I wrote this first chapter in two days because I just wanted to get some sort of story out. It's a little angsty and a little redundant, but hopefully cute at some points. I have at least one more chapter, but there won't be more than three.
WARNING: PTSD, mildly graphic (?). Just be careful.
Takes place almost immediately after Winter.
Cinder thrashed awake.
She sucked in a breath, feeling like her lungs couldn't possible take in all the air she needed. Her artificial heart pounded in her chest and her head, and it was all she could hear, just that frantic drumbeat. How many left, how many more heartbeats, how could she…
The Queen of Luna pushed out a breath, then sucked in another. She was ok, she won, her friends were alive. (Except for the bodies in the streets that she saw out of the corner of her eye every time she left the palace. Except for all the people who would only ever know the world her aunt ruled). She shook her head, trying to push the thoughts away.
Sleep was absolutely out of the question. Cinder padded over to her closet, then sighed, bending over to pick up a faded blue sweatshirt from the floor. A quick sniff proved that it was still wearable. Iko's voice murmured in the back of her mind about the proper attire for a queen, but Cinder put that aside. According to her internal clock, it was the middle of the night, and if anyone important saw her, it was their problem.
As she left her room, she gave the guard a quick nod that she hoped was a respectful acknowledgement of his presence and an expression of gratitude for his service. Almost every day, she had to stifle the urge to make some excuse or explanation for her actions- she'd learned quickly that it really only made the situation more awkward.
Lost in thought, Cinder wandered through the halls of the palace (her palace). Trying to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible, she crept past the gilded doors. A chill made her shiver, and she wrapped her sweatshirt closer to her skin, trying to preserve her warmth. Ducking her head, she kept walking.
With a little start, she realized she'd arrived at the throne room. She snorted. At this rate, she'd practically be Levana in weeks. Following that joking thought through made her shudder, and her brain flicked to the memory in this same room.
Blood. Knife. Yelling, yelling, so much blood, so much-
Cinder forced her memory to something else, something more recent.
She's in the courtyard with Winter, still recovering from her own injuries. The two sit watching the world, but really seeing nothing. Winter hums quietly, some song Cinder's sure she knows but can't seem to place. She can feel a lump in her throat- she came here to ask something.
"How did you deal with it?" she blurts out, a thought half-formed.
Winter cracks one eye open to look at her, waiting.
Cinder swallows. "The visions. The- the nightmares."
Her cousin looks straight into her eyes, head cocked to the side, considering. "Jacin always tells me to breathe." She shrugs. "So I do. Like I have all the time in the world. Like it doesn't feel like my heart can barely take the pressure of living." Winter smiles. "Like I can fill my lungs with starlight."
Back in the throne room, Cinder sucked in a breath. She tore her eyes away from the floor to look out the window, right at the stars. She filled her lungs with air until they felt like they could burst, and then she let it back out. (And again, and again). Her heart rate returned to normal, and the warning icon that had popped up to the side of her vision faded away.
With a little sigh, she walked closer to the window, eyes fixed not on the stars but on the planet below. The blue light cast wavering shadows over the room, giving it the look of being underwater.
Tentatively, Cinder pressed her human hand against the pane. Her palm left a print of condensation as the cold seeped into her skin.
She wondered if she'd ever stop missing home.
Her eyes flicked to the spot of light on the planet that she knew to be New Beijing. Kai had only left a week ago, but she felt his absence like a sharp pain in her side. She knew she couldn't mope around about her boyfriend taking off to go back to running a country when she had a country in ruins to run herself, so she tried to occupy herself. But right now, there was no national problem immediately on hand for her to meditate, so her mind flitted right back to him. The only thing to do was go to sleep, and she was still not excited with that thought.
Cinder swallowed. She was pretty sure she'd be crying right now, if she could. (Though she hoped not. Queenly behaviour and all that).
Entirely on impulse, she pulled up her comm messages on her iris display, her attention landing on Kai's name. A quick check of international clocks showed it was early morning for him, but not unreasonable. He was probably awake, maybe eating breakfast?
Cinder didn't bother thinking it through and sent him a quick message.
C: Good morning.
Immediately she regretted it. A knot of anticipation twisted in her stomach, and she had to remind her lungs to keep working. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, unsure of how to follow this through.
K: Can't sleep?
Cinder let out a small laugh that sounded a lot more like a sigh.
K: Honestly I'm the same way. It's been a while since I've slept through a night.
C: I keep thinking we're still fighting. I'm sure eventually I'll figure out that we won.
K: One day ;)
She let out another laugh, this one more genuine. Relaxing, she turned around to sit with her back against the window, shifting until she was comfortable.
K: But seriously, how can I help?
C: Always the nice one.
K: …
C: Just talking is nice. You could keep doing that?
K: Easy enough
K: Hold on a sec
C: Ok?
K: Now I'm looking right at you
C: Creepy.
K: You're a comedian. Can you see me? I'm waving
Cinder snorted. Humoring him even when he wouldn't know the difference, she turned around so she was back to looking at the earth.
C: Oh yeah. Your hair's a mess, just so you know.
K: Wrong! I'll have you know that I just brushed it.
C: Picture or you're lying.
A second later, a photo popped up before her eyes. Kai was standing on what looked to be a balcony. The sky was just lighting up behind him. His hair did look newly brushed, but he was screwing his face into an expression of comical disgust.
C: What are you doing with your face?
K: Don't you know? That's my photo face. Just look at the newsfeeds.
C: Pretty sure you're only making that face on the inside :)
K: I've been caught.
She felt her smile across her face. Even though they hadn't talked like this in almost a week, it still felt natural. (Even though it wasn't really talking. Even though absolutely nothing about it was natural).
K: Is there anything particularly bothering you tonight?
Cinder sighed. As much as she'd like to go back to the sarcastic banter, she knew she should tell him. She'd learned well enough last year that hiding the truth was only ever going to make things worse.
C: I just have these nightmares.
K: Do you want to talk about them.
C: No.
C: That's not true. I do, I just don't know the words.
Kai didn't reply, obviously waiting for her to pull her thoughts together.
C: They're never really about something specific. Usually I'm drowning, like in the lake. Sometimes it's made of blood. And I'm always surrounded by people, but I can't see their faces. And it just hurts, so much, not physically, but something else.
K: No wonder you're up right now.
K: If it makes you feel any better, you're definitely not the only one.
C: You too?
K: Yeah.
K: Mine are less clear than yours, but in all of mine I'm looking for something important, but I can't find it, and in every room I look in, Levana's right there, wearing a different face every time. Holding that knife.
Cinder paused to swallow. She wondered if all of her other friends were like this too- still fighting when they'd won. Really, Cinder had been fighting all her life for a place to exist in. Could she ever stop?
Another message from Kai scrawled across her vision.
K: What you said earlier, about not getting that we won, I'm the same way. It's hard to see the little things as important, even if they are.
C: To be fair, it hasn't really been that long. I guess we just need to adjust.
K: Still sucks though.
C: For sure.
K: I have to go. But if you still want to talk, maybe I can get back to you later?
C: Nah, I think I'm going back to bed.
K: Lucky, I wish I could do that. Sweet dreams.
C: I hope so. Thank you.
K: My pleasure. Please, come again.
With a chuckle, Cinder dismissed the comm messages from her iris display. She yawned as she stood up. According to her clock, she could get a few more hours of sleep before the meetings and decisions started.
As she headed towards her room, her mind drifted back to the nightmares Kai had described. The revolution had left deep scars on all of her friends, but theirs were not as visible as Wolf's mutations or Thorne and Scarlet's missing fingers. Maybe they all had these nightmares, these lingering feelings of fighting that was done.
For Cinder, this was so much harder to deal with. It was easy for her to point at the scar over her heart and say, Here is where the pain is, but these dreams came from a different sort of pain. The sort she felt when the image of the people who had died for her on the palace steps flashed across her mind.
Cinder reached her bed and flopped down, lying on her back. She traced aimless patterns on the dark ceiling with her eyes. Exhaustion pulled at her, but her mind kept running in circles, not pausing long enough for her to rest.
With a frustrated sigh, Cinder rolled on her side, then the other, trying to get comfortable. When that didn't work, she got up again and walked to the screen that covered her small window. Carefully, she pulled it back so that she could see a sliver of the earth through the opening. Her eyes lingered there for a moment before she turned back to her bed.
Lying down, she scrolled through the messages she had just exchanged with Kai, trying to get back to that feeling of peace that had washed over her in the throne room. As her eyes traced the shapes of the ladders, a thought crossed her mind.
She probably loved him.
(She definitely did).
Cinder had known she loved him for a while, but here, alone, with his words as her anchor, she knew it. There was something a little different between loving someone and being in love with them.
"I'm in love with you," she whispered in the empty room, to a boy who couldn't hear her. The words sounded alien and completely natural at the same time. She said it again, quietly, but with more conviction.
"I love you."
Almost as a joke to herself, she looked at the corner where the lie detector light would have gone off, but it remain blank. (Even though it would have either way). It felt true enough to her.
Cinder turned on her side, fixing her gaze on that tiny piece of the bright blue earth that glowed in her window.
Three hundred eighty-four thousand and four hundred kilometers was a lot of space. But one day (maybe soon), Cinder was going to cross all of it and tell Kai, face-to-face, that she loved him.
One day.