Page 8 of Cinder
Rarely now did they venture beyond their own castle, sending out their watch to do their bidding, stiff and unwavering. They were not cruel, certainly, but neither were they compassionate. These balls would mark the most they’d offered their people in ages. Perhaps that was a good sign. Perhaps it meant the royal family was changing; healing.
Someone good, someone gentle, their announcement had claimed, but what was genuine and what was just for show? Whatever the case was, they certainly did not want a ragged homemaker as a future leader for their kingdom. No one would want Cin: not gentle, not regal, not brilliant, not good. None of the virtues Mother had wished from him. And if they discovered what he did in the dark… Cin could go unnoticed long enough to feast and be gone, but with the price on his head, there would never be a permanent place in the castle for him even if he possessed every one of Floy’s skills and more. Not even he could hide who he was for a lifetime. His run-in with Dorthe was proof.
“Please, say you’ll stay for us, dear,” Louise asked.
It would be safer to agree. Gentler. Kinder. His birth mother would have. But all that seemed able to come out of Cin’s mouth was, “I don’t...”
Around him, the conversation had resumed between his siblings, flitting somewhere around the prince’s looks and if he liked tea—that was Emma—and how well he fucked—that was Manfred—but it all felt distant. Abstract. Louise stepped in, and Cin didn’t step back—couldn’t step back—not as hisstepmother’s fingers so gently cupped the side of his face, her other hand squeezing his shoulder.
Softly, she pleaded, “You’re the only one I trust for this besides Floy, and you understand that Floy must go, don’t you? They have a real chance at elevating our status.” Her brows knit, her thumb caressing Cin’s cheek. “You wouldn’t take that away from us for a bite of food, would you? Surely the royal’s reserves won’t be enough for all in attendance anyway. I doubt we’ll get more than a few morsels at best.”
It was all too much suddenly, and a rush of hot, violent emotion rolled through Cin. He jerked back, making his stepmother squeak in surprise. The moment her hands were gone, though, the fire that had overcome him turned to a void. All he wanted to do was fall into her embrace—fall and never get up.
He rubbed his hands over his arms instead, swallowing through the thickness in his throat.
Louise smiled weakly. “We’ll discuss it more later.” She clapped twice, pausing the chatter happening in the rest of the room. “We all have our chores to attend now, don’t we?”
And one by one, they left the sitting room, as though each of them had chores indeed.
As though all chores were equal. As equal, at least, as their prospects.
Every day leading up to the weekend, Cin stopped in the square to squint at the capital, hoping for a glimpse of the palace towers.
The crown’s watch had funneled back to the castle and the Plumed Menace seemed to have slipped everyone’s minds, replaced by their excitement for the royal ball. It was the talk of the town, and the talk of the Reinholzes’ household—even the voice inside Cin’s head couldn’t seem to shut up about it. He daydreamed of the food, but his desire went beyond that. This would be a night to simply enjoy himself. There hadn’t been a proper party in any of the nearby towns in months, much less one he’d be invited to.
Cin wanted this one: wanted to disappear into it and, for one night, cease the constant list in his mind of everything that needed attention back home and everything he might have done wrong. To momentarily stop searching for all those who cried in the night and left their homes with inexplicable bruises. Their misery clung like ash to the edges of Cin’s conscience, brittling into anger and guilt. It felt as though by setting foot into that castle, he could somehow stop being the Plumed Menace the crown was searching for. Be his mother’s child instead: good, if only for a night.
Louise was never around at the right time to discuss the matter, though, and by the morning before the ball, Cin was anxious with the energy.
“Hearth, Cinder!” Louise called down the hall, a yawn in her voice. “It’s gone out again!”
There wouldn’t be a better chance than this. The cold wood floor seemed to creak with the ghosts of all the winters past as Cin knelt beside the hearth in Louise’s room, tucking fresh firewood around the morning’s embers. The flame seemed to burst to life beneath his hands before the flint could even bid it come.
“You know my fingers just can’t strike a spark quite right anymore?” Louise grumbled, sliding her feet into slippers. “It’s such a hassle having to rely on my children for it.”
“I know, Mother.” Cin pulled himself to his feet, coming over to the bedside to remake the linens the way he did for his siblings most mornings, as he asked, hesitantly, “About the ball tonight...”
“Yes, yes,” Louise waved a hand in Cin’s direction without looking at him. “You’ll see that everything is tended here for us, won’t you?”
“Actually...” Cin ignored the little flicker of fire in his gut. There was no knife strapped to his belt now. He could be good. Pious. He could. “I was thinking, it would be so nice to spend the time with you and Emma and Manfred,” he lied, pretending he could want that. “I could help Floy prepare on the way—it’s a long drive. Their hair and makeup may need adjusting and we both know Emma and Manfred can’t handle that.”
Louise’s gaze slid to Cin out the corner of her eye. “I may have aches in my joints from doing the numbers for so long, but my hands are still steady enough to hold an eye-pen on occasion.” But then she sighed, staring down at those very fingers. Emotion welled in her voice as she added, “Your father surely wouldn’t want to see his ancestral home left untended...”
Cin didn’t know what else to say, except, “Please?”
Louise shook her head, a look of gentle frustration on her face. “How do I say no to you? I suppose if, before we leave in the afternoon, the house and stable are both prepared for our return, then I’ll consider it.”
Cin did not know how to hate her any less in that moment, but he loved her too. “It’ll be done, I promise.”
Cinder Szule Reinholz was going to the ball.
Cin had not worked so tirelessly through the morning in ages. His sides ached from the lack of breaks, sharp pains slicing between his ribs, but he pushed himself forward with thoughts of the castle, as though proximity to those towers would take away every last hurt. The morning meal finished and the dishes cleaned, the laundry sorted for soaking and every hearth tended to, he had just put back his broom when Manfred trudged through the kitchen with muddied boots.
“Manfred!” Cin scolded.
He shrugged, and Cin couldn’t tell whether the crook of his mouth was crueler than usual. “It’s a little dirt. Or would you rather it be ashes, huh?”
Cin wanted to hit him right in the center of his sneering mug, but he could predict how well that would go. He grabbed the largest bucket from the corner instead, grimacing as his ribs screamed in protest, and shoved it into Manfred’s chest before he could pass by. “I’ll need more water to mop. Since you’re alreadyfilthy, you wouldn’t mind?”
