Rosetta

19

TRIGGER WARNING: SOME PEOPLE MAY NOT WANT TO VIEW THIS CHAPTER. IT CONTAINS SADDENING TEXT THAT COULD DISTRESS SOME PEOPLE. READ AT OWN RISK.

(It is not unsuitable, just upsetting.)

Cinder felt as if she had woken up from a beating. Her head ached with pain she didn't remember causing and there was a constant sting in her back. She couldn't see anything but black space, and could feel that something was covering her head. She seemed to be tied to a chair, and her hands were stuck behind her back. She tried to open her stiletto knife but it didn't open.

Instead, she tried to access her comm link in her retina display, but it didn't appear. With a second glance, she realised that her internal clock wasn't working either. It seemed that all of her cyborg features were inactive. Who had opened her control panel? Who knew how to disable her cyborg prostheses?

She remembered sitting in front of the temple, wishing that the plague hadn't captured her little sister. The thought made her duck her head and squeeze her eyes shut.

Had she been taken? Surely not. This was a nightmare, she told herself. That she would wake up and Kai would be giving her his best smile. That she would see his dazzling bright eyes, and he would tease her for staring.

The bag was drawn off of her head. She immediately opened her eyes and looked at her captor. Cinder froze and stifled a scream.

The woman in front her her seemed to be in her mid twenties, with blonde hair drawn into a neat bun, similar to what Iko had done only a few days ago. But what had scared her was not her grin, that seemed to be kind and gentle, not that she seemed to be completely harmless, but what she was wearing.

The woman was wearing a long white robe.

The robe of a first tier thaumaturge.

But that was impossible. Thaumaturges served the queen, and she was the last Lunar queen. She had demolished the system along with the monarchy. Unless...

Unless these weren't hers. Unless these had belonged to someone else.

"Hello, Empress," she said in a sweet, child like voice.

Cinder refused to speak. She yanked at her binds but they wouldn't loosen.

"What do you want?" She screamed.

She just stood in front of her, swaying on her heels.

Cinder switched tactics. She reached out with her gift, and felt not one, but two Lunars. And further away, an Earthen.

But the Lunar before her was already being controlled. She could have been using a glamour, this could all have been a stupid joke, but she would never know. She relied on her retina display to show what really lied behind someone's glamour. Her internal lie detector wasn't working either.

Suddenly, the woman's form began to waver. A crease between her eyebrows. A muscle twitching in her jaw. She collapsed onto the floor.

But she wasn't unconscious. Slowly, she stood up. But this wasn't the woman that was here before.

This new person had fair skin and thick dark hair. She looked perfect. Cinder wanted to obey her. Please her. Make her happy. Die for her, if needs be.

She knew the effects of a glamour all too well.

Cinder screamed again, "Drop your glamour!"

The woman froze. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and crumpled to the ground. This time, she was unconscious.

Cinder peered down and stared at her. What the woman really looked like. She did have dark hair, but the straightness was replaced with thick waves and her skin was several shades darker. She was not wearing the robes of a thaumaturge. She was instead wearing a red blouse and trousers that seemed to have been worn for much to long.