Page 7 of Cinder
And it would be a chance to glimpse beyond the tips of the towers his mother had loved so much.
Cin lifted on his tiptoes, like that would help him see through the haze to the castle that overlooked their capital. He’d been to the city many times before, walked below the walls of the massive royal estate, but the thought of going inside...
If there was anything that had the power to make God smile on Cin again, maybe it would be that. Probably not. It was ridiculous, after all: as ridiculous as a way out of the famine and an end to the drafts in his room.
But with the blood that coated Cin’s past and future, he was willing to take any chance he was given.
Four
Cin had never seen his stepmother so excited—at least not over anything that had come out ofhismouth. She pushed back her long brown hair, half spinning in place with unbridled energy.
“You mean the prince’s partner has not yet been announced? And they’re reserving space for eligible young people of good character in his sphere?”
Cin could have just not said anything. Was six meals really worth this? “I’m not positive. I could barely hear—”
But Louise flung herself away from him, shouting across the sitting room to where her eldest birth-child sat at the front window, ankles crossed as they read the day’s newspaper—conveniently the one from the capital; Cin had memorized the nearby press’s names in order to retrieve them, even if he couldn’t decipher much else in print. “Floy!”
Floy’s hair was perfectly arranged into coils that wrapped up and around their head, despite having very little help fromanyone, even Cin, though he recognized their clean, pressed outfit of riding-style pants and a fitted vest as one he’d tended to last night just before leaving. They delicately flipped over the page they were on. “I’m not really interested, Mother.”
“Not interested in becomingqueen?”
Thatcaught Floy’s attention. They lowered the paper an inch, their sharp blue gaze and delicate brows peeking over. Cin’s father had remarked once, under his breath, that Floy’s eyes looked a bit like Cin’s, despite their lack of blood-relation, and Cin had never been able to unsee it.
“Dear,” Louise continued, “You must see the providence in this. You have all the necessary qualities.”
“I would do the role justice,” Floy agreed, carefully folding their paper. “I have the grace of a royal with the knowledge of an academic—I can speak all three languages of our largest trading partners.” They said it as though they were talking themself into a position of leadership with each qualification. “There would be so much more to learn on the job, but it would hardly be a problem, not with my foundation.”
“What if I want to be king?” Manfred cut in from the parlor entrance, his growling tone so opposite the phrasing ofgood and gentleon the announcement.
Louise looked disappointed at the thought. “Well, you can certainly try.”
“And me?” Emma shouted, the volume of her voice battling with theclunk-clunkof her falling her way down the stairs. She emerged in the hall entrance, her hair hanging half out of her braid. Three of the buttons on her dress were popped open, despite Cin being certain he’d done them all properly this morning. “Could I marry the prince?”
“Why not!” Louise exclaimed, tossing her hands into the air.
Cin didn’t offer himself as a fourth potential prince-wooer. He, at least, knew who his family was—a broken mess whoseancestors might have been somebodies, but who’d squandered all chance of that long ago. There was a reason no one Louise deemed worth their time would dream of marrying any of her children, step or otherwise. A prince would respond no better.
Cin carefully fixed Emma’s buttons as she jabbered at Louise.
“Imagine living in a palace! I’d have ten rooms, and fifteen maids, and a hundred little cakes, and—”
“Yes, yes, we would be rich,” Louise said, as Manfred mocked, “a thousand stupid ass thoughts all those fucking maids would have to listen to.”
Floy rolled their eyes in a way that somehow made the childish action look refined.
“I’d just like to go for the food,” Cin admitted, so softly he wasn’t sure the rest of his family could hear him.
“You, Cinder-child?” Louise inhaled.
The chaos of the room seemed to grind to a halt.
Cin swallowed, feeling certain that he’d done something wrong, even if he couldn’t place what this new sin was yet. “It’s said to be a fine dinner.”
Louise looked mournful. “But this party—it’s at the palace, isn’t it? That’s a part-day’s trip. With how late we’ll be there, someone will need to stay here to keep to the home, prepare for our return, see to the horse when we arrive.” It sounded as though it hurt her to say, and Cin wanted to believe that—wanted not to feel the pain and anger twisting terribly in his gut. “I’d ask Penrod, of course, but he’s not meant to return until next month—and it’s not as though you’ll be going there to meet the prince, anyway.”
The prince. The prince who would never have any of them—certainly not Cinder, or Emma, or Manfred. Perhaps Floy had the smallest chance... What were royals like now, anyway? Arrogant, calculated, disdainful? As a child, he would have sworn that Hallin’s queen and king were nothing of the sort.They had once been kind and open rulers, like the queen’s parents before them, and grandparents before that, going back for generations. They were not without their faults, but they had always connected with their people, listened and offered aid, given more than they’d taken.
Prince Adalwin’s disappearance had changed that.
