As Our Story Ends (A Lunar Chronicles Fanfiction)

Chapter Ten: Cinder

Cinder put another piece into Iko’s chip. Now that she was in the palace, She could afford to get Iko a nice body, and had chosen the best model she could find. She had been working on Iko for weeks, but still hadn’t come up with much progress. Iko’s chip was only about a quarter of the way finished, and that’s if she was doing it right.

She put, what was done of the chip, down and stared at it. What if it’s all wrong? What if I damage her beyond repair? She wondered this because she had never had to fix such a small chip before. She could be changing Iko’s personality as she was working.

When she heard a knock on the door she checked the time. She hadn’t realized how long she had been working. It was actually over an hour since Kai had promised to meet her, but she had assumed the meeting would go over time. She opened the door and was surprised to see not Kai, but Winter, standing in front of her.

She stared at Winter for a moment before realizing that she was staring and spoke. “Hey, Winter. Sorry, I thought you were Kai. Do you know where he went after the meeting? He was supposed to be here over an hour ago.”

“When we left the meeting, he said that he wanted to be alone so I just left. I don’t know what he did after that,” she replied.

“So what did you come here for?” Cinder asked when she saw Winter starting to stare at the walls.

“Oh! Winter, I didn’t mean it like that,” Cinder tried to reprimand herself.

“No,” Winter spoke with the voice of a diplomat, “no, I understand.”

“You see, Kai and I made plans to meet and I don’t know why he hasn’t shown up yet. How long has the meeting been over for?”

“About an hour,” Winter said.

Wow Cinder thought An hour? Could Kai have forgotten? Cinder continued gently, “Was there anything important in the meeting? What does Torin think?”

“Torin wasn’t there. Was he supposed to be there?” Winter asked.

“No,” Cinder said, “I just thought Kai would ask him about it.”

“Do you want to go find him?” Winter asked.

“Torin?”

“No, silly,” Winter giggled, “Kai! You clearly can’t stop thinking about him!”

“Is it that obvious?”, Cinder asked.

Winter shrugged, “Could be! Or maybe just for me? I’ve been told I’m different!”

Cinder smiled. The two of them headed outside to find Kai. But were surprised to see what was just in front of them. The heavily guarded, extremely crisp palace was splattered with blood. And the blood made a message.

I am free.

_________________________________________

Cinder burst into the prison followed quickly by Winter. She ran straight to where Levana’s cell was, and quickly ran into someone from another hallway. She looked up to see Wolf. Behind him were Cress, looking scared as ever; Thorne, holding Cress’s shoulder; Scarlet, defiant as she always was; and Jacin, rolling his eyes and seeming very impatient.

“How do you know?” Wolf asked.

Before responding, Cinder opened the door and looked behind her. She confirmed their suspicions, “Levana has escaped.”