But she did not complain. She panted a great deal. She swiped at the sweat drops on her temples. She clenched her jaw against the hurt. But she did not complain.
At least she could see, she reminded herself. And at least she didn’t have to carry the supplies. She heard Thorne switch shoulders from time to time, but he didn’t complain either.
Sometimes when they struck a flat spot, she closed her eyes to see how long she could go without opening them. Vertigo would set in almost immediately. Panic would blossom at the base of her spine and crawl up it until she was sure each new step would bring her in contact with a rock or a small hill and she would stumble face-first into the sand.
The fourth time she did it, Thorne asked her why they kept slowing down. She kept her eyes open after that.
“Do you need to take a break?” Thorne asked, hours later.
“N-no,” she huffed, her thighs burning. “We’re almost to the top of this dune.”
“Sure? No point passing out from exhaustion.”
She breathed a sigh of relief upon reaching the top of the dune, but dread quickly took its place. She didn’t know why she’d expected this dune to be different from the dozens they’d already crested. She didn’t know why she’d been thinking that this must have marked the end of the desert, because she didn’t think she could go much farther.
But it was not the end. The world was made of more dunes, more sand, more nothingness.
“Really. Let’s take a break,” Thorne said, setting down the pack and stabbing the cane into the ground. He spent a moment working the kinks from his shoulders, before hunching over and undoing the bundle’s knot. He handed Cress one of the water bottles and took another for himself.
“Shouldn’t we ration it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It’s best to drink when we’re thirsty, and just try to keep sweating to a minimum—as much as possible. Our bodies will be better able to maintain hydration that way, even if we do run out of water. And we should avoid eating until we find another water source. Digestion uses up a lot of water too.”
“That’s fine. I’m not hungry.” Which was true—the heat seemed to have stolen what appetite she’d had.
When she’d drank all she could, Cress handed the bottle back to Thorne and fantasized about collapsing into the sand and going to sleep, but she dared not, fearing she would never get up again. When Thorne lifted the pack, she took off down the hill without question.
“What do you think is happening on your ship?” Cress asked as they descended the hill. The question had been echoing in her mind for hours, but the water had finally made her capable of speech. “Do you think Mistress Sybil…”
“They’re fine,” Thorne said, with unrelenting confidence. “I pity the person who goes up against Wolf, and Cinder’s made of tougher stuff than people realize.” A pause, before a hearty laugh burst through the quiet desert air. “Literally, in fact.”
“Wolf. That must be the other man on the ship?”
“Yes, and Scarlet is his … well, I don’t really know what they call themselves, but he’s lunatic-crazy for her. Scarlet’s not a bad shot, herself. That thaumaturge had no idea what she was walking into.”
Cress hoped he was right. Mistress Sybil had found them because of her, and the guilt was as painful as the deep aches in her bones.
“So how did a girl born on Luna get stuck in a satellite and become an Earthen sympathizer, anyway?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Well. When my parents found out I was a shell, they gave me up to be killed, because of the infanticide laws. But Mistress saved me and raised me instead, along with some other shells she’d rescued. She mostly just wanted us for some sort of experiments they’re always running, but Mistress never really explained it to me. We used to live in some of the lava tubes that had been converted into dormitories, and we were always being monitored by these cameras that were connected to Luna’s communication system. It was sort of cramped, but not too bad, and we had ports and netscreens, so we weren’t entirely cut off from the outside world. After a while I got really good at hacking into the communication system, which I mostly just used for silly stuff. We were all curious about school, so I used to hack into the Lunar school system and download the study guides, things like that.”
Cress squinted up at the moon, now so far away. It was hard to believe it’s where she came from. “Then one day, one of the older boys—Julian—asked me if I thought I could find out who his parents were. It took a couple days, but I did, and we learned that his parents lived in one of the lumber domes, and that they were both alive, and that he had two younger siblings. And then we figured out how to send them a message and tell them that he was alive. He thought that if they knew he hadn’t been killed after all, they would come find him. We got so excited, thinking we could all contact our families. That we would all be rescued.” She gulped. “It was really naïve, of course. The next day, Mistress came and took Julian away, and then some technicians removed all of the monitoring equipment so we couldn’t access the net anymore. I never saw Julian again. I think … I think his parents must have contacted the authorities when they got his comm, and I think he may have been killed, to prove that the infanticide laws were being taken seriously.”
She ran her fingers absently through her hair, surprised when they slipped through it so quickly. “After that, Mistress Sybil started to pay more attention to me. She sometimes took me out of the caverns and up into the domes and gave me different tasks. Altering the coding of the broadcast system. Tapping into netlinks. Programming intelligence software to pick up on specific verbal cues and divert information to separate comm accounts. At first I loved it. Mistress was nice to me then, and it meant I got to leave the lava tubes and see some of the city. I felt like I was becoming her favorite, and that if I did what she asked me to do, eventually it wouldn’t matter that I was a shell anymore, and I would be allowed to go to school and be just like any normal Lunar.
“Well, one day Sybil asked me to hack a communication between a couple of European diplomats and I told her that the signal was too weak. I needed to be closer to Earth, and I required better net connectivity, and advanced software…”
Cress shook her head, remembering how she had told Sybil exactly what Sybil would need to craft the satellite for her young prodigy. Cress had practically designed her own prison.
“A few months later, Mistress came to get me, and told me we were going on a trip. We boarded a podship, and I was so, so excited. I thought she was taking me to Artemisia, to be presented to the queen herself, to be forgiven for being born a shell. It feels so stupid now. Even when we started flying away from Luna, and I saw that we were heading toward Earth, I thought that’s where we were going. I figured, all right, maybe Lunars really can’t accept me this way, but Mistress knows that Earthens will. So she’s letting me go to Earth, instead. The trip took hours and hours and by the end of it I was shaking with excitement, and I’d worked up this whole story in my head, how Mistress was going to give me to some nice Earthen couple, and they would raise me as their own, and they lived in an enormous tree house—I don’t know why I thought they would live in a tree house, but for some reason that’s what I was hoping for. I mean, I’d never seen real trees.” She frowned. “Still haven’t, actually.”
There was a short silence, before Thorne said, “And that’s when she took you to the satellite, and you became the queen’s programmer.”
“Programmer, hacker, spy … somehow, I never stopped believing that if I did everything she asked, someday they would let me go.”
“And how long before you decided that you’d rather be trying to save Earthen royalty than spy on them?”
“I don’t know. I was always fascinated by Earth. I spent a lot of time reading Earthen news and watching their dramas. I started to feel connected to the people down there … down here. More than I ever did to Lunars.” She wrung her hands. “After a while, I started to pretend that I was a secret
guardian, and it was my job to protect Earth and its people from Levana.”
To her relief, Thorne didn’t laugh. He didn’t say anything for a long time and Cress couldn’t determine if the silence was comforting or awkward. Maybe he thought her fantasies were childish.
A long while later, Thorne finally spoke. “If I’d been in your position, and I had only one D-COMM chip that I could use to communicate with Earth, I would have found some dirt on a hotshot spaceship pilot and blackmailed him into coming to get me out of that satellite, rather than trying to rescue the emperor.”
Though he looked serious, Cress couldn’t help but smile. “No, you wouldn’t have. You would have done the same thing I did, because you know that the threat Levana poses to Earth is much bigger than you or me … much bigger than any of us.”
But the captain just shook his head. “That’s very good of you to say, Cress. But trust me. I would have blackmailed someone.”
Nineteen
Kai scooped his hair off his brow, staring at the holograph that floated above the conference table with a mixture of horror and awe. Part of him wanted to laugh. Not at all because it was funny, but because there didn’t seem to be any better reaction.
The holograph showed the planet Earth. And all around it were hundreds of small yellow lights, many clumped above Earth’s most-populated cities.
Hundreds of tiny spaceships.
They were surrounded.
“And they’re all Lunar?” he said. “We’re sure?”
“Without a doubt,” said European Prime Minister Bromstad, his face grouped with the other Earthen Union leaders on the massive netscreen. “What’s most disconcerting is that we were given zero indication of their approach. It’s as if they all just … flickered into existence, ten thousand kilometers over our heads.”
“Or,” said Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom, “as if they were there all along, but we were unable to detect them. Haven’t we been hearing for years about these Lunar ships sneaking into our atmosphere, bypassing all of our security measures?”
“Does it matter how long they’ve been there, or how they got there in the first place?” asked American Republic President Vargas. “They’re obviously there now, and this is obviously a threat.”
Kai squeezed his eyes shut. “But why? She’s getting exactly what she wants. Why threaten us now? Why show us her hand?”
“Perhaps to ensure the Commonwealth doesn’t back out of the marriage alliance at the last minute?” Bromstad suggested.
“But she has absolutely no reason—” Kai huffed and dropped his hand to the back of his chair … what had once been his father’s chair. He was far too restless to sit down as he glanced around at his cabinet members and advisers, his country’s highly educated experts, who were looking as baffled as he felt. “What do you all make of this?”
His experts traded looks among themselves, before Chairman Deshal Huy started to drum his fingers against the table. “It does seem to indicate that they’re sending us a message of some sort.”
“Perhaps this is their way of RSVPing for the wedding,” muttered Governor-General Williams from Australia.
“Perhaps we should ask them,” said Konn Torin, tapping a finger against his brow. “If Luna is to become a peaceful ally of the Earthen Union, we might as well start opening the lines of communication.”
“Naturally,” said Africa’s Prime Minister Kamin. Kai could all but hear her rolling her eyes. “As they’ve been so open with us in the past.”
“And you have a better idea?”
“I certainly do,” said Williams. “This could be our best chance to reciprocate the recent invasion. We should coordinate a full-scale attack—take out as many of these ships as we can. Show Luna that they can’t keep threatening us every time Levana throws another fit. If they want a fight, we’ll fight.”
“War,” said Prime Minister Kamin. “You’re suggesting we start a war.”
“They started the war. I’m suggesting we end it.”
Kamin sniffed. “And you think our militaries are prepared to launch an attack against an entire fleet of Lunar ships? We don’t have the faintest idea what type of weaponry they have, and I think the recent attacks illustrated that they’re not going to fight by any strategies we’re familiar with. They’re unpredictable, and as much as it pains me to admit, our military expertise has suffered from generations of peace. Our numbers are down, few of our men have been trained for space combat—”
“I agree with Australia,” interrupted Queen Camilla. “This could be the only time we ever have the element of surprise on our side.”
“Surprise?” barked President Vargas. “They’re surrounding us. What if they’re hoping that we attack them? What if all this drivel about the marriage alliance has been a ruse, just to keep us distracted while they move into position?”
Kai’s knuckles whitened on the back of the chair. “The alliance isn’t a ruse, and nobody is starting a war!”
Camilla smirked. “Oh, yes. I’d forgotten that the young emperor is so very knowledgeable in these matters.”
His blood began to simmer. “This holograph indicates that while these ships may have Earth surrounded, they are still outside the territorial designations of the Earthen Union. Correct?”
“For now,” said Governor-General Williams.
“Right. Which means that for now, these ships aren’t violating any terms that we’ve established with Luna. I’m not saying Levana isn’t taunting us or threatening us, but it would be foolish of us to react to it without first coming up with some sort of strategy.”
Williams shook his head. “By the time we’ve finished strategizing, we very well may have been obliterated.”
“Fine,” said Kai, squaring his shoulders. “The Treaty of Bremen states we need a majority rule to execute an act of war against any political entity. All in favor to attack these Lunar ships, say aye.”
“Aye,” said Williams and Camilla in unison. The other three leaders remained silent, but Kai could tell from their pinched expressions that no one was happy about it.
“Measure fails.”
“Then what do you propose we do?” asked Queen Camilla.
“There is a Lunar delegate staying in the palace right now,” said Kai, cringing to himself. “I’ll speak with him. See if I can figure out what’s going on. The alliance negotiations are between Luna and the Commonwealth, so just let me handle it.”
He canceled the communication link before the other leaders could argue, or see how frustrated he was becoming. Frustrated that he never knew what Levana was thinking or what she was going to do next. Frustrated that he was bowing to her every whim and yet she still decided to pull a stunt like this, for no apparent reason other than to get the rest of the Union all riled up. Frustrated that, if he were honest with himself, a large part of him agreed that attacking those ships might be the best course of action.
But if war broke out, they had no chance of completing the peace alliance, which meant no hope for getting their hands on the letumosis antidote.
He glanced around at the other men and women sitting around the holograph. “Thank you,” he said, his voice sounding almost calm. “That will be all.”
“Your Majesty,” said Nainsi, rolling into the boardroom as the experts filed out, “you have a meeting scheduled with Tashmi-jiĕ in six minutes.”
He stifled a groan. “Let me guess. We must be discussing table linens today?”
“I believe catering staff, Your Majesty.”
“Ah, right, that sounds like an excellent use of my time.” He clipped his portscreen to his belt. “Let her know I’m on my way.”
* * *
“Thank you for agreeing to meet me out here,” said Tashmi Priya, bowing. “I thought the fresh air might help you focus on some of the final decisions to be made in regards to the ceremony.”
Kai smiled wryly. “That’s a very diplomatic way of pointing out that I haven’t been taking this wedding plan
ning very seriously. Which is probably true.” He tucked his hands into his pockets, amazed at how good the crisp breeze felt on his face. He was still flushed with irritation after the meeting with the Union leaders. “Although, it is nice to be out here. I feel like I haven’t left my office all month.”
“I suspect there is security footage somewhere to prove that.”
They passed by a koi pond, shadowed by the drooping branches of a weeping willow and surrounded by a patch of the gardens that had been recently dug up and tilled, prepared to replant for the coming autumn season. Smelling the fresh earth, Kai was momentarily baffled at how the life of the palace continued—how the life of the city and the Commonwealth and all of Earth had gone on, even while he’d locked himself in that office and racked his brain for some way to protect it all.
“Your Majesty?”
He started. “Yes, I’m sorry.” He gestured at a simple stone bench. “Shall we?”
Priya adjusted the fabric of her sari as she sat down. The gold and orange fish swarmed to the rocky barrier of the pond, hoping for food.
“I wanted to speak with you about an idea I’ve had regarding the hired vendors that will be assisting with the wedding ceremony, but it’s one that I don’t think Her Lunar Majesty would approve. Nevertheless, I thought the decision should be yours.”
“Hired vendors?”
“Caterers, footmen, ushers, florists, and the like.”
Kai adjusted the cuff of his shirt. “Oh, right. Go on.”
“I thought it might be prudent to staff the event with a mix of humans and androids.”
He shook his head. “Levana would never stand for it.”
“Yes. That’s why I would suggest we use escort-droids that she would not recognize as such.”