Page 80 of Cinder
The sight of their little family together, sharing their joy and grief so openly, made Cin’s heart ache. He could never have hadthat with Louise and Penrod, not even over the lives of his own siblings. But there was still someone he loved enough to mourn with, even if they hadn’t yet discovered how to rejoice together.
Leaving the royal family to their joy, Cin walked awkwardly back through the garden, noticing his missing shoe far more now that all eminent danger had passed. Those of the watch who remained parted for him. Whether it was from the crown’s promise of a pardon, or their fear of the birds that still circled Cin from a distance, he wasn’t sure.
Most of the watch members had moved on, though, a few preparing Floy and Manfred for transport—to the nearest doctor, Cin assumed, though he wasn’t sure how much good it would do them—while the rest attempted to fight back the fire that still raged within the Reinholzes’ estate. It seemed to have no desire to burn beyond the house, not even to the tree growing from the grave of Cin’s birth-mother, no matter how many sparks rained through its branches.
Father was still in there, burning along with Louise’s corpse, but Cin only felt the slightest grief for that. He had been given his chances, to stay or to leave, to make a difference, to be kinder, even if he couldn’t be stronger. He’d chosen to stand silently by instead, the same in life as he was in death. A part of Cin would miss him—would miss Louise, even, and Floy and Manfred too, if they didn’t survive the shock of their wounds—but that feeling was so tiny compared to the satisfied beast of his hatred, now curled contentedly around his chest, purring like a cat.
Cin found Emma sitting at the edge of the garden, her knees to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She barely looked up as he settled on the ground beside her, the heat close enough to leave a glow on Cin’s exposed skin. What a pair they must have made: Cin covered in soot, and Emma in her torn and dirty church-best, bare feet bloody—though gratefully un-stretched—and the deep cut on her cheek closing over in anangry red scab. Her eye seemed all right but for a single red line in the white.
Cin said nothing, just sat with her, waiting. It felt good to simply feel. To ache. To want. So much had been taken from them in such a short time, and so much offered up, yet untouched. He barely even noticed when Manfred and Floy were finally taken away, one of them still moaning.
“Did I deserve that?” Emma whispered, so sudden that Cin almost didn’t register the words. He nearly thought she meant the scratch on her cheek, but then she lifted her finger to the fire instead.
Cin cupped his hand around hers, lowering it. “No,” he assured her.
And, he thought, perhaps neither did their parents—not all of what had come for them, anyway. If he were going to be helping his kingdom find a new method of justice, one that didn’t rely on his birds or his blade, he had to grant his family that grace, too, if only in retrospect. That hardly meant he regretted the present outcome, though. Earning and deserving were two different things, and his family had certainly earned this.
Cin wrapped his arm around Emma’s shoulder and pulled her nearer, resting his chin on her head. It felt like it had been ages since he’d last held her so close in such quiet.
Too long, at least.
Emma glanced up, her brow tight despite the hope in her voice. “Will I get to visit you at the castle?”
Cin hesitated, brushing back the stray hairs that had fallen from her lopsided styling. “I don’t know where I’ll live, whether it will be the castle or someplace else, but wherever it is, you can always come too.”
Emma hugged onto him. Into his chest, she whispered, “What if I keep ruining things?”
“You have never ruined anything, Emma,” Cin said. And he found he meant that.
He held her like that, the fire uncomfortably close as it raged, then dimmed, the wood of their family home crumbling in on itself, until Lorenz and the queen finally approached with their horses alongside both of the Reinholzes’, Cin’s flock-creature already forming into its equine shape behind them. Cin stood, offering Emma help onto one of their family steeds. After one tiny sniffle, she took it.
All those times he’d dreamed of the hearth flame twirling out and up, searing into wood and taking them all with it. He’d always anticipated it would feel good, but this was nothing like the sanctification he’d imagined. This was hope. It was a future, unfolding in front of him with each crackle and split of the Reinholz estate’s aging wood.
And whether under the smile of God or a sullen frown, Cin could not wait to step into it.
Thirty-Three
The ride away from the Reinholz estate was a blur for Cin. No one questioned Emma’s inclusion, for which he was grateful. As more and more people joined the edges of their procession, her presence became one oddity of many. The growing crowd seemed to make the queen nervous, but she kept a barrier of watch members between her own little party and the rest of the world as she put on her best smile. Some changes, Cin figured, would come slowly.
By the time they’d reached the main square of Darmburg, it seemed as though the whole of the town had emerged to see them. The excited villagers packed so thoroughly into the streets on either side of the square that it stalled the royal party at the center. Through the dispersing morning gloom, Cin caught the gleam of the castle towers. With Lorenz beside him, they did not feel quite so distant anymore.
The prince’s horse danced on its hooves as Cin’s flock-creature rubbed up against it. Cin leaned close enough towhisper, “I think you may need to abandon your dream of a bare-chested statue in this particular village. Now that they’ve seen your own sculpted musculature, no metal or stone will live up to it.”
Lorenz laughed, adjusting the torn fragments of cloth that still hung off his shoulders. For all that he claimed his rakishness was a front, hehaddenied the watch’s offer of a jacket, though he’d played it off as chivalry. Cin suspected it had more to do with the fresh skin over his newly freed heart though, with the way Lorenz’s fingertips kept tracing the magical flesh absentmindedly. It shimmered in response to his touch, alive with Lacey and Rags’ spirits.
Cin had caught himself smiling at the feather-like shine every time.
Now though, his attention was taken in by the still-growing crowd. Cin recognized the better half of them, and for once, it seemed some even noticed him in turn. Echoes of the same conversation traveled through the amassing villagers—“Is that one of the Reinholz children? The quiet one? Oh, what is his name?”—but more and more, those confused whispers turned to excited shouts.
“Is he the one?” called the miller’s daughter, pulling herself onto her tiptoes to wave at Lorenz.
From the other side of the square, the old man who lived two houses down from Dorthe cried, “Tell us, does the shoe fit?”
“Show us the shoe!” someone nearer demanded, the desire echoing in a wave throughout the crowd.
Beneath Queen Idonia’s regal poise, she seemed hesitant, all the bravado she’d had while within her castle walls clearly strained by the uncontrollable anticipation around them. Lorenz seemed almost to buckle with her, but Cin slipped his hand into his prince’s and squeezed. The light returned to Lorenz’s face tenfold.
He raised Cin’s hand above their heads, shouting back to the crowd, “Shall we find out?”
