Prologue:
If it's a fairy tale you came here to find, then to see it you'll have to read between the lines.
A once evil queen, fair of face but black of heart,
Had a child she loved, a little princess, a new start.
But the queen's malevolent sister, fair of face, poisoned of heart,
Sought only to cause pain and tear her sister's love apart.
She melted the silver baby and was murdered for her betrayal,
And the queen's innocence was shattered,
Her heart left bitter and frail.
Now I cannot tell you if this tale is truly true,
But then again, I'm only a mirror…
Why would I lie to you?
"I've only ever had three friends," she said, then glanced quickly at the wolf. Ryu had lain down, resting his head on his paws as he watched them. "Other than the animals, of course. But one of my friends turned into ashes when we were very little. A pile of girl-shaped ashes. The other was my little sister. I'd always wanted a sister, but the smiling fairy pushed the pins in too hard… and that's why stepmother keeps the sharp things away now." She got a distant look in her eye before she continued. "The last has gone missing… and I don't know if he'll ever come back." A shudder ripped through her, so strong she nearly dropped the box.
Cress's fingers glided over the screen, and she'd opened the tab before her mind could decide whether it wanted to know what was in it or not.
"A DNA analysis," she said, "and… a paternity conformation." Cress stared at the words: Match Found. Paternity Confirmed. Not really reading them but the words never leaving her head. In a moot effort to move her focus elsewhere, she moved her eyes to the other file under her name, labeled: Please Open. Most likely it was something akin to a goodbye full of love and tears, but what was strange was that next to the label, two words had been typed in.
Renard, Ivy
Though the name of the file was unfamiliar to her, Cress double tapped the folder and multiple files popped up on the screen.
"What's all this?" she asked no one in particular as she scanned through the files.
"What's all what now?" Thorne asked. Cress ignored him as she read on. Erland had made multiple trips from the Eastern Commonwealth to the American Republic, though it didn't have a specific destination. He'd purchased medical supplies and collected blood samples that had been worked on in his own lab; one looked to be a possible cure for letumosis that had surfaced a while back that had turned out to be null and void. And what was the strangest of all, a lunar birth certificate.
Diana Levana Hayle-Blackburn.
"Diana?" Cress said aloud, again oblivious to Thorne sitting next to her. Who was Diana? She knew the doctor was a doctor and had many patients but for some reason the name stood out to her, she'd never heard the name Diana before, but Erland seemed to think it was important for him to leave it for her to find. She decided to keep reading,
Date of Birth January 13th, 110 T.E. at 3:07AM, Royal Palace of Artemisia, to father Evret Hayle and mother -
"What?!" Cress said louder than she meant.
"What, what? Cress, talk to me." Thorne said as he grasped her arm. Cress had tuned him out in midst of her shock. "Is it my hair? I knew I should have picked up a comb in Farafrah!" his words went in one ear and out the other as Cress stared at the two words written in fluid cursive in the picture on her portscreen.
Levana Blackburn
Queen Levana had a daughter.
A sick daughter by the looks of all the medical bills paid for by the royal bank account. Bills that started appearing just after the girl's birth. Frail or weak babies were rare on Luna, their medical advances prevented almost all sickness as a whole anyway. Cress expected a royal baby to be born completely healthy. But the next file made her brow cringe with sympathy.
Date of Death February 21st, 112 T.E. at 4:23AM, Cause of Death: 107 degree fever.
Levana's baby had died. When she was two years old. Cress told herself not to feel sorry for Levana; the cruel queen of Luna who tried to kill her own niece, manipulated people without batting an eye, and lost her own child. Despite her cruelty, it was still heartbreaking to lose your child in such a way.
"Are you still even here? These drops aren't going to drip themselves you know! Tick-tock, drip-drop!" Thorne's words snapped her out of her thoughts, now realizing the humungous deal this was.
"Thorne! You have to hear this, Levana had a baby two years before Princess Selene died, her daughter died of a fever but the folder says that Doctor Erland kept visiting the American Republic after she did, so what if he was going there to see her! Princess Diana could be alive just like Princess Selene and she's somewhere on earth, in America!" she rushed everything out of her mouth like she'd been holding it in forever, staring at Thorne's blank eyes waiting for a response to this kind of news.
"Cress… you lost me." He said with an innocent shrug.
Cress deflated and spoke more slowly, "Levana had a baby. And that baby is alive somewhere." Thorne's eyes widened.
"That means, that there's another psychotic Lunar royal out there."
"Yes! We have to tell the others, and Cinder!" Cress was really excited now. Levana's daughter or not there was another Lunar Princess, and if the files were correct, there was a more than distinct possibility she was alive.
"We will, but first," he snapped his fingers and pointed to his eyes. "Eye drops."
"You want to know another secret? The biggest secret?" she sat splaying her legs like a broken doll in front of her. "I'm scared, Kai. I'm so scared." She thought it might feel better, to say the words out loud, but instead they only made her feel pathetic and weak. She wrapped her arms around her waist. "I'm scared of her, and her army, and what she can do. And everyone expects me to be strong and brave, but I don't know what I'm doing. I have no idea how to overthrow her. And even if I succeed, I have no idea how to be a queen. There are so many people relying on me, people who don't even know they're relying on me, and now they're dying, all because of some ridiculous fantasy that I can help them, that I can save them, but what if I can't?"
A headache began to throb against her temples, a reminder that she would be crying right now. If she were normal.
Arms wrapped around her.
Cinder pressed her face against his silk shirt. There was some sort of cologne or soap there – so feint she hadn't picked up on it before.
"I know exactly how you feel," Kai said.
She squeezed her eye shut. "Not exactly."
"I think pretty close."
She shook her head. "No, you don't understand. More than anything, I'm afraid that… the more I fight her and the stronger I become, the more I'm turning into her."
Sitting back on his heels. Kai pulled away just enough to look into her face without releasing her. "You're not turning into Levana."
"Are you sure about that? Because I manipulated your advisor today, and countless guards. I manipulated Wolf. I… I killed a police officer, in France, and I would have killed more people if I'd had to, people in your own military, and I don't even know if I would feel bad about it because there are always ways to justify it. It's for the good of everyone, isn't it? Sacrifices have to be made. And then there are the mirrors, such a stupid, stupid thing, but they – I'm beginning to get it. Why she hates them so much. And then –" she shuddered. "Today, I tortured her thaumaturge. I didn't just manipulate her. I tortured her, and I almost enjoyed it."
"Cinder look at me." He cupped her face. "I know you're scared, and you have every right to be. But you are not turning into Queen Levana."
"You can't know that."
"But I do."
"She's my aunt, you know."
He smoothed back her hair. "Yeah, well, my great-grandfather signed the Cyborg Protection Act. And yet, here we are."
She bit her lip. Here they were.
"Now let's never talk about you being related to her again. Because I'm technically still engaged to her, and that's really weird."
Cinder couldn't help laughing, even exhaustedly, even just to cover up the screaming inside, as he bound her up in his arms again. Her heartache began to fade, replaced with the strength his heartbeat and the way she felt almost delicate when she was pressed up against him like this.
Almost fragile.
Almost safe.
Almost like a princess.
"You won't tell anyone, will you?" she murmured.
"I won't."
"And if it turns out I make a terrible princess?"
He shrugged against her. "The people of Luna don't need a princess. They need a revolutionary."
Cinder furrowed her brow. "A revolutionary," she repeated. She liked that a lot better than princess.
The door zipped open.
Cinder and Kai jumped apart, Kai scrambling to his feet.
Cress, breathless and flushed, paused in the doorway.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Portscreen – doctor – princess –"
"I know," said Cinder, not entirely processing the words that came out of Cress's mouth. "I know about Farafrah."
Cress blinked as if confused. "No, not that, the doctor left me a bunch of files on his portscreen marked Please Open, so I opened it and read through them all and… I found something incredible!" Cress was talking a mile a minute, Cinder only hearing key words like doctor, and incredible.
"What do you mean?" Kai asked, his attention grabbed.
Cress opened the tab on the port and scrolled through it so she could show them, "It says that about fifteen years ago a girl was born in Artemisia Palace named Diana, she was very weak and always sick, and that she died of a high fever, but all these records say she may be alive." Cinder scanned the files; medical bills, an animation tank designed for an infant.
"What does this mean?" Cinder asked, she felt like the Doctor had been keeping this from them and it may turn out to be a huge deal.
Cress blinked rapidly, "If you'll read this birth certificate it says that Diana's parents were some guy named Evret Hayle and –"
"Levana…" Kai read as if in a daze.
Cress only nodded.
Cinder said nothing. She just read the words on the birth certificate over and over until they were permanently etched into her mind. In the corner of her eye she found herself searching for that little orange light. The sign that what was being processed in her head was a lie. But she was shocked to see that there was no light. These papers were real. All of it was real. It wasn't a lie. It was true.
Queen Levana had a daughter.
Princess Diana Levana Hayle-Blackburn.
She attempted to speak, but every time Cinder opened her mouth not a sound came out. She just stood there like a dying fish gasping for breath. Her brain couldn't form words. If not for her cyborg cooling systems she'd overheat and feint right now.
"What?" she finally choked out.
Cress merely nodded, "It's true, the records say she died, but my fath- the Doctor's files say that she's alive." She handed Cinder the portscreen but she barely felt the device touch her hand. She must've been standing stone-still for at least another minute before she felt Kai's hand brush her shoulder.
"Cinder?" he asked, concern in his eyes.
"Levana's daughter… is alive?" she was met with another nod from Cress. "Princess Diana…" she whispered so softly she herself strained to hear it. Levana had a daughter. A daughter that was by blood Cinder's cousin. A daughter that was alive.
Thorne chose this moment to speak up, "Well if she's alive I doubt she's living it up with some Lunar snoots. Hey! Maybe she can help dethrone her mom!" almost everyone in the room minus Cinder gave him a look, and somehow he must have been able to tell. "Just a suggestion, my bad." He shrugged.
Cinder ran over his words in her head; if Diana really was alive, and that was a huge if, then maybe they stood a chance of getting her on their side to stop Levana's cruel dictatorship. If she was alive and living at some secret location on earth, then she probably wouldn't be living with the luxuries her mother was, and they stood a chance of gaining her support. If Diana was on their side then they would have a big advantage over the people of Luna; their so-called Beautiful and Merciful queen sending her sick daughter away to rot wouldn't look good for Levana.
"No." she spoke after what felt like forever. All eyes were trained on her now, "Thorne may be onto something."
"Aw shucks! You flatter me Cinder." Cinder ignored him.
"If Diana is alive and somewhere on earth then that means we can find her and somehow convince her to join our cause. Something tells me she wouldn't be too happy about her own mother sending her an entire planet away as a baby." She explained. Cinder knew very well it was a shot in the dark at best; why would someone go against their own mother? A mother who had an entire planet's people wrapped around her finger. A mother like Levana. But if she didn't know of Levana's tyranny then Cinder would convince her somehow. How hard could it be? She herself was fighting the lunar queen and she happened to be her niece.
Kai's gaze quickly went from concerned to skeptical. "Cinder-" she cut him off,
"You told me that Luna needed a revolutionary, and that's what I'll be. And I'll start by bringing Diana back and telling Luna the truth. That Levana is cruel and ruthless tyrant who killed her niece, and sent her daughter away because she got sick." Her hands had clenched into fists just thinking of all the pain and suffering her aunt had caused, she would stop her and she would take back her throne.
She looked around the room and was met with nods and looks of approval from her friends and her hands relaxed but only slightly.
"I'm going to Luna, but first I'm going back to earth. I'm going to find Princess Diana… and she's going to help me start a revolution."
End of Prologue