Thorne stands on the edge of his life as he stands on the edge of the throne room's balcony. He looks out over the black waters of Artemesia Lake and feels weightless. Unreal. The whole world just kinda floats inside of him, rising in his throat. The distance below him is immeasurable.
Far below the dark waters wash and roll.
From this height, he can't calculate how long the drop is. He's frozen in place. Levana has chosen this spot for him to stand and without her say, he cannot move from it.
His heart hammers away in his throat and swallowing does nothing to dispel the terror.
It's a weightless terror.
He's a hostage and a decoy and a shield all bundled into one.
He wonders if they'll discover his body. The lake probably washes up all kinds of things. The real question is if they'll ever figure out how he fell. Maybe they'll check the surveillance cameras...
What will Cinder think? Cress will cry—there's no pretending otherwise. Iko will cry in spirit. Though, who knows. She's so human inside and out that she might cry actual tears.
He wonders, too, if he'll miss them.
Do you notice once you're dead? That you've left the people you love behind.
He feels removed from the situation. It's like he's looking down at himself from a very far way away. He can feel his pulse thundering through his veins and his dry throat, but they belong to someone else.
His bound wrists smart and the pulsing blood in his injured leg hurts like hell.
Feet clack along the marble floors in the hall. Without precursor, a figure appears in the towering doorway.
Cinder—come to rescue him?
His heart leaps into his throat but he is cemented to the balcony. He can't move. He can't speak.
No.
Cinder is here to face Levana.
She doesn't stand a chance. But, she's survived every other obstacle her Aunt has thrown at her.
Bloody and battered, Cinder stands defiantly in the throne room doorway. Gore covers her arms and knees. Leaking wounds wind up her body, peeking from her shredded clothing.
She's a mess.
And she's perfect.
Thorne decides in that moment he doesn't care if Levana forces him to throw his body off of the balcony.
Seeing Cinder one last time is worth death.
That sounds beyond over-dramatic, yes. He's not too concerned at present with moderation. Now isn't the time to be picky over semantics.
Everything he's been through in the past six months has been more than worth knowing Cinder. He wouldn't trade it for anything in the whole wide universe.
He quirks his lips and says, "Well, it's about time! You have no idea how awkward these last few minutes have been."
Talk about awkward! He's been stuck with his own thoughts of death. It doesn't get much worse than that. The least Levana could have done is monologue at him with her evil plans!
What a poor host.
Earlier he'd been minding his own business in a cell. Of course being left to his own devices was too much to ask for.
Imagine his surprise.
The cell doors had clanged open and Thorne had jumped to his feet. He was expecting a guard, an ally, maybe even a leprechaun. The last person in the entire universe he expected to march through the cell doors was Queen Levana.
His arms had snapped to attention at his sides. His body had jerked forward and past the queen into the stone hall. His heart had beat in time to their footsteps.
"Rough day?" He asks.
Cinder glares in concentration. "Your leg?"
"It won't kill me—unless of course the prisons were full of grimy bacteria and the wound gets infected, which let's face it, is entirely plausible."
She doesn't find this funny. Figures. The only thing he's good at are these well-timed and on-theme jokes. If he can't be helpful, he might as well shut up. Not likely but it's always an option.
Cinder takes a step forward and his body moves one step closer to free fall.
His heart speeds up.
She clenches her teeth in frustration. Cinder cares about him—it's nice. Very calming and soothing and satisfying and all that but the thing is… she's stuck in the doorway! What is he supposed to do to help! There is literally nothing he can do but stand ramrod straight and hope she figures out a solution.
"Why Selene?" Levana says. "Why do you want to take everything from me?"
Finally, Levana does begin to monologue. It's long, self righteous and self pitying. And then they're screaming at each other. It's all this stuff about dead queens and dead mothers and torture and misplaced love. He's honestly lost.
But, he's also the least of the two women's worries. From his sleeve, he inches the dagger that he nicked from a guard earlier. He begins to wiggle it this way and that.
Then Levana and Cinder quiet.
He looks up in interest.
"Love," the queen whispers in a broken voice, "Love is a conquest. Love is a war. That is all it is. Let us see how much your love is worth."
His body takes a jolting step back toward the abyss.
He's reminded of the footage of Cinder's body hurtling down from this very point. Again he's hauling her from the icy water. Again her heartbeat slows to a murmur of life. Again he crushes her to his chest.
The memory plays like a damaged hollow recording. Skipping, juddering, broken—repeating. The memory plays again and again.
Cinder, in the water.
Ice to the touch and slipping away out of his grasp.
Nightmares are made of exactly that memory.
And then he's remembering stroking fingers through her hair.
It's coarse and tangled as he runs his nails through. Her cheek is silky smooth. Her breath is warm on his palm.
And Iko is there in the memory too.
Her fingers thread through his and squeeze.
And squeeze. And squeeze in reassurance. Everything will be okay, her cool palm in his says. And he'd believed her then.
He wants to believe it now.
If only this were a fairytale.
He doesn't expect a happy ending.
Cinder pales. She shouts something, lunging forward towards him. Thorne doesn't catch her panicked words.
His foot takes the last step back of its own accord. His stomach drops to his toes. The feeling of vertigo sweeps up from his ankles to his throat.
And then he's falling.
He scrabbles for purchase of the balcony's edge, fully in control of his body and self again.
Her bloody hands catch him and his fall jolts to a stop! Her nails bite into his soft flesh but she has him.
Pain—blazing pain where she grips his wrist in her titanium fist. Skin bruises under the metal. But she's hauling him up, one inch at a time. He squeezes her arms for dear life, hanging on for all he's worth.
"Thanks!"
Then his free fist cracks into her jaw.
He swears and shouts an apology.
She doesn't let go. She keeps firm hold of his arm. Adrenaline pumps in great sweeping roaring pulses through his veins as she tugs his body up to safety.
They land somewhere to the left of the throne.
The ground is firm under their gasping bodies. Their tangled limbs.
Her pulse races alongside his.
She grabs hold of him and squeezes, squeezes, squeezes. He can't breathe. His heart is thundering in his chest. Life tastes so sweet on his tongue. It tastes sweeter than anything he's ever tasted before.
The world slows.
His hands move without permission and he's stabbing the knife from the mansion into her thigh.
She screams. The sound pierces through his chest. Blood spurts.
Cinder tackles him and they crash to the floor as the knife clicks away. She's squeezing him as tightly as she can. It's as much to stop him from jumping as it is to prevent him harming her further.
His trembling arms hug her back. But it isn't a hug. His forearms wrap around her body with a crushing force and he begins to lift her.
He lifts her to toss her from the ledge.
Thorne screams in frustration! No sound makes it past his lips.
Hell on earth is brutalizing your loved ones with no way to stop it.
To punch and stab and kick out bodily. To bruise skin you want to stroke. To strike lips you want to kiss. To watch your own hands reach out in violence for the first woman you've ever really loved.
He's known for weeks now. He's even admitted it to Iko. The truth still sends his gut lurching.
Love.
It's a weird little word with suffocating consequences.
It's an exclusive word.
It promises fidelity and monogamy and an end. (When used in the context of a man's feelings for a woman. Nothing about his affection for Cinder is familial.)
But he can't take it back.
Doesn't want to.
He's forced to look out and watch his body as a puppet might if it was aware of its master yet unable to break the strings.
Her pained grimaces and yelps bring him physical pain.
It's agony when his fist makes contact with her gut.
She jabs him in the side.
He scrambles back, back, away from her.
But his hands find the gun.
They aim with steady accuracy at Cinder's skull.
No.
No.
No.
Please no.
Blinding pain and he screams. The gun drops in slow motion from his wrecked fingers. The agony is bright and loud.
"I'm sorry!" Cress yells. She's on the floor from the kickback but her gun is still aimed high and directly at his heart.
She jumps to shaking legs and runs for the throne toward Levana.
He's yelling.
Cress is yelling.
Cinder is yelling.
And then the knife plunges into Cress's stomach. It's worse. It's terrible.
He thinks he's going to be sick.
He would throw up if it weren't for Levana's iron grip on his mind.
And Cinder is firing shots in quick succession at the queen. They all miss.
His knife in her side doesn't.
Hell on earth.
This is the worst day of Thorne's entire life.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" He's sobbing and he can't stop. He can't stop. Nothing can tear Levana's hold: not Cress sinking her teeth into his wrist, not the blazing pain in his mutilated hand.
The world descends into chaos as Scarlet and Wolf join the fray.
Levana and Cinder disappear behind the dais.
Thorne collapses to the ground as the queen's control snaps. He lays in a heap on the chilly stone floor. He stares up in a daze.
The ceiling is nice.
The whole world is awash with specks of black and blue. His vision swims in and out of focus with the pulsing of his blood bleeding out.
And the ceiling is nice.
Cinder screams. He knows her voice the instant it pierces his eardrums. And she screams again. Then, the gun goes off.
The sound in the world flicks off like a light switch. All he can hear is the reverberating echo of the gunshot.
It goes around and around in his brain.
Dead? No.
Dead? She can't be.
She isn't.
The anguished wailing belongs to Cinder and Cinder alone.
.
.
.
He sits in the infirmary waiting room.
Kai does too.
They stare at opposite walls.
They don't exchange words.
His hands shake. They tremble. He knots his fingers into a fist and presses them into his thigh to stop the tremors. If Iko was here, she would say something silly—something comforting—and maybe he wouldn't be so terrified.
His bandaged hand throbs.
They've given him medication for the pain but not nearly as much as he wants. He's too clear-headed for comfort.
Cress is moved straight from surgery to a suspension tank.
Iko joins them soon after. The worst damage to her body cannot be fixed with the supplies available on Luna. She's covered in bandages. She manages, somehow, to look heroic all wrapped up as she is.
She really is a hero.
Thorne feels the farthest from greatness that he ever has. He can still feel Cress's blood coating his hands. He can still taste the splatters on his tongue.
Iko sits in silence too. She settles down beside him, their knees together, and takes his hand. She squeezes. Squeezes. Squeezes.
Like Cinder did only a few hours ago.
She tucks her chin into the curve of his shoulder and bounces her knee.
And they wait.
A/N:
this update fulfills your daily angst quota. please consult with your personal healthcare provider about whether continuing on to the next chapter is right for you!