He shrugged, but it had no enthusiasm. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“That’s all I can ask.” Priya stood, and Kai rose to join her. “Thank you for your time. Let me know your decision on the escort-droids.”
Kai waited until she’d returned to the palace before settling onto the bench again. A slender golden leaf fluttered into his lap and he picked it up, twirling it between his fingers.
Priya’s advice had merit. One bit of happiness, of hope, could make the difference in preserving his sanity, but it was a request easier made than fulfilled.
He did have some happiness to look forward to. Seeing Levana’s signature on the Treaty of Bremen. Distributing her antidote and eradicating his planet of this awful plague.
But those victories would come hand-in-hand with a lifetime of attending celebratory balls with Levana at his side, and next time, Cinder wouldn’t be there to distract him. Though admittedly, that lifetime might be cut shorter than expected. It was a morbid thought, that his premature death would at least keep him from too many painful dances.
He sighed, his thoughts circling back to Cinder. He couldn’t avoid thinking about her these days, maybe because her name was at the top of every report, every newsfeed. The girl he’d invited to the ball. The girl he’d wanted to dance with.
He thought of that moment, spotting her at the top of the staircase, her hair and dress drenched from the rain. Noticing that she wore the gloves he’d given her. A smile tugged at him. It probably wasn’t what Priya had in mind—the most hopeless situation of all. His relationship with Cinder, if it could even be called that, had been fleeting and bittersweet.
Maybe if things were different. Maybe if he wasn’t marrying Levana. Maybe if he had a chance to ask Cinder the questions that plagued him: Had it all been a deception? Had she ever considered telling him the truth?
Maybe then he could imagine a future in which they could start again.
But the engagement was very real, and Cinder was …
Cinder was …
He jerked forward, nearly crushing the leaf in his fist.
Cinder was searching for Princess Selene. Had maybe even found her.
That knowledge was fraught with its own questions. What were Cinder’s motives and what was she doing now? How would the people of Luna react when Princess Selene returned? What kind of person had she become? Would she even want her throne back?
Despite the lingering doubts, he did believe that Selene was alive. He believed she was the true heir to the Lunar throne, and that she could end Levana’s reign. He believed that Cinder, who had proven to be the most resilient and resourceful person he’d ever known, actually stood a chance of finding her, and keeping her safe, and revealing her identity to the world.
It may have been a fragile hope, but right now, it was the best hope he had.
Twenty
Cress awoke to a dizzying assortment of sensations. Her legs throbbed and the bottoms of her feet ached. The weight of the sand that they’d buried themselves in to keep warm pressed down on her from neck to toes. Her scalp was still tingling from its strange new lightness. Her skin felt dry and scratchy, her lips brittle.
Thorne stirred beside her, moving slowly so as not to disturb the square of parachute material they’d draped over themselves to keep windblown sand out of their faces, though the grains in Cress’s ears and nose proved that it hadn’t been entirely effective. Every inch of her body was covered in the stuff. Sand under her fingernails. Sand at the corners of her lips. Sand in her hair and in the folds of her earlobes. Attempting to rub the dry sleep from her eyelashes proved a difficult, painstaking operation.
“Hold still,” said Thorne, settling a palm on her arm. “The tarp may have gathered some dew. We shouldn’t let it go to waste.”
“Dew?”
“Water that comes up from the ground in the morning.”
She knew what dew was, but it seemed silly to expect it in this landscape. Still, the air did seem almost damp around her, and she didn’t argue when Thorne instructed her to find the tarp’s corners and lift them up, sending whatever moisture there was down to its middle.
What they found when they had shimmied out from beneath it was a little less than a single gulp of water, muddied from the sand that had blown up onto the fabric overnight. She described their underwhelming success to Thorne and watched disappointment crease his brow, though it soon faded with a shrug. “At least we still have plenty of water from the satellite.”
Plenty being their last two bottles full.
Cress looked out at the brightening horizon. After walking nearly the entire night, Cress doubted they could have slept for more than a couple of hours, and her feet felt like they would fall off with the next step. She was disheartened when she looked up at the mountains and discovered that they didn’t seem any closer now than they had the evening before.
“How are your eyes?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve been told they’re dreamy, but I’ll let you decide for yourself.”
Flushing, she turned back to him. Thorne had his arms crossed over his chest and a devil-may-care grin, but there was something strained beneath it. She realized that the lightness in his tone had also rung false, covering up whatever frustrations were simmering just beneath his cavalier attitude.
“I couldn’t disagree,” she murmured. Though she immediately wanted to crawl back beneath the parachute and hide from embarrassment, it was worth it to see Thorne’s grin become a little less forced.
They packed up their camp, drank some water, and retied the towels around Cress’s ankles, all while the taunting morning dew steamed and disappeared around them. The temperature was already climbing. Before closing up their pack, Thorne shook out the sheets and made Cress wrap one around herself like a robe, then adjusted his own sheet to make a hooded cloak that came over his brow.
“Is your head covered?” he asked, brushing his foot along the ground until he found the metal bar he’d been using as a cane. Cress tried her best to mimic the way he’d covered himself before confirming that it was. “Good. Your skin is going to crisp up like bacon soon enough. This will help for a little while at least.”
She fidgeted with the cumbersome sheet while trying to guide Thorne up the slope they’d camped on. She was still exhausted and half numb from walking. Every limb throbbed.
They hadn’t traversed four dunes before Cress stumbled, landing on her knees. Thorne dug his heels into the ground for purchase. “Cress?”
“I’m fine,” she said, pulling herself up and rubbing the sand from her shins. “Just a little drained. I’m not used to all this exercise.”
Thorne’s hands were hanging in midair, like he’d meant to help pull her to her feet, but she noticed it too late. Slowly, they sank to his sides. “Can you keep going?”
“Yes. I just need to get into a rhythm again.” She hoped it was true and that her legs wouldn’t be loose cables all day long.
“We’ll walk until it gets too hot, then rest. We don’t want to exert ourselves too much, especially under full sun.”
Cress started down the dune again, counting their steps to bide the time.
Ten steps.
Twenty-five.
Fifty.
The sand grew hot, singeing the soles of her feet through the towels. The sun climbed.
Her imagination circled through her favorite fantasies, anything to keep herself distracted. She was a shipwrecked pirate from the second era. She was an athlete training for a cross-country journey. She was an android, who had no sense of exhaustion, who could march on and on and on.…
But the dreams became more and more fleeting, reality pushing them aside with pain and discomfort and thirst.