled. Wolf grabbed Cinder’s elbow before she could turn around and dragged her up to the platform.

  Cress had gotten the doors open.

  Iko was already on the other side, her back against a corridor wall, waving them on. She had drawn her own gun for the first time and was searching for a target.

  “There!”

  Wolf and Cinder pounded up the stairs. A bullet pinged against the wall, and she ducked and stumbled through the doors. They slammed into the wall beside Iko.

  Cinder looked back, panting. Their pursuers had given up trying to catch them off guard and were now running toward them at full speed. But Thorne had a head start, and he, too, had given up secrecy for speed. Cinder fed images into his mind—his legs running fast as a gazelle’s, his feet barely touching the ground. She was too afraid that to turn him into a puppet would only slow him down, but the mental encouragement seemed to work. His speed increased. He bounded up the stairs in two steps.

  Over his shoulder, Cinder finally saw the thaumaturge, a woman with short black hair and a red coat.

  Gritting her teeth, she raised her arm and fired. She didn’t know where she’d hit her, but the woman cried out and fell.

  Thorne threw himself across the threshold as the guards reached the base of the platform steps. The doors slammed shut behind him.

  Thorne collapsed against the wall, holding his chest. His cheeks were flushed, but his eyes were bright with adrenaline as he looked around at the group. At Cinder, at Iko, at Wolf.

  The growing smile vanished. “Cress?”

  Cinder, still gasping for her own breath, shook her head.

  His jaw fell slack with horror. He pushed himself off the wall and lunged for the doors, but Wolf jumped in front of him, pinning Thorne’s arms to his sides.

  “Let me go,” Thorne growled.

  “We can’t go back,” said Wolf. “It’s suicide.”

  To punctuate his words, a volley of bullets struck the doors, their loud clangs echoing down the corridor they were now trapped in.

  “We’re not leaving her.”

  “Thorne—” started Cinder.

  “No!” Wriggling one arm free, Thorne swung, but Wolf ducked. In half a heartbeat, Wolf had spun around and pinned Thorne to the wall, one enormous hand at Thorne’s throat.

  “She gave us this chance,” Wolf said. “Don’t waste it.”

  Thorne’s jaw flexed. His body was taut as a cable, ready to fight, though he was no match for Wolf. Panic was etched into every line of his face, but slowly, slowly, his erratic breaths started to even.

  “We have to go,” said Cinder, almost afraid to suggest it.

  Thorne’s focus shifted to the closed doors.

  “I could stay?” suggested Iko, her tone uncertain. “I could go back for her?”

  “No,” said Cinder. “We stay together.”

  Thorne flinched and Cinder realized the cruelty of her words too late. Their group was already divided.

  She inched forward to settle a hand on Thorne’s arm, but thought better of it. “We’d still be out there if it wasn’t for her. We’d all be captured, but thanks to Cress, we’re not. She saved us. Now, we have to go.”

  He squeezed his eyes. His shoulders slumped.

  His whole body was trembling, but he nodded.

  Wolf released him and they ran.

  BOOK

  Two

  The huntsman took pity on her and said,

  “Run away into the woods, child, and never come back.”

  Twenty-One

  At some point during the excitement following Emperor Kaito’s arrival, Jacin had placed himself in front of Winter—ever her protector—and she gathered up the back of his shirt’s material in one fist. His presence was part comfort, part annoyance. He kept blocking her view.

  Her sight was clear as daybreak, though, as she watched four figures dash through the exit that led down to the maglev shuttles. The doors slammed shut to a volley of gunfire. Though they had been too far away to see clearly, Winter was certain one of them was Linh Cinder.

  Her dear missing cousin, Princess Selene.

  “Follow them!” Levana shouted. The guards who had been sent to search the emperor’s ship were at the exit within seconds, trying to pry the doors open, but they wouldn’t budge.

  Levana wheeled around to face Sir Jerrico Solis. “Send one team through the palace to the lakeside entrances, another through the city. Try to cut them off at the platform.”

  Jerrico clasped a hand to his fist and was gone, summoning eight other guards to follow.

  “Aimery,” Levana barked, “see to it that all shuttles leaving Artemisia are stopped. Have them searched, along with all connecting tunnels and platforms. They are not to make it out of the city. And find out how they were able to get through those doors!”

  Aimery bowed. “I have already summoned the technician. We will have the entire system locked down.”

  Nostrils flaring, Levana straightened her spine and turned to face the emperor. He was standing near the back of their small group—alone, but for a handful of Earthen guards and his adviser. Yet he didn’t look afraid. Winter thought he should have looked afraid, but his lips were pressed together in a strained effort not to smile.

  Winter cocked her head, inspecting him. He seemed proud. Borderline smug. She began to feel guilty for having teased him before.

  “Stowaways,” he said, once he had Levana’s attention. His shoulders twitched in an unconcerned shrug. “What an unexpected surprise.”

  Levana’s face was fiercely beautiful. Breathtaking in her viciousness. “You have brought a known enemy into the heart of my country. In a time of mutual cease-fire, you have committed an act of treason.”

  Kai didn’t flinch. “My loyalty lies with the Eastern Commonwealth and with Earth. Not with Luna, and certainly not with you.”

  Levana’s eyes narrowed. “You seem confident that I won’t have you killed for this.”

  “You won’t,” he said with, as her stepmother guessed, an overabundance of confidence. Winter squirmed, suddenly afraid for him. “At least,” Kai amended, “not yet.”

  One perfect eyebrow lifted. “You’re right,” said Levana. “Perhaps I will kill your adviser instead. Surely he was aware of this blatant betrayal of my trust.”

  “Do with me as you see fit,” said the adviser, as unshaken as Kaito. “My loyalties lie only with my emperor.”

  Kai’s cheek twitched. “If you harm any one of your Earthen guests as either a punishment or a threat to me, I will refuse to continue with this wedding.”

  “Then I will no longer have any reason to keep you alive.”

  “I know,” said Kai, “but you also won’t get to be empress.”

  Their gazes warred with each other while Winter, Jacin, and the other guards watched. Winter’s heartbeat was erratic as she waited for the queen’s order to have Emperor Kaito killed—for his insolence as much as
for his role in bringing Linh Cinder to Artemisia.

  The doors to the palace opened and a guard entered, escorting one of their technicians.

  “My Queen, you summoned?”

  Aimery stepped forward. “There had been strict orders that the exits out of this port were to be locked, but it seems there has been a malfunction. Her Majesty demands to know what went wrong, and be assured it won’t happen again.”

  The technician bowed and scurried around the platform toward the control panel that monitored the exits and the massive spaceship-holding chamber beyond the port doors.

  Winter was watching him when her eye caught on a slip of movement. She frowned, sure she saw someone ducking in between some of the Earthen cargo.

  Or as sure as she could be of anything she saw, which was not very sure at all.

  Her stepmother rounded again on the emperor and flicked her arm toward him, irritated with his presence. “Take the Earthens to their quarters,” she said, “and keep them there.”

  The emperor and his entourage put up no resistance as the guards shuffled them away with more force than was necessary. Kai didn’t look in Winter’s direction, but as he passed she could see he was no longer hiding his grin. He might have become a prisoner of the queen, but clearly he saw this as a victory.

  The guards’ clomping footsteps had faded when the technician shouted, “My Queen!” His fingers were dancing over the screens, his face set with panic. Levana swept toward him. The rest of her entourage trailed after, and though Jacin moved to keep himself in front of Winter, she dodged around him and skipped ahead, ignoring his low growl. She scanned the stacks of crates and luggage again, but there was no sign of the mysterious figure she’d imagined before.

  “What?” Levana snapped.

  The technician didn’t turn away from the controls. On the nearest screen, Winter could see a map of the shuttle system and a flashing error message in the corner. Jacin appeared again at her side and cast her a cool glare for leaving the circle of his protection. She ignored him.

  “It’s—” the technician started. He swiveled to another screen.

  “I suggest you find your tongue before I disable it permanently,” said Levana.