Winter (The Lunar Chronicles #4) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,148

past hour. “I do not know that I will see you again, dear husband, until we stand together for our coronations. I am afraid the sight of you is making me ill.”

Thanks to a warning look from Torin, Kai managed to withhold commentary on this unexpected disappointment.

With a snap of her fingers, Levana ordered one of the servants to have a bath drawn in her chambers and then she was gone, blood clinging to the hem of her gown as she swept from the throne room.

Kai exhaled, dizzy from it all. The queen’s sudden absence. The iron tang of blood mixed with sharp cleaning chemicals and the lingering aroma of braised beef. The way his ears still echoed with gunfire and how he would never forget the image of Cinder launching herself off that ledge.

“Your Majesty?” said a shriveled, frightened voice.

Turning, he saw Linh Adri and Pearl crouched in a corner. Tears and dirt streaked their faces.

“Might we…” Adri gulped, and he could see the fluttering rise and fall of her chest as she tried to gather herself. “Might it be possible for you to … to send my daughter and me home?” She sniffed and brand-new tears pooled in her eyes. Scrunching up her face, she let her shoulders slump, her body barely supported in the corner of the room. “I’m ready … I want to go home now. Please.”

Kai clenched his jaw, pitying the woman almost as much as he despised her. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but it doesn’t look like anyone is leaving until this is over.”

Fifty-Three

The water hit her like concrete. The force pounded through her body. Every limb vibrated, first with the hard slap of the water, then from its icy cold.

It swallowed her down. She was still reeling from the hit as the air left her lungs in a burst of froth and bubbles. Already her chest was burning. Her body rolled over like a buoy, her heavy left leg dragging her down.

A red warning light filled up the darkness.

LIQUID IMMERSION DETECTED. SHUTTING DOWN POWER SUPPLY IN 3 …

That was as far as the countdown got. Blackness pulled at the back of Cinder’s brain, as if a switch had been turned off. Dizziness rocked her. She forced her eyes open and looked toward the surface, only able to orient herself because she could feel her leg pulling her down, down.

White sparks were creeping into the corners of her vision. Her lungs tightened, begging to contract.

Slippery weeds reached up to grasp at her, sliming her right calf where her pants had bunched around her knee. Willing herself to stay conscious, Cinder aimed her finger’s flashlight into the blackness at her feet and tried to turn it on, but nothing happened.

With just enough light from the palace filtering through the muck and water, Cinder thought she detected a series of pale bones caught among the grasses. Her metal foot sank into a rib cage.

She jolted, surprise clearing her thoughts as the bones crushed beneath her.

Gritting her teeth, Cinder used every ounce of energy left to push herself off the lake bottom, struggling back toward the surface. Her left leg and hand weren’t responding to her controls. They had become nothing but dead weights at the end of her limbs, and her shoulder screamed where the mutant soldier had dug his teeth into her flesh. It took every ounce of remaining energy to claw her way upward.

Her diaphragm twitched. Overhead, the glare on the surface grew brighter, lights flickering like a mirage over the surface. She felt the strength draining out of her, her waterlogged leg trying to drag her back down …

She burst through the surface with a sputter, sucking huge mouthfuls of air into her lungs. She managed to tread water for one desperate moment before she was pulled down again. Her muscles burned as she kicked, bobbing back up at the surface, straining to keep her head above the water.

As the flashes in her vision began to recede, Cinder swiped the water from her eyes. The palace towered above her, ominous and oppressive despite its beauty, stretching along either side of the lake. Without artificial daylight brightening the dome, she could see the spread of the Milky Way beyond the glass, mesmerizing.

On the balcony far above her, Cinder caught shadows moving. Then a wave crashed into her and she was underwater again, her body battered against the current. She lost her sense of direction, up or down. Panic burst again in her head, her