She heard gunshots, but she had already jumped. The black sky opened up before her and she fell.
Fifty-Two
Kai was rooted to the ground, a statue surrounded by turmoil. Levana was screaming—no, screeching—her normally melodic voice turned harsh and unbearable. She was yelling orders—Find her! Bring her back! Kill her!—but no one was listening. There was no one left to listen.
Nearly all of the guards were dead. The thaumaturges, dead. The wolf soldiers, dead. A handful of servant and aristocrat bodies littered the floor as well, tossed among the blood and broken furniture, the victims of hungry hybrid soldiers let loose on an unsuspecting, unarmed crowd.
Beside him, Levana ripped the jeweled necklace off some Lunar woman and threw it at a servant girl who was cowering on the floor, splattered with blood. “You! Bring me more guards! I want every guard and thaumaturge in the palace in this room at once. And you—clean up this mess! What are you all standing there for?”
The servants dispersed, half crawling, half slipping toward the hidden exits in the walls.
Awareness began to burrow its way through the shock, and Kai glanced around, spotting a group of Earthen leaders clustered in a corner. Torin was among them. He looked stricken. His suit was disheveled.
“Are you hurt?” Kai asked.
“No, sir.” Torin made his way to Kai, gripping the backs of chairs to keep from slipping on the bloody floor. “Are you?”
Kai shook his head. “The Earthens—?”
“All accounted for. No one seems to be injured.”
Kai tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry and the saliva got stuck until he tried a second time.
He spotted Aimery emerging from one of the servants’ alcoves, the only surviving thaumaturge from the trials, though more had since arrived. The members of the court who hadn’t yet run from the throne room were plastered to the back walls, sobbing hysterically or jabbering to one another as they tried to relive the traumatic event, piecing together their stories. Who had seen what and which guard had shot whom and did that girl really believe she was the lost princess?
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.
A laugh burbled up Kai’s throat, trembling uncontrolled in his diaphragm. His emotions were shredded with fear and panic and awe. Hysteria hit him like a punch to the gut. He pressed a hand over his mouth as the crazed laughter spilled out, turning fast into panicked breaths.
Torin pressed a hand between his shoulder blades. “Majesty?”
“Torin,” Kai stammered, struggling to breathe, “do you think she’s all right?”
Though Torin looked doubtful, he answered, “She has shown herself to be quite resilient.”
Kai started to make his way across the throne room, his wedding shoes leaving prints in the sticky blood. Reaching the edge, he peered down into the water. He had not been able to tell from his seat how far the drop was. Four stories, at least. His stomach flipped. He couldn’t see to the opposite shore. In fact, the lake stretched out so far it seemed to run right into the dome’s wall.
Though the air was still, the water was choppy and black as ink. He searched and searched for something to indicate a body, a girl, a sheen of a metal limb, but there was no sign of her.
He shivered. Could Cinder swim? Was her body even designed for swimming? He knew she’d taken showers aboard the Rampion, but to be fully submerged …
“Could she have survived?”
Kai jumped. Levana stood a few feet away with her arms crossed and nostrils flared. Kai moved away from her, spurred by the irrational fear that she was about to push him off the ledge. As soon as he backed away, though, he remembered she could still make him jump.
“I don’t know,” he said. To provoke her, he added, “That was some marvelous entertainment, by the way. I had high expectations, and you did not disappoint.”
She snarled and he was glad he’d backed away.
“Aimery,” she snapped. “Have the lake combed by morning. I want the cyborg’s heart served to me on a silver platter.”
Aimery bowed. “It will be done, Your Majesty.” He nodded toward the group of thaumaturges that had arrived after all the action, who were all trying to look like the destruction of the throne room wasn’t as shocking as it was. Four of them departed. “I am afraid I must inform Your Majesty that there has been a disturb—”
“Clearly there is a disturbance!” Levana bellowed. She jutted her red fingernail toward the lake. “You think I can’t see that?”
Aimery pressed his lips. “Of course, My Queen, but there is something else.”
Her gaze burned. “What else could there be?”
“As you know, the trial and execution tonight was live-broadcast to all sectors. It would appear that as a result of the cyborg’s escape, the people are … they are rioting. In several sectors, it seems. SB-1 is the nearest that our security footage indicates, and there also appears to be a sizable crowd of civilians beginning to march toward Artemisia from as far away as AT-6.”
“She did not escape.” Levana’s voice sounded thin and taut, about to splinter. Kai took another step away from her. “She is dead. Tell them she is dead. She could not have survived the fall. And find her! Find her!”
“Yes, My Queen. We will assemble a broadcast informing the people of Linh Cinder’s death immediately. But we cannot guarantee that this alone will subdue the riots…”