Her satellite made one full orbit around planet Earth every sixteen hours. It was a prison that came with an endlessly breathtaking view—vast blue oceans and swirling clouds and sunrises that set half the world on fire.
Soon she would land and step out onto real dirt, feel real sunshine, smell real oxygen.
*He was exactly the kind of hero Cress had been dreaming about her entire life.
With that discovery, thoughts of Carswell Thorne began to infiltrate her every waking moment She dreamed of deep soul connections and passionate kisses and daring escapades. She was certain that he simply had to meet her, just once, and he would feel the same way. It would be like those epic love affairs that exploded into existence and burned white hot for all eternity. The type of love that time and distance and even death couldn’t separate.
Because if there was one thing Cress knew about heroes, it was that they could not resist a damsel in distress.
And she was nothing if not in distress.*
“I don’t mind the scars.” He shrugged, his eyes taking on a mischievous spark. “They hold better memories now than they used to.”
Yes, there was something dark inside him, but the monster she’d seen before was not the same as the man seated before her now.
“You said yourself that the people of Luna need a revolutionary.” She lifted her chin, holding his gaze. “So I’m going to Luna, and I’m going to start a revolution.”
He hated Levana. He hated himself for giving in to her. He hated that his father had managed to keep her and her threats of war at bay for years and years, and within weeks of Kai taking the throne, he’d let everything fall apart.
With the woman’s powerful voice in her ears, swooning over the incessant shower, Cress was the star, the damsel, the center of that universe. She sang along at full volume, pausing only to prepare herself for the crescendo.
It always came back to love. More than freedom, more than acceptance—love. True love, like they sang about in the second era. The kind that filled up a person’s soul. The kind that lent itself to dramatic gestures and sacrifices. The kind that was irresistible and all-encompassing.
*She’d seen pictures, of course. Thousands and thousands of photographs and vids—cities and lakes and forests and mountains, every landscape imaginable. But she had never thought the sky could be so impossibly blue, or that the land could hold so many hues of gold, or could glitter like a sea of diamonds, or could roll and swell like a breathing creature.
For one moment, the reality of it all poured into her body and overflowed.*
His hand encased hers and she wanted to savor the moment, the sensation of touch and warmth and this perfect smell of freedom, but Thorne was nudging her forward before the moment had settled.
The sky was a haze of violet, and where that faded away—blue and black and stars. The same stars she’d known all her life, and yet now they were spread out like a blanket over her. Now there was an entire sky and an entire world ready to engulf her.
The faint swirl of gasses in the universe, glowing purple and blue. The sparkle of thousands and thousands of stars, as numerous as sand grains, as breathtaking as an Earthen sunrise seen through her satellite window.
Scarlet felt no fear as the moon dwarfed the tiny ship, expanded until it was all she could see through the glass.
*He wasn’t alone. Was he?
Anxiety crawled up his throat. Of course he wasn’t. He had an entire country behind him, and all the people in the palace, and …
No one.
No one could truly understand what he was risking, what sacrifices he may be making.*
“When you came to my jail cell and dropped this whole princess thing on me … how was I supposed to react? All of a sudden I went from being nobody to being long-lost royalty, and you expected me to jump up and accept this destiny that you’d worked out in your head, but did you ever consider that maybe that’s not the destiny I want? I wasn’t raised to be a princess or a leader. I just needed some time to figure out who I was … am. Where I came from. I thought maybe those answers were in France.”
“You may choose to reveal all your secrets, Miss Linh, but it does not mean I must reveal mine, or those of the people in this town.”
She looked up. The stars were moving, swirling over her head like a whirlpool trying to suck the whole planet into its depths. The stars were taunting her. Laughing.
“I wouldn’t leave you,” she said.
*Kai rolled his eyes. “Ironically, I think that might be why I liked Cinder so much in the first place.”
“That she couldn’t disguise her emotions?”
“That she didn’t try. At least, that’s how it seemed.” Kai leaned back against the exam table, feeling the sterile paper crinkle beneath his fingers. “Sometimes it just seems like everyone around me is pretending. The Lunars are the worst. Levana and her entourage … Everything about them is so fake. I mean, I’m engaged to Levana, and I still don’t even know what she really looks like. But it isn’t just them. It’s the other Union leaders, even my own cabinet members. Everyone is trying to impress everyone else. Trying to make themselves out to be smarter or more confident than they actually are.”*
“And then there was Cinder. This completely normal girl, working this completely mundane job. She was always covered in dirt or grease and she was so brilliant when she was fixing things. And she joked about stuff with me, like she was talking to a normal guy, not a prince. Everything about her seemed so genuine. At least, that’s what I’d thought. But then it turned out she was just like everyone else.”
“And yet,” said Torin, “I believe it is the mark of a great leader to question the decisions that came before him. Perhaps, once we’ve solved some of our more immediate problems, we can readdress this.”
Of course his insanity would reach such a depth that the hallucinations would return to him the only thing he had ever cared for, and they would twist reality so that she became just another one of his victims.
Like dominoes pushed over, she heard the unlatching of sixty safety mechanisms around her.
“There’s nothing worse than your own body being used against you.”
With a quick twist to her heart, Cress’s fear of him began to subside. She’d been right back at the boutique. He was like the hero of a romance story, and he was trying to rescue his beloved. His alpha.
Beside him, she felt as small and frail as a bird, but there was also a sense of protection. She focused on that, and within moments, a comforting dream slipped around her.
Many pillars throughout the room were carved with gold-tinted dragons, and the walls were filled with so many bouquets of flowers, some as tall as Cress, that it was like the gardens had begun to grow wild inside. Half a dozen birdcages stood beside the floor-to-ceiling windows, displaying doves and mockingbirds and sparrows, which sang a chaotic melody that rivaled the beauty of the orchestra.
At the time, his expression was so filled with shock and betrayal her heart had split in two, especially when not an hour before she had stood dripping wet at the top of the ballroom stairs and Kai had looked up at her and smiled.
*“So you were just going to keep it hidden forever?”
“Forever?” Cinder waved her arm toward the window. “You are the emperor of an entire country. There was never going to be a forever.”*
His captivity was instant, airtight and suffocating and final.
“I know, y-yes, I know.” He swiped hastily to clear his face. When he lifted his head, his cheeks were flushed, his eyes glassy. He looked as weak and frail as a broken bird. “I’m s-so sorry this is how … oh, please be careful. Please be safe. My Crescent Moon. I love you. I do love you.”
*To anyone who would have seen her, Levana was a vision of serenity in her ethereal red wedding gown and the sheer gold veil that fell to her wrists. She sat on the settee in her guest quarters, posture perfect, her hands folded in her lap.
Except they were not folded at all, but rather balled into angry fists.
Each one held a wedding band. One that she had worn for far too many years, that she had once believed would bring her love and happiness, but had only ever brought her pain.
The other was supposed to bring her, not the love of a blind, selfish husband, but the love of an entire planet*
The last word hovered unspoken as he stopped shuddering and lay still, his blue eyes staring upward like empty marbles.
“Believe me, Cress. The pleasure was all mine.”
*She dreamed that she was being chased by an enormous white wolf, its fangs bared and its eyes flashing beneath a full moon. She was running through crops thick with mud that sucked at her shoes, her breath forming clouds of steam. Her throat stung. Her legs burned. She ran as fast as she could, but her body became heavier with every step. The shriveled leaves of sugar beets turned rotten and brittle under her. She spotted a house in the distance—her house. The farmhouse her grandmother had raised her in, the windows beaming with warmth.
The house was safety. The house was home.*
The wolf prowled closer. Its lean muscles moved gracefully under the coat of fur. It snarled, eyes lit with hunger.
“I wasn’t lying about the walls that bleed. Someday soon, I fear the palace will be soaked through with blood and all of Artemisia Lake will be so red, even the Earthens will be able to see it.”
She swiveled on her toes and ducked out of the cage, her head lowered so that her thick hair hid both her beauty and her scars.
The unspeakable beauty. The scars that, according to rumor, had been inflicted by the queen herself.
It was like being drawn slowly from the serene darkness, the way one wakes up when they’ve been having a lovely dream and their subconscious is struggling to hold them there, just a little while longer.
“No, you don’t understand. More than anything, I’m afraid that … the more I fight her and the stronger I become, the more I’m turning into her.”
*Her headache began to fade, replaced with the strength of his heartbeat and the way she felt almost delicate when she was pressed up against him like this.
Almost fragile.
Almost safe . Almost like a princess.*
The bond snapped, the fantasy of one perfect true-love moment disintegrating around her.
Whatever those Lunar scientists had done to him, Wolf had shown time and again that he could make his own choices. That he could be different.