The ballroom was full, like it always was. Chaos reigned, and yet, Kai dashed through the room, his eyes seeking the one person he shouldn't have been.
Her silver gown billowed behind her, the ends riding upward to reveal a flash of silver. Her eyes were wild with panic as she fled, each foot tripping over the other as she floated down the stairs like nothing more than a phantom, a product of Kai's imagination.
He gripped the railing. He knew what was going to happen next, everyone did. Cinder's gown ballooned, covering most of her as she fell...
But then she was not on the garden floor. Instead, she was in front of him.
Her smile was sharp and anything but sweet. Her brown eyes narrowed. She was no longer a hapless girl, but a woman, composed and clean.
I loved you, Cinder told him-but was it Cinder?Cared for you. Sacrificed for you. And what did you do in return?
He swallowed.
Abandoned me, she me. Forsook me. Forgot me by the mere temptation of a queen.
She began to glow, her hair lifting from the you only began to care for me again once I began to help you. Selfish emperor that you are.
Kai opened his mouth to defend himself, but no words escaped. For shewasright, wasn't she? His throat dried.
selfish
useless
incompetent
His insecurities built into an insurmountable wall around him, leaving him and this vision of Cinder trapped inside.
Cinder grew in , I found another.
Kai couldn't fathom what she meant until he remembered.
carswell thorne
Cinder smiled 's right. I found one who appreciated me for who I am really and who assisted me more than you ever will. Now you will suffer. Now you will pay the price for what you made me.
She wrapped her arms around the other man's neck.
Kai gasped, awakening as though he had been doused with a bucketful of cold water. It took him a second to collect his thoughts and details of the dream slipped through the cracks in his memory.
Cinder. Carswell Thorne. Fugitives.
He hadn't given the fact that they were alone together much thought before. What were they doing...?
He hadn't given it thought before, but what if, just maybe, there were feelings there too?
You're being ridiculous.
Setting aside that disturbing thought (he didn't even want to admit that itwasdisturbing,) he focused on the other things Cinder had said.
He paused.
Hehadbetrayed her, hadn't he?
And what had he said?
You're even more painful to look at than she is.
The words felt like a knife to the gut now that he thought of them.
He put himself in her place. A cyborg, a Lunar, who had gone to the ball to save someone she barely knew. Someone who would have shunned her if he knew what she was.
His self-disgust increased.
A sixteen-year-old girl, fresh with pain from losing her sister.
A mechanic with nowhere to go.
Was that what Cinder really was?
He pushed the thought away.
A cyborg and a prince. A fugitive and an emperor.
It was unthinkable. It was scandalous.
And he still wanted it.
It didn't matter, did it? No matter how much he wanted it, wantedher, he was still a slave to Levana's whim. He was still powerless, still being forced to wed her.
His life for a million others.
It was a small price to pay.
What did it matter? The idea of Cinder remained just how it had always been, equivalent to the nightmare that had plagued him and the hope of Princess Selene-nothing more than an idealistic dream.
"It's just a dream," he told the tears that had gathered at the corners of his eyes. "Just a stupid dream."
A dream that took and took but never gave.
A worthless dream.
An impossible dream.
a dream.