I finished reading Winter, the fourth and final book in Marissa Meyer’s hit series The Lunar Chronicles. Here is a collection of my favourite quotes from the book!
Winter’s toes had become ice cubes. They were as cold as space. As cold as the dark side of Luna.
Thaumaturge Aimery Park spoke with a serene, measured cadence, like a ballad. It was easy to lose track of what he was saying, easy to let all the words blur and conjoin.
Ever since that runaway Lunar—that cyborg—had escaped from her Earthen prison. Ever since war had begun between Earth and Luna. Ever since the queen’s betrothed had been kidnapped, and Levana’s chance to be crowned empress had been stolen from her.
Usually they helped, these memories of him coaxing her through the panic. But this time it seemed to prompt the ice on. Encompassing her rib cage. Gnawing into her stomach. Hardening over her heart. She was freezing from the inside out.
The ice was in her throat now, climbing up her jaw. There were tears freezing inside their ducts. There was saliva crystallizing on her tongue.
She would die here and not complain. She would be buried beneath this avalanche of lifelessness. She would never have to witness another murder again.
Winter gasped and the ice shattered, a million sharp glittering bits exploding across the throne room and skidding across the floor. No one else heard them. No one else noticed.
“I suggest you stop playing with words. My patience with you is already thin.” Winter’s heart shriveled. Not Jacin. She could not sit here and watch them kill Jacin.
Winter flinched, but even this punishment could not destroy the fluttery relief in her stomach. He was not going to die. She was not a girl of ice and glass at all, but a girl of sunshine and stardust, because Jacin wasn’t going to die.
Winter braced herself with a breath full of intentions. Counted to three. And screamed. She screamed like an assassin was driving a knife into her stomach. She screamed like a thousand birds were pecking at her flesh. She screamed like the palace was burning down around her.
Jacin raised his head as she reached the edge of the dais. Their eyes clashed, and she was staring at a man who had been beaten and bound and mocked and tormented all day and for a moment she was sure he was broken. Another one of the queen’s broken toys.
She said the scars made Winter interesting to look at and somehow, odd as it was, even more beautiful. Beautiful. It was a word Winter had heard tossed around all her life. A beautiful child, a beautiful girl, a beautiful young lady, so beautiful, too beautiful . . . and the stares that attended the word never ceased to make her want to don a veil like her stepmother’s and hide from the whispers.
Jacin was the one person who could make her feel beautiful without it seeming like a bad thing. She couldn’t recall him ever using the word, or giving her any compliments, for that matter. They were always hidden behind careless jokes that made her heart pound
“I wanted to be alone with you,” she said, focusing on his face. “We never get to be alone anymore.” “It’s not proper for seventeen-year-old princesses to be alone with young men who have questionable intentions.”
“You may be an idiot, but I assure you, you’re quite a lovable one.” He shook his head. “You’re the only person in the galaxy who would ever call me lovable.” “I’m the only person in the galaxy crazy enough to believe it. Now tell me what you’ve done that is worth hating you for.”
“Try, Princess?” He smirked up at her. “I can’t seem to think of much else.”
“She’s our lost princess. And she’s coming home”
While Cinder couldn’t imagine him abdicating his throne and setting off on a lifetime of space travel and adventure, it was rather adorable watching him try to fit in.
“I didn’t learn it anywhere. I just look at things and figure out how they work. Once you know how something works, you can figure out how to fix it.”
*Cinder tensed briefly, before melting into the kiss. The rush was the same every time, coupled with surprise and a wave of giddiness. It was their seventeenth kiss (her brain interface was keeping a tally, somewhat against her will), and she wondered if she would ever get used to this feeling. Being desired, when she’d spent her life believing no one would ever see her as anything but a bizarre science experiment.
Especially not a boy.
She tied her arms around his neck, molding their bodies together. The warmth of his chest seeped into her clothes. It felt nothing but right. Nothing but perfect.
Kai was responsible for billions of people, and she knew he felt like he had abandoned them, even if he hadn’t been given a choice. Because she hadn’t given him a choice.
“Wolf is all I have left,” Scarlet clarified. She threw the stick halfheartedly across the path. It landed within paw’s reach of Ryu and he simply stared at it, like it wasn’t worth the effort. Scarlet’s shoulders slumped. “I need him as much as he needs me. But that doesn’t make it love.” Winter lowered her lashes. “Actually, dear friend, I suspect that is precisely what makes it love.”
“One of these days, I just want to open my eyes and see you.”
She stifled a sigh, realizing she was going to have to train herself not to stare at him quite as often as she was used to, otherwise there would be no chance of hiding the fact that, despite all his attempts to persuade her otherwise, she was still hopelessly in love with him.
There was no residual pain, just the memory of each spiked lash and the betrayal of his own arm wielding the weapon. That betrayal was something he was used to, though. His body hadn’t felt entirely his own since he became a member of the queen’s guard.
However—and Jacin kept this thought very, very quiet in his head—the princess could steal both their breath and their heart.
It was both a dream and a nightmare.
“We are already pawns in her game,” she said. “I have been a pawn in her game since the day she married my father, and you since the day you were conscripted into her guard.”
“I just thought . . .” She hesitated, her attention caught on how much bigger his hands were compared with the last time she’d held them. It was a startling realization. “I thought it might be nice to step off the game board every now and then.”
I care about you more than I should.
Time to say good-bye. Time to move ahead. Time to let go of the little utopia they’d cocooned themselves in.
“I’m going to tell her I’ve fallen for one of my captors and the wedding is off.”
Kai wrapped his arms around Cinder and kissed her, and though she wasn’t used to having an audience, Cinder didn’t hesitate to kiss him back. An impractical, uncalculating part of her brain told her to not let go. To not say good-bye.
Kai gave his head a shake and didn’t complain when Cinder pressed a kiss against his cheek. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “It’s weirdly attractive.”
But Thorne shook his head, adamant. “No, believe me. She deserves a better life than this.” Kai leaned forward to better get a view of his home spreading out before them. “My point exactly.”
The only downfall was that they had to live in Artemisia, surrounded by the politics and mind games of the city. A good servant was treated like a prized pet—spoiled and fawned over when they were wanted, beaten and discarded when they’d overstayed their usefulness.
“Oh, I fully intend to form an alliance with Luna.” Kai glanced at the cyborg foot again. “I just intend to put a different queen on the throne first.”
“I hate this,” she whispered back. “I hate having to pretend like I don’t even see you.” His expression softened. “I know you see me. That’s all that matters. Right?”
The walls themselves were rocky and black, but lit with thousands of tiny lights like a starry night sky.
She tried to think of this like a homecoming. She had been born here—this moon, this city. Here, her birth had been celebrated. Here, she would have been raised to be a queen
This seemed worse than failing the people of Luna, though. She’d failed the people she cared about most in the universe.
“I will protect Winter with my life. Second only to her, I promise to protect you too.”
Her hair was dark with grease and grime, extinguishing the fiery redness that had once reminded Winter of a comet’s tail.
This disappointment did not, however, chase away the fantasy of how badly she wanted him to press her against these caged walls and kiss her until she could think of nothing else.
“Ever since we were kids, all I ever wanted was to protect you.”
It was torture. Jacin looked more afraid than when he’d stood on trial. More pained now than when his torso had been stripped raw from the lashings. This was the last time she would ever see him. This was her last moment. Her last breath.
*“Jacin,” she said, with a shaky smile. “You must know. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t love you. I don’t think such a time ever existed.”
His eyes filled with a thousand emotions. But before he could say whatever he would say, before he could kill her, Winter grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands and kissed him.
“Jacin,” she said, with a shaky smile. “You must know. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t love you. I don’t think such a time ever existed.” His eyes filled with a thousand emotions. But before he could say whatever he would say, before he could kill her, Winter grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands and kissed him.
He thawed much quicker than she’d expected. Almost instantly, like he’d been waiting for this moment, he grabbed her hips and pulled her against him with a possessiveness that overwhelmed her. His lips were desperate and starved as he leaned into the kiss, pressing her against the rail. She gasped, and he deepened the kiss, threading one hand into the hair at the nape of her neck.
Her head swam, muddled with heat and a lifetime of desire. Jacin’s other hand abandoned her hip. She heard the ring of steel as the knife was pulled from its scabbard. Winter shuddered and kissed him harder, filling it with every fantasy she’d ever had..*
Releasing his shirt, Winter found his neck, his jaw. She felt the tips of his hair on her thumbs. He made a noise and she couldn’t tell if it was desire or pain or regret or a mix of everything. His arm tensed against her back. His weight shifted as he raised the knife.
She couldn’t tell her heartbeat from Jacin’s. Jacin. Whose cheeks were flushed and whose hair was a mess. Jacin, who she had finally dared to kiss. Jacin, who had kissed her back.
But that wasn’t the case with Luna. Something was broken with their system.
They were filthy. They were bloody. Winter was a well-loved princess who was prettier than a bouquet of roses and crazier than a headless chicken. Fitting in would be a miracle.
Winter laughed against the strain of the delusion. “They all believe they are doing good.” Her head fell to the side and she watched Scarlet with her bleary eyes. “My stepmother is not only powerful because the people fear her, she is powerful because she can make them love her when she needs them to. We think that if we choose to do only good, then we are only good. We can make people happy. We can offer tranquility or contentment or love, and that must be good. We do not see the falsehood becoming its own brand of cruelty.”
“The next time she tried to take her life, she succeeded. Only then did I realize that I hadn’t helped her at all.” She swallowed, hard. “That day I swore to never manipulate anyone again. Even if I believed I was doing good—for who am I to presume what is good for others?”
Any spark of defiance may have been starved and threatened out of them, but the more Lunars Cinder saw, the more she believed she could reignite them. All she needed was a way to talk to them
Wolf pulled back and cupped her face in his gigantic hands, still beaming. “In the tavern in Rieux, when all those men were making jokes about Cinder at the ball. You called them swine and you got up on the bar and defended her even though she was Lunar, and that was the moment I started to fall in love with you.”
He kissed her again, molding their bodies together.
Thorne guffawed and pushed a hand into his hair. “Are we running a boardinghouse for misplaced royalty around here, or what?”
Now, when he kissed her or put his arms around her, Scarlet felt like he was staking a claim. Which normally would have sent her on a tirade about relationship independence, except she felt like she’d claimed him a long time ago. The moment she’d expected him to choose her over his pack, the moment she’d dragged him aboard that ship and taken him away from everything he’d ever known, she’d made the decision for them both. He was hers now, just like she was his.
But the sight before her was proof that her revolution had begun.
Levana’s eyes flashed. “What do I care what Cinder thinks? Her opinion, like yours, means nothing.” She snapped her fingers at the guard. “I am finished with him. You may take him back.”
The thought of their love turning to biased hatred stole the air from her lungs and left her feeling hollowed out to her core.
*She knew they shared her horror, but none of them could understand the responsibility she felt clawing at her from the inside. These people trusted her to fight with them, to give them the better future she’d promised.
Did it matter that they were willing to die for her cause? Did it matter that they would sacrifice their own lives so she might succeed?
She didn’t know.
She didn’t know.
All she saw were blinding sparks. All she heard were gunshots pulsing through her head.*
She heard Wolf’s intake of breath. His energy crystallized into something still and fragile.
Cinder was more angry than afraid, feeding on Wolf’s devastation and the horror of all the blank faces around her, all these people used like marionettes. She believed what she’d said before. Levana could kill her, but Cinder had to believe her death wouldn’t be the end. This revolution no longer belonged to her.
Fury ignited in her gut. They had taken everything from Wolf. His freedom, his childhood, his entire family, and he had done nothing, nothing, to deserve it. She wanted to avenge him. To take him away from this horrible dust-mottled place. To offer him a life of blue skies and tomatoes and peace.
“You are an animal. A killer. A predator. What do you know of loyalty or love?”
“You are wrong,” she said, turning her face up to the queen. “You are the killer. You are the predator. You know nothing of loyalty or love.” She held her hand out to Ryu, who sniffed it, before settling his warm head down on her knee. “We may be animals, but we will never again live in your cage.”
“She’ll kill her soon, then. Tonight, maybe, or tomorrow. Nothing like an execution on your wedding day.”
Concealing it was as much second nature to her now as the glamour of her red lips and serene voice.
His brain was muddled, like the afternoon had been spent in a hazy dream. A hazy nightmare.
Coming here had been a mistake. In the end, his good intentions didn’t matter. He had failed.
She appeared as a silhouette first in the lights of the doors, a perfect hourglass dropping off to a full billowing skirt that flowed behind her. She walked with her head high, gliding toward the altar. The dress was scarlet red, rich as blood, with dainty gold chains draped around her shoulders. It reminded Kai of a bloodred poppy, the petals full and drooping. A sheer gold veil covered her face and billowed like a sail as she walked.
*Kai watched with detached interest as her dark, slender fingers knotted the two ribbons together. She yanked on the ends, tightening the knot. Kai stared at it, feeling the disconnect in his mind.
He was not here.
This was not happening.
His hateful gaze betrayed him, flickering toward Levana’s face. It was the briefest of looks, but she somehow managed to catch it. She smiled, and icicles stabbed at his spine. This was happening. This was his bride.*
“You’re a monster,” Adri whispered. Cinder smirked, without humor. “Fine. I’m a monster.” “You couldn’t even save Peony.”
It occurred to her that they weren’t unlike cyborgs. They were both made to be better than what they’d been born as. They were both unnatural. Only, instead of being pieced together with wires and steel, these creatures were a jigsaw of muscle tissue and cartilage
Wolf had told her these soldiers would be different. Erratic and feral, craving nothing but violence and blood. A powerful Lunar, like the queen, could trick them into perceiving a glamour, but that was it. Even the thaumaturges couldn’t control their minds or bodies, but instead had to train the soldiers like dogs. Misbehave, and they were punished with pain.
Evidently, on Earth, each bloody kill made for its own reward. They were eager to go to war.
“It must be so rewarding to know that every relationship you have is based on a lie.”
There was damage there beneath the glamour. Scarring of some sort. Maybe even paralysis.
Cinder’s retina display flared with information—her accelerated heart rate, the offset of bioelectrical manipulation, the adrenaline flooding her veins. Time slowed. Her brain synapses fired faster than she could recognize them, information being noted and translated and stored away before she could interpret it.
The black sky opened up before her and she fell.
Cinder, half-starved and surrounded by enemies, had caused so much destruction in so little time, right in front of the queen. It was unnatural. Impossible. Sort of amazing.
The palace towered above her, ominous and oppressive despite its beauty, stretching along either side of the lake. Without artificial daylight brightening the dome, she could see the spread of the Milky Way beyond the glass, mesmerizing.
Bobbing against the glass, Cinder stared at the bottom of the crater hundreds of feet below. She felt like a fish in a fishbowl. Trapped.
“I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t fight like this, or start a revolution, or be a queen. I can’t do anything like this. I’m broken. I’m literally broken.” Iko settled a hand on Cinder’s shoulder. “Yeah, but broken isn’t the same as unfixable.”
They will join us. Your Wolf is proof that they are men, not monsters.”
“I would think that you, of all people, would believe in their ability to change. Wolf changed because of his love for you. Why can they not change also?” She started walking again.
Her eyes began to mist, surprising her. She had not realized that thinking of her own imbalance would sadden her, but the feel of her ribs crushing against her heart was unmistakable. “Why did you follow me?” she asked, staring at the solid doors. “Knowing what’s wrong with me. Knowing that I’m broken.
Winter shut her eyes. “I won’t. You are not damaged like I am. You are not a hundred scattered pieces, blowing farther and farther away from each other.”
Scarlet glared at him from the corner of her eye. “I already have an alpha mate to satisfy my needs, and he could slaughter any one of you.”
Scarlet clicked her tongue. “Too bad. I can already tell he’s both twice the man and twice the wolf of any of you. He could teach you a thing or two.”
She felt like a lamb in their den
*“Spoiled little princess,” one of the soldiers hissed, stooping down so she could feel his breath on her cheek. Winter shivered and knew her gaze was watery and pleading. “We don’t fight for princesses. We play with them.”
Alpha Strom smirked. “Ready to play?*
“I’ve known you for many years, Aimery. I know how you like them broken. You would have made a good match after all . . . you are as pathetic as she is.” She hurled the goblet.
“I’ve known you for many years, Aimery. I know how you like them broken. You would have made a good match after all . . . you are as pathetic as she is.” She hurled the goblet.
He was just like them. A pawn, a mutant. Just like them.
“They are not made to be controlled.”
“Once the queen has claimed you, you are forever hers.”
The queen’s beautiful face rose up in his memory, seated upon her throne. Watching the packs fight to gain favor. He had desired to impress her. He had killed for her. He had been proud.
There were too many problems to fix, too many puzzles to solve.
Thorne’s voice pitched high in imitation of the queen. “The impostor of my beloved niece is vanquished . . . Let us put this messiness behind us while we go forward with the coronations . . . I am a psychotic, power-hungry nut basket and my breath smells really bad under this veil.”
He was miserable. He was everything he had never wanted to be. He was also starving.
*Yet his emotions continued to fluctuate. Furious and burning one moment. Devastated and full of self-loathing the next.
This was his fate. This had always been his fate. He couldn’t imagine how he had ever thought differently. Had he honestly believed he could be better? That he deserved more? He was destined to kill and eat and destroy. That was all he was entitled to.*
But as soon as he reached a clawed hand toward the platter, pain lanced through his gut. He doubled over in agony. His legs gave out and he crumpled to the floor, his shoulder smacking the edge of the cart and sending it crashing into the nearby wall. The pain dragged on and on, arcing through every limb, like a thousand daggers burying themselves in his flesh.
The pain relented. Wolf was left trembling on the ground, his cheeks damp from sweat or tears or both.
Torin turned toward him, but Kai was looking at the horizon, where black water met black sky. Sunlight was glinting off some of the domes in the far distance, but the change from night to day had been so gradual Kai barely noticed. Lunar sunrises were an agonizingly slow affair.
Pretend you belong here. She let out a slow breath and tried to mimic Thorne’s swagger. Pretending. She was good at pretending.
“Try to keep in mind that they can make themselves look however they want to,” said Cress. “No one in this palace is as beautiful as you think they are. It’s all just mind control.”
Cress had built a thousand fantasies around their rooftop kiss, but this kiss was something new. Where before, the kiss had been gentle and protective, now there was something passionate. Determined. Cress’s body dissolved into nothing but sensation. His hands burned her waist through the skirt’s thin fabric. Her knees pressed against his hips, and he pulled her closer, closer, like he couldn’t get her close enough. A whimper escaped her mouth, only to be swallowed by his. She heard a moan, but it could have come from either of them.
Thorne didn’t pull away. Rather, he slipped his arms around her back, and here was the gentle protectiveness she remembered. His breathing was as erratic as hers.
Cress had built a thousand fantasies around their rooftop kiss, but this kiss was something new.
Cress plucked a fern leaf off Thorne’s sleeve. Heat singed her cheeks, but it was only part from mortification, and mostly from the lingering feel of his arms, his kisses, the hazy reality of the past few minutes.
She was still a princess, and he was still nothing. The reminder haunted him as he waited. Memorizing her sleeping face, the feel of her hand in his, the fantasy of what it would be like to witness her still, sleeping form each day.
For the first time in her life, no one could say she was beautiful.
“I am not sad about it.” She traced a finger over the raised flesh. How alien it felt. How imperfect. She could get used to imperfection.
The last time she’d seen Jacin, she’d kissed him. She’d confessed her love for him
“I don’t know,” he said, tossing a washcloth at her. “But I’m pretty sure that as long as you’re a princess in need of protecting, you’re going to be stuck with me.”
Winter cast her gaze over the crowd, her heart expanding like a balloon. The people stared at Cinder with awe and clarity and the faint glow of hope. She’d never seen that before in the eyes of the citizens of Luna. Their faces were always obscured by fear and uncertainty. Or, even worse, gazing at her stepmother with dazed adoration. Love for their ruler forced upon them—a reminder that they had no freedom, not even in their own minds or hearts.
“I have lived in fear of her my entire life,” she continued. “If this is the only chance I’m given to stand against her, then I have to take it. I don’t want to hide. I don’t want to be afraid. And I don’t want to be separated from you, ever again.”
“Our revolution is about to begin.”
Broken isn’t the same as unfixable.”
Wolf had been straining throughout the coronation ceremony. His head ached with the effort, the constant struggle to control his hunger, but he felt like it was gnawing at him from the inside out. Though he had devoured the meat given him, it still raged on. A thousand scents filled his nostrils. Every Earthen. Every Lunar. Every guard and every thaumaturge, each one smelling delicious enough that he couldn’t help but envision sinking his teeth into their flesh, tearing their muscles off their bones, gorging himself on their fat—
He would devour her heart if ever he had the chance.
The memory opened up a wound that was still too fresh, one she didn’t have time to let heal.
They entered the stairwell, pushing toward the daylight. Though manufactured evening would soon be forced upon the domes, real daylight could be seen off the horizon, a faint sliver of their burning sun. Sunrise. It was beautiful.
It was a moment of contrasts.
*Beneath the glamour, her face was disfigured from ridges and scars, sealing shut her left eye. The destroyed skin continued down her jaw and neck, disappearing beneath the collar of her dress. Her hair was thinner and a lighter shade of brown, and great chunks were missing where the scars had reached around to the back of her head. More scars could be seen on her left arm where her silk sleeve didn’t hide them.
Burns.
They were scars created from burns.
Cinder knew it with absolute certainty.*
It was working. The queen was losing control. She was being forced to see the truth beneath her own glamour, and she could do nothing to stop it. The video dissolved into a chaos of bullets and screams, blood and bodies.
Having been so focused on targeting her enemies, she was surprised to find herself in a sea of bodies and blood.
She looked again, scouring the weapons, the limbs, the bodies. Less chaos than before. The battle was beginning to dwindle.
“Stay down!” Wolf yelled, pushing Scarlet to the ground and hunkering over her body. A living shield. His instinct was still there, at least. The desire to protect her above all else.
Seeing Levana on the palace steps was the first time Iko had ever seen the Lunar queen, and her scarred face made Iko wish she wasn’t immune to glamours. After years of hearing about the queen’s famous beauty, the truth had been something of a letdown. But the truth was out. Thanks to Cinder’s video, now everyone knew what lurked beneath the illusion.
“Well,” said Cinder, unconcerned, “my heart is half synthetic, so it’ll probably give her indigestion.”
“I’m going to lose them all. They’ll be drowned in their own blood.”
Sandwiching Winter’s face in both hands, Jacin forced her gaze up to his. “Hey,” he said, somehow stern and gentle at the same time. “You’re my princess, right? You were always going to be my princess, no matter what you were born, no matter who your dad married.”
Her lips quivered. “You don’t understand. He is the only thing that is real.”
Winter’s hands stirred. She did not know if they would be strangling or choking or bashing or impaling. She knew Aimery had her now and Jacin was in danger and this was the end. There was no gray area. There were no winners. She was a fool, a fool, a fool.
Maybe the sound was imprisoned inside this cocoon, trapped like she was. Maybe no one would ever hear her. Maybe she would scream until her throat bled and no one would ever know. Her heart split in two. She was an animal. A killer and a predator. The screams turned to howls. Sad and broken howls. Haunting and furious howls.
The arms around her were unrelenting. She thought there might be a voice, familiar and kind, somewhere far in the distance. She thought there might be good intentions in that voice. She thought that if she could follow the sound, it would lead her to somewhere safe and calm, where she was no longer a murderer. But she was already suffocating beneath the weight of her crimes. Animal. Killer. Predator. And the wolves all howl, aaooooooooooh . . .
Cinder frowned, wondering why Levana could control her in the courtyard, but failed now. Was it because her own mental strength had been too fragile then, while trying to maintain control of so many people, or was the queen growing weak? Perhaps the video showing her true face had fragmented her abilities.
“My lies! You’re the one who brainwashes them. I just showed them the truth.”
Levana sniffed and, finally, dared to look at Cinder. There was all the beauty glistening on the surface, but now that Cinder had seen beneath it, she couldn’t unsee the truth. Whether it was her cyborg programming or Levana’s own weakness, she could see her as she was now. Scarred and deformed.
“Love,” she whispered. “Love is a conquest. Love is a war. That is all it is.”
*Cinder hated her own mind for labeling the queen as grotesque. She had once been a victim, as Cinder had once been a victim. And how many had labeled Cinder’s own metal limbs as grotesque, unnatural, disgusting?
No. Levana was a monster, but it wasn’t because of the face she’d kept hidden all these years. Her monstrosities were buried much deeper than that.*
This miserable, awful woman still had no idea what it meant to be truly beautiful, or truly loved.
In the silence of space, she heard a million noises at once. Faraway and inconsistent. A scream. A roar, like an angered animal. Pounding footsteps. A door crashing against a wall. Her name. Muddled. Echoing. Her lungs twitched, or maybe it was her whole body, convulsing. She tasted blood on the back of her tongue. A shadow passed in front of her. Brown eyes, filled with terror. Messy black hair. Lips that every girl in the Commonwealth had admired a thousand times.
“Do you still—” He scratched behind his ear. “Do you still want me to come back with you? Now that I’m . . . that I . . .” He sucked in a quick breath. “Do you still want me?”
“I still want you.”
“Ze’ev.” She tilted his face toward her. She didn’t flinch when she looked at him. Not at his enormous teeth or his monstrous hands. Not at the inhuman slope to his shoulders or the way his jaw protruded from his cheekbones. It was all superficial. They hadn’t changed him. “You’re the only one, Ze’ev Kesley. You’ll always be the only one.”
His body sagged. “I love you,” he whispered.
Cinder bit her lip, thinking of the years she’d spent under Adri’s care. A mechanic, a servant, a piece of property. All that time she’d been royalty, and she had no idea.
I am destroyed, she’d said. Not damaged. Destroyed.
Broken, destroyed Winter.
He both hated and admired those scars. On one hand, they reminded him of a time she’d been suffering. Of a time when he hadn’t been able to protect her.
Even in her last desperate act, when she had used Scarlet’s hand to kill Aimery, Jacin knew she had done it to save him, not herself. Never herself. Just like he would do anything to save her.
*Jacin himself was nervous to be reunited with his family. After years of pushing everyone he loved away, it was difficult to imagine a life in which he was free to care for people without fear of them becoming pawns to be used against him.
He knew they would love to see Winter again too, who had been like a part of their family growing up. But . . . not like this. Seeing her like this would break their hearts.
Seeing her like this . . .*
“I love you, Princess,” he whispered, hovering over her for a long time, tracing the planes of her face and the curve of her lips and remembering how she had kissed him in the menagerie. She’d told him then that she loved him, and he hadn’t been brave enough to say it back.
“I love you, Winter. I always have.” He kissed her. One-sided as it was, it had little of the passion there’d been in the menagerie, but so much more hope. And a whole lot of foolishness.
“It is more beautiful than I’d ever imagined,” she whispered. “I am the girl of ice and snow, and I think I’m very glad to meet you.”
Her palace, her kingdom, her home.
“I know this is weird,” he said, “but I’m here if you need me. You won’t need me, though. You’re going to be great.” “Thanks,” she murmured, fighting the urge to embrace him, to crawl into his arms and hide from the rest of the galaxy. Maybe forever. “Also”—his voice lowered—“you look beautiful.”
“Because I need you to know I never meant it. I said it because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to say, but it didn’t mean anything. And it’s different with you. This is the first time I’ve been scared. Scared you’ll change your mind. Scared I’ll screw it up. Aces, Cress, I’m terrified of you.”
She couldn’t not say it, although she realized he was right. It was sort of scary. Much scarier than it had been the first time she’d told him, out in the desert. It was different now. It was real. “I’m in love with you.” He chuckled. “I should hope so, after all that.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her temple. “And I love you too.”
With that memory, Winter was submerged. In water and ice, in hot and cold. She shivered.
“Because you were good to them when no one else was. Because you care. This device won’t change who you are.” “You want me to be fixed, don’t you?” Jacin drew back, as if she’d thrown something at him. “You’re not broken.
“You’re perfect,” he said, finishing his thought as if she hadn’t interrupted. “I don’t care if you see dead wolves and turn into a living ice sculpture when you’re having a bad day. I don’t care if I have an imprint of your teeth on my shoulder. I don’t care if you’re . . . fixed.” He spat the word like it tasted bad. “I want you to be safe and happy. That’s all.”
Kai scooped his arm around her shoulders and led her out of the queen’s chambers. “I was just thinking about the good future,” he said. “The one with you in it.”
She spun the cumbersome, hateful foot in her fingers. Ever since she could remember, it had been a burden. A constant reminder that she was worthless, she was unimportant, she was nothing but a cyborg. She held the foot over the water and let go.