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It was Iko who responded, “Thank you for noticing.”
Kai laughed, while Cinder, her thoughts fluttering in all different directions, ducked her head.
Cinder limped along, making a point not to look at her stepfamily. When she was close enough, Konn Torin bowed to her. Diplomatic respect, Cinder thought, remembering all the many glares she’d received from this man since she’d first seen him at the annual ball. But when he raised his head, he was smiling. In fact, he seemed downright friendly.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “On behalf of the people of the Eastern Commonwealth, I want to thank you for all you’ve done, and all you will do.”
“Oh, um. Yeah. Anytime.” With a difficult swallow, she dared to look at Adri.
Her stepmother’s face had a gauntness about it. Her number of gray hairs had tripled these past weeks.
There was a moment in which Cinder thought of a thousand things she could say to this woman, but none of them seemed important anymore.
Adri’s gaze dropped to the floor. She and Pearl both lowered into uncomfortable curtsies.
“Your Majesty,” said Adri, sounding like she was chewing on a bitter lemon. Beside her, Pearl also mumbled, almost unintelligibly, “Your Majesty.”
Iko snorted—a derisive sound that Cinder hadn’t even thought escorts were capable of making.
Staring at the tops of Pearl’s and Adri’s heads, she attempted to come up with a gracious response—something Kai would have said. Things a good queen would have done to ease the tension. To offer forgiveness.
Instead, she turned away.
Kinney fisted a hand against his chest and Cinder gave him what she hoped was a regal nod, before Kai led her through a pair of double doors. She had asked him to find a neutral place to host this meeting—not the throne room that had seen so much blood, or the queen’s solar, or wherever Levana would have conducted such a thing. She entered into a conference room with an enormous marble table and two holograph nodes, turned off.
The room was already full. She gulped, the uncanny silence nearly pus.h.i.+ng her back into the hallway. She recognized most of them, but her brain interface wasted no time in pulling up their profiles from the net database anyway.
President Vargas of the American Republic.
Prime Minister Kamin of the African Union.
Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom.
Governor-General Williams of Australia.
Prime Minister Bromstad of the European Federation.
Dr. Nandez—the acclaimed cybernetic surgeon, and Nainsi, the android that Cinder had fixed for Kai a long time ago. She had been brought to Luna to record this occasion for Earth’s official records.
Adri and Pearl were escorted around the table.
Which left only Iko, Kai, Konn Torin, and Cinder herself—or, Her Royal Majesty, Queen Selene Channary Jannali Blackburn of Luna. She wondered if it was all right for her to ask that everyone just call her Cinder.
Before she could speak, the world’s leaders rose to their feet and started to applaud. Cinder recoiled.
One by one, they went around the room, bowing and curtsying in turn.
Suddenly panicked, Cinder looked at Kai. He gave her a one-shouldered shrug, suggesting that, yeah, it’s weird, but you get used to it.
When the circle came around to him, he too pressed one hand to his chest and inclined his head, the best bow he could give while still supporting her with one arm.
“Th-thank you,” she stammered, wondering if she should curtsy, but she couldn’t perform a graceful curtsy on her best of days, and it would be disastrous with all her injuries. Instead she held her cyborg hand out to them. “Um, please, be seated?”
The clapping had faded, but no one sat.
Kai led Cinder to the head of the table and eased her into a seat. Only then did the others follow, Kai taking the seat to Cinder’s right. Adri and Pearl were sandwiched between Konn Torin and President Vargas. They looked supremely uncomfortable.
“Um. Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Cinder began. She tried folding her hands on top of the table, but that felt strange, so she instead curled them in her lap. “I’m sure you’re all eager to return home.”
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” said Queen Camilla, not looking at all sorry, “but might I take this moment to say congratulations on the reclamation of your throne.”
Another fit of clapping started at the queen’s words, and Cinder had the impression they weren’t so much congratulating her on becoming a queen as they were congratulating themselves on no longer having to deal with Levana.
“Thanks. Thank you. I hope you’ll understand that I … um. I hope you’ll be patient with me. This is all new for me and I’m not…”
I’m not really a queen.
She glanced around the table, at the eager, hopeful faces staring at her like she was some sort of hero. Like she had done something great. Her gaze swept around the table, feeling more nervous and inadequate with every person she crossed—older, wiser, experienced—until Kai.
As soon as he had her attention, he winked.
Her stomach flipped.
She turned away and squared her shoulders.
“I asked you here today because the relations.h.i.+p between Earth and Luna has been strained for a long time, and my first act as…” She hesitated and moved her hands to the top of the table again, lacing her fingers together. A few gazes dropped to her cyborg prosthetic, but all tried to pretend they hadn’t noticed. “As my first act as queen of Luna, I want to forge a peaceful alliance with the Earthen Union. Even if it’s only symbolic at first, I hope it will be the start of a fruitful and mutually beneficial … political … um…” She glanced at Kai.
