Moonflower- A Lunar Chronicles Fanfiction

Chapter 21

The world slowed to a painful crawl before Cynthia's eyes. She watched the bullet leave the gun in Leo's hand, and then she watched as the threatening thaumaturge's glamour flickered. She crumbled to her knees and screamed as she watched the bullet sink into her mother's skin. The earth was spinning. She felt her friends running toward her, but a dark shadow reached her first. Leo ran to her and fired another shot, and the shadow paused. She glanced at the empress crumpled on the floor, then at Cynthia's desperate face.
No. she thought to her friends, knowing they couldn't hear her. Go. Run.
The shadow reached out to her. Cynthia felt the slimy fingers trying to grab hold of her will. She struggled trying to push it away. The shadowy woman's face twisted.
With a flick of her hand Leo went rigid. With her other hand the real thaumaturge made Cinder get up, her arm stained red. She didn't resist as she took out a syringe and stuck it in Leo's neck. He fell, just as her father had said the empress had. Cynthia's heart sank deep in her chest. She faintly heard the sounds of the brawl, but her heart beat was roaring in her ears. Something was roaring through her veins like tiny spiders in her bloodstream.
A light as bright as looking straight into the sun flashed through the room, and it was as if Cynthia's senses were sparked by its power. Seconds after the blast Cynthia was running through the room. The shadow, who Cynthia was now conscious enough to acknowledge as Thaumaturge Nyx, was hunched over on the floor hissing. Solstice and the professor were also on the floor in the same position of the thaumaturge.
The empress stared blankly at the wall of books. Cynthia rushed to her and knelt. Her arm was still gushing blood, but Cynthia's mother did not seem to notice. She didn't even acknowledge the princess. Cynthia tried to shake her to consciousness. She tried to scream her name. Nothing worked.
The elevator dinged once again. Fitz, the only other truly conscious person in the room looked up from where he sat trying to comfort Solstice. Cynthia and Fitz shared a look, then turned to the elevator waiting to see if the occupants were friend or foe.
The doors slid open to reveal four seething wolf soldiers. Nyx could barely acknowledge them in her state.
"Grab... the girl... and the empress... and get us out of here!" She groaned. The soldiers snapped to attention and then dispersed through the room. One picked up the thaumaturge with gentle care while another dragged the empress by her good arm toward the elevator. The other two growled at Cynthia and bared their knife-like teeth.
The wolves were at her sides squeezing her arms before she could even cry out. Her heart beat roared in her ears again. Her eyes glazed over before another flash lit up the room.
The wolves howled loudly and dropped the princess. She heard the screams of the thaumaturge and then the shrill orders, "Fine, leave... the girl... and take... the captain's son.  Just...don't... let... her... do... that... again!"
The soldiers snapped back to attention even though their faces looked pained from the blast. Their enhanced speed let them scoop up the still unconscious Leo and race into the elevator with the rest of their crew. Cynthia tried to race after them, but the doors closed just as she reached them.
Cynthia pounded on the doors, begging them to open, but she knew they wouldn't. She had found her mother, and then lost her and one of her best friends. She was a horrible daughter, friend, and princess.
A sturdy hand pressed against her shoulder. "They're gone Thia," Fitz said. "Right now we have to figure out what just happened." He gave a nod toward the professor and Solstice stilled curled in pain on the ground. In the chaos Cynthia hadn't even really noticed them. Now it didn't make sense. What was that light?
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Cynthia and Fitz dragged Dianem and Solstice through the maze of books back into another room. The walls were still bookshelves filled with colorful spines, but this room had a bed and a couch and a few more candles than in the front room. Fitz laid Solstice out on the bed  and tucked the sheets up to her chin. She stopped moaning and fell asleep soon after. Cynthia tried to make the professor as comfortable as possible on the couch, but it wasn't long before he seemed to gain consciousness again.
Once they got him some water, and he stopped shaking he immediately started questioning.
"Princess Cynthia, how long have you been aware of your supernatural powers?"
"My... what?" She replied.
"That flash of light that you released when Thaumaturge Nyx took hold of Mr. Thorne, I am certain it came from you."
She had feared that's what he would say. "What is it Mr. Dianem? Why did it cause you and the thaumaturge and Solstice and the wolves so much pain?"
The professor sat thinking for a very long time, and Cynthia began to wonder if he had actually heard her when he shot up from his seat.He paced the space looking at the book spines sometimes pulling out one only to place it back on the shelf.
Just before he disappeared around a corner of shelves he called to Cynthia, "I think I remember reading about this somewhere...perhaps Bioelectricity: An In-Depth Analysis or maybe A Lunar History of the Electricity of Life."
He tapped his finger against his chin as he walked through a hall of shelves. Cynthia followed him holding a candle so he could read the faded titles. It wasn't long before his eyes lit up and he pulled out a thick volume with pages covered in dust. He blew at the fuzzziness spreading it in the air before cracking open the book. Cynthia caught a glimpse of the title as he turned the cover: The Natural Science of the Lunar Unnatural.
"It's been a while since I've read this one," he conceded.
"Have you read every book in this basement?" She asked him, but he only grunted in reply, deep within the pages of the text.
"Ah ha!" He finally exclaimed. "I believe I know what you released Princess Cynthia. It says here that because Lunars are hyper aware of human's bioelectricity, a physical pulse of it could be stupefying. However, princess, the results of the study in this book showed they had no results in creating a physical pulse in their lab. My best guess would be their study was unsuccessful because their instruments were not stable enough to create a pulse. Although, I believe a human would be a considerably sturdy projector for a pulse."
Cynthia was following the professor's train of thought, but it made no sense. She never showed any signs of being able to hone bioelectricity like her mother. She must have acted out in fear and released something that had been pent up inside her for years.
"I've never done that before," she offered lamely, still turning over the thoughts in her head.
The professor nodded. "I figured this to be true as you didn't even seem to notice you
were doing it. I suggest you don't do it again in the presence of Lunar allies Princess Cynthia. I can assure you it is quite painful."
"I'm really sorry about that. I just wish I could have avoided hurting you and Solstice and saved my mom and Leo." It really hurt, knowing she had something inside her all this time and the one time she really needed it she couldn't use it to her advantage.
"It's in the past now Princess. Let me tell you how to get them back."

Hi Everyone!
I'm really sorry this chapter has taken so long, and that after all this time this chapter is not good. Maybe someday I'll come back and fix it, but for right now I just need to put this out here and move on. Thanks for sticking with this story, and I hope you like what's coming anyway. I'll try and work through my writer's block, but for some reason I'm more interested in reading right now. We'll see how this goes.

Love,
Theresa