Cress

“I can’t believe you kidnapped me!” Kai yelled, spinning back to face her before Cinder could brace herself. “We’re on a spaceship, Cinder. In space!” He pointed at the wall. It wasn’t actually an exterior wall, but Cinder didn’t feel the need to point that out. “I can’t be on a spaceship. I have a country to run. I have people who need me. We are on the verge of a war. Do you understand that? War. Where people die. I cannot be up here, messing around with you and your band of misfits! Do you even know that you are housing one of her mutants up there?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s Wolf. He’s harmless.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, not harmless…”

He laughed, but it was sharp and delirious. “I can’t—how could—what were you thinking?”

“You’re welcome,” she muttered, defiantly crossing her arms.

He glowered, rather ungratefully. “Take me back to Earth.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Cinder—” He huffed. Reconsidered. Softened … just a bit.

The change put an instant dent in Cinder’s defenses, prompting a strange tingle behind her rib cage. She dug her fingertips into her elbows.

“As someone who understands why you did this, and admires your ability to actually accomplish it, I am—pleading with you. Cinder. Please. Take me back.”

She filled up her lungs. “No.”

The softness was gone, instantly. Tipping his head back, Kai strung both hands through his hair. It surprised her how familiar the gesture was.

“When did you become so frustrating?”

She scuffed the toe of her boot against the floor.

“Fine! As your emperor, I command you to return me to Earth. Immediately.”

Cinder rocked on her heels. “Kai … Your Majesty. You may recall that I’m Lunar. And Lunars are forbidden from being granted citizenship in the Eastern Commonwealth. Therefore … you’re no longer my emperor.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

She was surprised at how the words stung. Like before, in the palace, indignation reared up fast and burning. “You have no idea how seriously I’m taking this.”

“Are you? Do you even know what the consequences are going to be for what you’ve done?”

“Yes, actually. I know this is a war. I am aware that more people are going to die before this is over. But we didn’t have a choice.”

“Your choice was to stay out of the way! Your choice was to do nothing! This is my job, my responsibility. I’m the emperor. Let me handle it.”

“By letting you marry her? That’s handling it?”

“It’s my decision.”

“It’s a stupid one!”

Kai spun away, his hands clawed into his hair. Whatever product had been used to style it for the wedding was making it messier than usual, and stars, he looked good.

Cinder smothered the thought, annoyed with herself.

“Please,” he said, his voice strained as he faced her again. “Please tell me this isn’t some … some petty act of jealousy. Please tell me this isn’t all because I asked you to the ball, or that time in the elevator, or—”

“Oh, you can’t be serious. I hope you don’t really think so little of me.”

“You shot me, Cinder, and then you kidnapped me. I honestly don’t know what to think.”

“Well, believe it or not, we didn’t just do this for you. We’re trying to save the whole world from your power-crazy fiancée. I refuse to let Levana become empress. I refuse to give her free rein over the Commonwealth. But we need more time.”

“More time for what? All you’ve done is make her angrier, so that when she retaliates, her wrath is going to be that much worse. Was that a part of your master plan, or are you just making this up as you go along?”

Cinder’s blood began to boil and she desperately, desperately wished she could tell him that, yes, of course they had a grand master plan that was guaranteed to work. Guaranteed to rid them all of Queen Levana and her tyranny forever. But there was no guarantee. Only a string of hope, and the knowledge that losing wasn’t an option.

She swallowed, hard. “I have a plan, to end this for good. But I need your help.”

Kai pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cinder. I hate Levana as much as you do. But she’s the one pulling the strings here. She has this army … it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Those little skirmishes that killed sixteen thousand people a couple weeks ago? Laughable compared to what she’s really capable of. Plus she has an antidote to letumosis, and we desperately need it—you know how much we need it. So while the idea of marrying Levana and crowning her empress makes me want to gouge out my own eyes, I don’t have a choice.”

“Gouge out your own eyes?” she said softly. “She could make you do that, you know.”

His expression darkened. “So could you, I’m told.”

She looked away. “Kai—Your Majesty—”

He waved his arms through the air. “Kai is fine. I don’t care.”

Cinder pressed her lips. It felt like a victory, but an unearned one. “You have to trust me. We can defeat her. I know we can.”

“How? Even if … let’s say you did. Let’s say you even managed to kill her. There’s still a whole posse of thaumaturges ready to take her place, and from what I’ve seen, they’re not much better.”