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To Winter’s left, she could make out the edges of her stepmother’s fingernails as they dug into the arm of her throne, an imposing seat carved from white stone. Normally, her stepmother was calm during these proceedings, and would listen patiently to the trials without a hint of emotion. Winter was used to seeing Levana’s fingertips leisurely stroking the polished arm of her throne, not throttling it. But tension had been high in the palace since Levana and her entourage had returned from Earth, and her stepmother had flown into even more rages than usual these past months.
Ever since that runaway Lunar—that cyborg—had escaped from her Earthen prison.
Ever since war had begun between Earth and Luna.
Ever since the queen’s betrothed had been kidnapped, and Levana’s chance to be crowned empress had been stolen from her.
Winter tore her eyes away from the queen’s fingers. The blue planet hung above them in an endless black sky, looking like someone had taken a knife to it and shorn it perfectly in half. They were a week into the long night, and the city of Artemisia was aglow with pale blue lampposts and glowing crystal windows, the lights dancing across the lake’s surface and reflecting off the dome’s ceiling.
One week. Yet Winter felt that it had been years since she had last seen the sun.
“How did he know about the shells?” Queen Levana asked, her voice echoing off the smooth surfaces of the throne room. “Why did he not believe his son to have been killed at birth?”
Seated around the rest of the room, in four tiered rows, were the families. The queen’s court. The nobles of Luna, granted favor with Her Majesty for their generations of loyalty, their extraordinary talents with the Lunar gift, or pure luck at having been born a citizen of the great city of Artemisia.
Then, pitifully outnumbered, was the man on his knees beside Thaumaturge Park. He had not been born so lucky.
His hands were clasped together, pleading. Winter wished she could tell him that it wouldn’t matter. All his begging would be for nothing. She felt there would be comfort in knowing there was nothing you could do to avoid death. Those who came before the queen having already accepted their fate seemed to have an easier time of it.
Tearing her gaze from the man, she stared at her own hands, still clawed around her gauzy white skirt. Her fingers too, she saw, had been bitten with frost. It was sort of pretty. Glistening and shimmering and cold so very cold …
“Your queen has asked you a question,” said Aimery.
Winter flinched, as if he’d been yelling at her.
Focus. She must try to focus.
She lifted her head again and inhaled.
Aimery was wearing white now, having replaced Sybil Mira as the queen’s head thaumaturge. The gold embroidery on his coat shimmered as he paced around the captive.
“I am sorry, Your Majesty,” the man said, his voice restrained. Winter couldn’t tell if he was disguising hatred for his sovereign, or merely trying to keep from turning into a blubbering mess. “My family and I have served you loyally for generations. I am a janitor at that med-clinic, and I’d heard rumors, you see. It was none of my business, so I never cared, I never listened. But … when my son was born a shell…” He whimpered. “He is my son.”
“Did you not think,” said Levana, her voice loud and crisp, “that there might be a reason your queen has chosen to keep your son and all the other ungifted Lunars separate from our citizens? That we may have a purpose that serves the good of all our people by containing them as we have?”
The man gulped, hard enough that Winter could see his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I know, My Queen. I know that you use their blood for some … experimentation. In your laboratories. But … but you have so many, and he’s only a baby, and…”
“Not only is his blood valuable to the success of our war efforts and our political alliances, the likes of which I ca
The man’s eyes were wild with fear. “Threat, My Queen? He is a baby.” He paused. He did not look outright rebellious, but his lack of remorse would be sending Levana into a fury soon enough. “And the others that I saw in those tanks … so many of them, children. I
The room seemed to chill.
Clearly, he knew too much. The shell infanticide had been in place since the rule of Levana’s sister, Queen Cha
Winter blinked, imagining her own body as a blood platelet manufacturing plant.
Her gaze dropped again to her fingers, and she saw that the ice had extended nearly to her wrists now.
That would not be beneficial for the platelet conveyor belts.
“Does the accused have a family?” asked the queen.
Aimery bobbed his head. “Records indicate a daughter, age nine. We have not been able to locate her, but a search is underway. He has also two sisters, two nephews, and one niece. All live in Sector GM-12.”
“No wife?”
“Dead five months past, of regolith poisoning.”
The prisoner watched the queen, desperation pooling in his eyes.
The court began to stir, their vibrant clothes shifting and fluttering. This trial had gone on too long. They were growing bored.
Levana leaned against the back of her throne. “You are hereby found guilty of trespassing and attempted theft against the crown. This crime is punishable by immediate death.”
The man shuddered, but his face remained pleading, hopeful. It always seemed to take them a few seconds to comprehend such a sentence.
“Your family members will each receive a dozen public lashings, to remind everyone in your sector that they ca
The man’s head started to droop, his jaw going slack.
“Your daughter, when she is found, will be given as a gift to one of the court’s families. There, she will be taught the obedience and humility that one can assume she has not learned beneath your tutelage.”
“No, please. Let her live with her aunts. She hasn’t done anything!”
“Aimery, you may proceed.”
“Please!”
“Your Queen has spoken,” said Thaumaturge Aimery. Though he didn’t raise his voice, it rumbled through the throne room into the ears of the lower-ranking thaumaturges, the guards, the court, the waiting servants, and the queen—the only judge and jury. His voice was suffocating. “Her word is final.”
Aimery drew a knife from one of his bell-shaped sleeves and held the handle out to the prisoner, whose eyes had gone wide with hysteria.
The room grew colder. Winter noticed that her breaths were turning to fogged ice crystals. She shivered and squeezed her arms tight against her body.
The prisoner took the knife handle. His hand was steady. The rest of him was trembling.
“Please. My little girl—I’m all she has. Please. My Queen. Your Majesty!”
He raised the blade to his throat.
This was when Winter looked away. When she always looked away. She watched her own fingers burrow into her dress, her fingernails scraping at the fabric until she could feel the sting on her thighs. She watched the ice climb over her wrists, toward her elbows. Where the ice touched, her flesh went numb.