I smell them approaching. A dozen packs, maybe more, along with their masters. Well soon be surrounded.

Cinder kept her expression composed. This is your last chance, she said, holding her aunts gaze across the courtyard. Proclaim before all these witnesses that I am Selene Blackburn, the rightful heir to the Lunar throne. Give me your crown, and I will let you and your followers live. No more lives have to be lost.

Levanas lips curved, bloodred against her pale skin. Selene is dead. I am the queen of Luna, and you are nothing but an impostor.

Cinder waited one full breath before she returned the smile. I thought youd say that.

Then she let her arm fall.

Eighty-Two

Cinders army surged forward, the civilians pooling through the open gates while the soldiers ran for the fence, scaling to the top and hurling themselves into the gardens on the other side.

The queen did not flinch. Her thaumaturges did not stir.

They had reached the base of the marble steps when Levana raised her hand. Her thaumaturges closed their eyes.

It was a moment of contrasts.

The mutant soldiers, their first line of attack, fell as one. Their enormous bodies crumpled to the ground like forgotten toys, and a hundred men howled from what pain Cinder could only imagine. She had heard such inhuman noises only once, when she herself had tortured Thaumaturge Sybil Miradriving her to insanity.

The civilians whose minds were protected by Cinder and those who were strongest with their gift pushed forward, heaving themselves over the wolf soldiers as well as they could. But the others began to stumble and halt as the queen claimed them. Many collapsed, their weapons thudding to the ground. Those under Cinders control swarmed around them and over them, tripping over fallen bodies, charging forward with weapons raised.

The thaumaturges, Cinder thought, mentally coaxing them toward the distinctive red and black coats. Every dead thaumaturge would equal a dozen soldiers or citizens returned to their side.

But the rush of civilians was met with resistance as the queens palace guards formed a wall, dividing the queen and her entourage from the attackers who barreled toward them.

They crashed into one another like a river into a dam. Steel rang. Wooden spears thumped and splintered. Cries of war and pain reverberated down the streets.

Cinder shuddered and moved to step forward, to join the melee and cut her own path through to the queenbut her body wouldnt move. Her limbs seemed stuck in mud.

Her pulse skipped.

No.

She had not expectedhad not thought

Clenching her teeth, she tried to shake off the manipulation that was being pressed into her thoughts. She imagined the sparks of electricity lighting up inside her brain, the twist of energy as Levana turned her own mind against her. She had always shaken it off before. She had always managed to escape, to be stronger. Her cyborg brain could override the effects of

A shiver raced down her brain.

Her cyborg brain was broken.

No. No. How could she defend the minds of others when she couldnt protect her own thoughts from the queen?

She gritted her teeth. If she could free one limb, prove to her body that it could be done

She groaned and fell to one knee. Her body pulsed with unspent energy and she felt the sudden snap. Her tenuous control over the citizens dissolved. The surrounding howls of pain burrowed into Cinders ears.

Within seconds, those allies were taken from her too.

The battle ended before it had truly begun.

Cinder sat panting from the exertion of trying to rid herself of Levanas mind control, and even still her limbs felt heavy and uncoordinated. The screams of her soldiers dwindled into whimpers and groans of the dying. Even from that brief collision, the iron smell of blood tainted the air.

Levana started to laugh. Delighted and shrill, the sound was as painful to listen to as the screams of a hundred warriors.

What is this? said the queen, clapping her hands together. Why, I had been looking forward to a battle of skill, young princess. But it seems you will not put up the fight Id been expecting. She laughed again. Raising a hand, she stroked her fingernails through Wolfs hair, a gesture that was both endearing and possessive.

There is an easy treat for you, my pet. Already caught in a snare.

He growled, his enlarged teeth flashing as he prowled down the steps. The guards parted for him and he stepped over the collapsed citizens as if he didnt even see them.

Cinder shivered. She had lost count of how many times shed faced those vibrant green eyes, both as an enemy and as a friend. But never before had she been helpless.

She tried to shake her head. To plead with Wolf, or whatever piece of Wolf was left inside the creature.

Hey, your queenliness! Over here!

Cinders eyes widened. Iko.

A gunshot ricocheted through the crowd. Levana stumbled. Cinder saw the blood spray on the massive golden doors and there was a momentthe tiniest of momentsin which she was overjoyed. Shed been shotthe queen was shot!

But it was Wolf who roared. Levana had ducked behind him. The bullet had hit near his hip and already his fine uniform was darkening with blood.

Iko cried out, horrified.

Levana snarled and her anger tightened around Cinder and the crowd like a noose. Her control was strangling. Suffocating.

Wolf charged, not toward Cinder, but Iko. She could see it in his eyes, the animal instinct. Attacking his attacker.