Page 16 of Cinder
Andhecertainly wasn’t going anywhere.
As he left Emma’s room, he caught Floy’s gaze down the hall. Their eyes narrowed, but they only nodded as Cin passed.
He couldn’t help but ask, “Did you get to tell the prince about your little science project?”
Floy lifted their chin. “I did indeed.” They looked down at Cin with a kind of arrogance that seemed so different from Prince Lorenz’s. Like Floy was keeping others out from this imagined place of betterment, while the prince was bringing them up to join him. Floy added, smirking now, “He seemed to rather appreciate it.”
And Cin thought that wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t the whole truth: the truth that Prince Lorenz knew how to pretend to be interested in anyone. But he hadn’t pretended with Cin. He’d run after them—not for love or future partnership, of course, but from intrigue, at least. “How long did you speak for?”
“At least three and a half minutes,” Floy boasted, as though they hadn’t watched Prince Lorenz slide down a banister to chase after another quest. “No one else had half as much time with him.”
No one but Cin.
He smiled all the way to Manfred’s room. It didn’t even feel like such a chore to put up with his grumbling and snarling. When Cin reemerged, Louise was waiting for him. She caught his arm.
“You know I’m so disappointed you couldn’t come tonight,” she said, frowning. “But I appreciate all you did for our family. It gave me such comfort to know you were here. And I’m sure your father will feel the same when he returns.” She patted the arm she’d been holding—squeezing, actually; it hurt a little now that she’d let go, though Cin didn’t think that was her intention—and she lowered her voice, like it was their secret. “It wasn’t that grand an event, truth be told; you know your siblings are just weak for such frivolities.Iwould not even bother to return next week if they didn’t require a chaperon.”
It was such a blatant lie that Cin’s shock almost reached his face before he managed to offer a weak smile and a nod. “Of course, Mother.”
Of course.Of course, he said, as though he believed her, believed that the ball—that incredible, wonderful ball—had been anything less than perfection. But would he have seen through the lie if he hadn’t been there? He wondered as he went through the motions of finishing out the night—now nearly sunrise. He knew Emma was easily impressed, Manfred dramatized everything, and Floy would have spoken only of how much the prince was taken with them regardless of the state of the ball itself. If Cin had not seen the ball himself, he wouldn’t have known...
But hehadbeen there. He had been privilege to the beauty and the joy and the prince’s smug smiles, and he would be back again in seven days time. The thought made him giddy.
Bone-tired but still clinging to the embers of the night’s happiness, Cinder curled up beside the kitchen hearth, and for once he didn’t dream solely of its flames.
Cin needed new boots. He knew the moment he slid his feet back into them mid-morning, tired and sore, the pain between his ribs barely lessened by the few hours he’d rested. The lacking state of his broken shoe was made all the more clear as he trod, exhausted, around the garden, then trekked into town. Once he had collected the short list of purchases Louise had requested that morning, he took the longway back to check on a pair of young children he’d left with only a father after watching their mother pour little doses of poison into the family’s meals to force them into her care. They seemed healthy for the first time in years, the youngest giggling as she chased a new dog around the yard.
The extra walking widened the torn section of Cin’s sole with every rock in his path. Somehow he made it back, only to dump an assortment of tiny pebbles out of the broken boot as he sat on the back stoop.
He contemplated arguments for Louise: it would just be a small repair; he didn’t need brand new shoes; how was he meant to go to and from town like this? But the more he thought about it, the more Cin didn’t want his old, battered shoes restitched. How likely would they be to break again, just as soon? If they tore on the way down a wall or slowed him as he fled a killing, what then? He was already fighting his chest binding at every turn—he could not deal with this too.
“I hear there’s a pair of free elves setting up shop in the border forest,”the local shoemaker had said, but Cin had nothing to offer them. He’dhadnothing to offer, anyway. He glanced out at his flock, not just a few pigeons now, but a whole host of birds, twittering and shifting in the foliage beyond the garden.
When they dressed Cin for the ball next, he wanted to be ready to run after.
Eight
It took Cin three more days of walking with his broken boot, his foot growing increasingly more pained, bruised, and blistered, before he found a good time to slip away to the forest. Manfred had taken the money from an odd job he’d done their neighbor out to the gambling hall in the city, Emma and Louise had afternoon tea with a social group in the next town over, and Floy hadn’t left their room for two days as they poured themselves into a painting they claimed was a gift for the prince. No one was even there to notice as Cin’s flock formed back into the shape of a horse, whisking them away toward the east.
He followed the roads he knew, riding through the ever-deepening forest that lay between Hallin and Falchovari by way of the wide, well-traveled merchant’s path that, if one went far enough, eventually connected both capital cities—both castles, even—before progressing onward toward the kingdoms beyond. All too soon, though, Cin’s steed veered off on a smaller trail. Helet it choose its way, the mount’s magical hooves ever sure and its ears pricked as though it understood the route ahead as more than simply the looming trees and ominous rustles in the gloom that Cin could make out.
It stopped short suddenly, half a dozen of its flock members drifting off it to flit through the forest. An anxious thrill running through Cin, he dismounted to follow them. He pressed through the trees until he found the scatterings of a camp: a tent sloppily erected, fresh ash from a recent cook-fire, and tucked behind it all, a covered wagon. This couldn’t be the elves… could it?
Cin stepped through the brush, but he hesitated to call out. Perdition landed on his shoulder, Rags and Lacey following, all three wary as they held tight and low against Cin’s body. He proceeded with more care then, letting each step land more quietly than the last. Nothing moved but him. As he made his way around toward the wagon, he noted the lack of a horse despite the tack—ridden off into the woods by whoever had set the camp up, he wagered.
Cin flinched as three of his birds shot past him as though spooked. As they peeled upwards, their wing beats fluttered the cloth cover on the wagon. Cin caught a glimpse of something metallic inside.
Creeping closer, he leaned just enough to pull back the edge of the wagon’s cover. Bile rose in his throat.Cages. Not a hunter’s cages either—Cin had seen plenty of those as the famine strengthened—but larger, thicker versions, empty manacles dangling from the bars. Those nearest had the stain of red-brown blood.
Cin had to step back to keep the little food he’d eaten for breakfast from coming back up again. Despite all the lives he’d taken, all the pain witnessed leading up to each kill, this horror felt no less visceral, no less terrible than the worst of everything else he’d seen. Whoever this camp belonged to, they’d held elvescaptive in these very cages—elves who were now enslaved in some Falchovarian factory or illegally to the wealthy of Hallin.
It made Cin want to burn the wagon down, to pull every link of heated metal free from the others and leave nothing left of their magic-dampening powers behind. As much as his blood boiled, though, he knew that dismantling the enslaver’s tools would not stop them for long. To put a true stop to their work, he’d have to return later.
“Remember this place,” Cin whispered to Perdition.
She flared her feathers in agreement before taking off, back to the place where Cin had left his flock-creature.
The weight on his shoulders did not alleviate though, even as he mounted his steed and set back off through the woods. After a worryingly short ride, they emerged from the dense forest into a quaint little clearing. At its center, a small but sturdy log cabin had been constructed, with a large wooden shed behind it. Despite the fine craftsmanship, the set up appeared oddly sterile, empty of the homey touches that made a space feel lived in. Cin supposed theyhadjust moved here, after all.
