Marissa Meyer - Cress

Her tongue froze, her jaws and throat icing over.

But her lips still managed a smug smile. She’d already said more than she thought Levana would allow, and the fury in the queen’s eyes made it worthwhile.

The onlookers were rustling softly, no one daring to talk, even as they cast confused glances at one another across the room.

Sybil Mira had gone pale as she looked from Scarlet to the queen. “I apologize for the prisoner’s outburst, My Queen. Would you like me to continue questioning her in private?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Queen Levana’s voice was lyrical and calm, as if Scarlet’s words hadn’t bothered her in the slightest, but Scarlet knew it was a ruse. She’d seen the flash of murder in the queen’s eyes. “You may continue with your questions, Sybil. However, we are scheduled to depart for Earth tonight, and I would hate to be delayed. Perhaps your prisoner could use a bit more motivation to stay focused on the answers we’re interested in.”

“I agree, Your Majesty.” Sybil nodded to one of the royal guards that flanked the doors.

Moments later, a platform was wheeled into the throne room, and the audience seemed to perk up.

Scarlet gulped.

On the platform was a large block of ebony wood, intricately carved on all sides with scores of people prostrating themselves before a man in long, flowing robes, who wore a crescent moon as if it were a crown. On top of the block, set amid hundreds of hatch marks, was a silver hatchet.

Scarlet was pulled to her feet by two guards and dragged onto the platform. Letting out a slow breath, she lifted her chin, trying to stifle her mounting fear.

“Tell me,” said Sybil, passing behind her. “Where is Linh Cinder now?”

Scarlet held the queen’s stare. “I don’t know.”

A beat, before her own hand betrayed her, reaching out and wrapping around the silver handle. Her throat tightened.

“Where is she?”

Scarlet gritted her teeth. “I. Don’t. Know.”

Her hand yanked the blade from the wood.

“You must have talked about the possibility of an emergency landing. A safe place to hide should you need to. Tell me. Speculate if you must. Where would she have gone?”

“I have no idea.”

Scarlet’s other hand slammed onto the top of the block, fingers splayed out against the dark wood. She gasped at her own sudden movements, finally tearing her gaze away from the queen to look at her traitorous limb.

“Perhaps an easier question, then.”

Scarlet jumped. Sybil was right behind her now, whispering against her ear.

“Which finger do you value the least?”

Scarlet squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to clear her thoughts, to be logical. She tried to not be afraid.

“I was their only pilot,” she said. “None of them had any clue how to fly a spaceship. If they tried to go back to Earth, they would have crashed.”

Sybil’s footsteps retreated, but Scarlet’s hand remained stretched against the block, the hatchet still hovering in the air.

“My guard was an accomplished pilot, and he was quite alive when we abandoned the ship. Assume that Linh Cinder brainwashed him into piloting the ship for her.” Sybil came to stand where Scarlet could see her again. “Where, then, would she have had him go?”

“ I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.”

A slow, pleased smile climbed over the thaumaturge’s face. “We’ll start with the smallest finger, then.”

Scarlet’s arm reared back, and she flinched, turning her face away as if not looking would keep it from happening. Her knees gave out and she collapsed beside the block of wood, but her arms stayed strong, inflexible. The only parts of her that weren’t trembling.

Her grip on the hatchet tightened, prepared to swing.

“My Queen?”

The entire room seemed to inhale at the words, so softly spoken that Scarlet wasn’t sure she’d really heard them.

After a long, long moment, the queen snapped, “What?”

“May I have her?” The words were faint and slow, as if the question were a maze that needed to be traversed carefully. “She would make a lovely pet.”

Pulse thundering in her ears, Scarlet dared to open her eyes. The hatchet glinted in the corner of her vision.

“You may have her when we are done with her,” said the queen, sounding not at all pleased at the interruption.

“But then she’ll be broken. They’re never any fun when you give them to me broken.”

The room began to titter mockingly.

A bead of sweat fell into Scarlet’s eyes, stinging.

“If she were my pet,” continued the lilting voice, “I could practice on her. She must be easy to control. Maybe I would start to get better if I had such a pretty Earthen to play with.”

The tittering stopped.

The frail voice became even quieter, barely a murmur, that still carried like a gunshot in the otherwise silent room.

“Father would have given her to me.”

Scarlet tried to blink the salt from her eyes. Her breaths were ragged from the strain of trying to take back control of her arms and failing.

“I said that you may have her, and you may,” said the queen, speaking harshly, as if to an annoying child. “But what you don’t seem to understand is that when a queen threatens repercussions against someone who has wronged her, she must follow through on those threats. If she does not, she is inviting anarchy to her doorstep. Do you want anarchy, Princess ?”

Dizzy with fear, with nausea, with hunger, Scarlet managed to raise her head. The queen was looking at someone seated beside her, but the world was blurring and Scarlet couldn’t see who it was.

She heard her, though. The lovely voice, cutting through her.

“No, My Queen.”

“Precisely.”

Levana turned back to Sybil and nodded.

Scarlet didn’t have a moment to prepare herself before the hatchet dropped.

Cress stood to the side of the lab table, clutching a portscreen as Dr. Erland held a strange tool beside Thorne’s face, sending a thin beam of light into his pupils.

The doctor grunted, and bobbed his head in comprehension. “Mm-hmmm,” he drawled, changing the tool’s setting so that a green light clicked on near the bottom. “Mm-hm,” he said again, switching to the other eye. Cress leaned closer, but she couldn’t see anything that would warrant such thoughtful humming.

The tool in the doctor’s hand made a few clicking sounds and he took the portscreen out of Cress’s hand. He nodded at it before handing it back to her. She looked down at the screen, where the strange tool was transferring a jumble of incomprehensible diagnoses.

“Mmmm-hmmm.”

“Would you stop mm-hming and tell me what’s wrong with them?” said Thorne.

“Patience,” said the doctor. “The optic system is delicate, and an incorrect diagnosis could be catastrophic.”

Thorne crossed his arms.

The doctor changed the settings on his tool again and completed another scan of Thorne’s eyes. “Indeed,” he said. “Severe optic nerve damage, likely as a result of traumatic head injury. My hypothesis is that when you hit your head during the fall, internal bleeding in your skull caused a sudden pressure buildup against the optic nerve and—”

Thorne waved, bumping the doctor’s tool away from him. “Can you fix them?”

Dr. Erland huffed and set the tool down on the counter that ran the length of the Rampion’s medbay. “Of course I can,” he said, sounding insulted. “The first step will be to collect some bone marrow from the iliac crest portion of your pelvic bone. From that, I can harvest your hematopoietic stem cells, which we can use to create a solution that can be externally applied to your optic system. Over time, the stem cells will replace your damaged retinal ganglion cells and provide cellular bridges among the disconnected—”