Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,72
personal guards based on who makes the best wall decorations? I’m suddenly feeling better about our chances.”
“That, and our very weak minds.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. If I’d been good with my gift, I might have made thaumaturge. But the queen wants her guards to be easily controlled. We’re like puppets for her to shuffle around. After all, if we show the slightest resistance to being controlled, it could mean the difference between life and death for Her Majesty.”
Cinder thought of the ball, when she’d had the gun and had tried to shoot Levana. The red-haired guard had jumped in front of the bullet without hesitation. She’d always assumed he’d been doing his duty to protect the queen, that he’d done it willingly, but now she recognized how his movements were too jerky, too unnatural. And how the queen hadn’t even flinched.
She’d been controlling him. Jacin was right. He’d acted just like a puppet.
“But you were able to resist control on the ship.”
“Because Thaumaturge Mira was preoccupied with your operative. Otherwise, I would have been the same brainless mannequin that I usually am.” His tone was self-deprecating, but Cinder could detect bitterness beneath it. Nobody liked to be controlled, and she didn’t think anyone ever got used to it.
“And you don’t think they suspect that you’re…”
“A traitor?”
“If that’s what you are.”
His thumb traced around the knife handle. “My gift is pretty much worthless. I couldn’t even control an Earthen, much less a skilled Lunar. I could never do what you do. But I’ve gotten pretty good at keeping my thoughts empty when the queen or a thaumaturge is around. To them, I have about as much brains and willpower as a tree stump. Not exactly threatening.”
Near the front of the store, the woman started humming to herself as she scavenged for Cinder’s supplies.
“You’re doing it right now, aren’t you?” said Cinder, crossing her arms. “Keeping your thoughts empty.”
“It’s habit.”
Closing her eyes, Cinder felt around for him with her thoughts. His presence was there, but just barely. She knew that she could have controlled him without any effort at all, but the energy rolling off his body didn’t give anything away. No emotions. No opinions. He simply melted into the background. “Huh. I always thought your training must have taught you that.”
“Just healthy self-preservation.”
Furrowing her brow, she opened her eyes again. The man before her was an emotional black hole, according to her Lunar gift. But if he could fool Levana …
She narrowed her eyes. “Lie to me.”
“What?”
“Tell me a lie. It doesn’t have to be a big one.”
He was silent for a long time and she imagined she could hear him sifting through all the lies and truths, weighing them against each other.
Finally, he said, “Levana’s not so bad, once you get to know her.”
An orange light blinked on in the corner of her vision.
At Jacin’s mocking grin, Cinder started to laugh, the tension rising off her shoulders like heat waves off the desert sand. At least her cyborg programming could still tell whether or not he was lying to her. Which meant he hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was loyal to his princess, and his princess alone.
The shopkeeper returned and dumped an armful of different drugs on the counter, scanned the portscreen, whistled, then drifted away again.
“Now that you know all about me,” said Jacin, as if it were anywhere close to true, “I have a question for you.”
“Go for it,” she said, organizing the bottles into neat rows. “My secrets are mostly public knowledge these days.”
“I may be able to hide my emotions from the queen, but I can’t hide the fact that I’m Lunar, and that I can be controlled by her. But when you first came to that ball, your gift seemed nonexistent. Honestly, I thought you were Earthen at first. And I know that’s why the queen and Thaumaturge Mira were taunting you … treating you like a shell, which you might as well have been for how powerless you were.” He stared at Cinder, as if trying to see into the mess of wires and chips in her head. “Then, suddenly, you weren’t powerless anymore. Your gift was practically blinding. Maybe even worse than Levana’s.”
“Gee, thanks,” Cinder muttered.
“So, how did you do it? How could you hide that much power? Levana should have known immediately … we all should have known. Now when I look at you, it’s practically all I see.”
Biting her lip, Cinder glanced toward the mirror over the shop’s small sink. She