The Perfect Woman
Cinder was loved. By Kai. By Iko. By her friends—Thorne, Cress, Winter, Wolf, Scarlet, and yes, even begrudgingly by Jacin. And—more recently—by herself.
It didn’t matter if the rest of the world despised her, detested her for being cyborg or Lunar. So long as those she loved loved her back, she would ignore the world.
After all, the world still saw her as a freak of nature, an aberration, a tyrannical power-mongering ex-queen. She’d seen her share of the remarks on newsfeeds, the protest signs outside her charity events. It no longer affected her. The insults deflected off her so easily it was as though her entire body was the same metal as her hand and leg: impervious, impenetrable.
She could handle it.
Cinder was telling Kai this as they sat side by side on their couch, shoulders brushing, dinner plates perched on their laps. Miso, their rambunctious dog who never really grew out of her puppy phase, was resting by their feet, tired from her exhilarating day of chasing guards down hallways and bothering Torin at his desk. They did try to be civilised most nights and eat dinner at the table, but after particularly rough days of child-wrangling politicians—err, diplomatic relations—rotting on the couch with a trashy netdrama, greasy food and beer was the only acceptable option.
But then, to really drive a nail in the coffin, as soon as Kai switched on the netscreen the feed lit up to bunch of angry pedestrians being interviewed on the street, ranting about the “alien empress” who was “corrupting our perfect city with her underhanded policies” that were designed so she “can use her Lunar mind control to watch us everywhere—in our homes, at work, in our dreams!”
Cinder burst out laughing. Kai switched the feed to a different channel.
“Aww, how did they figure it out?” she joked.
When she received no reply, Cinder glanced at her husband, finding him simmering silently, his nostrils flared and his brows knit tightly together.
“Hey, love, seriously, it doesn’t bother me,” she assured.
Kai had that look he very occasionally revealed, a look she’d first seen him glare at her aunt, and now when dealing with truly corrupt politicians—the look that suggested he wanted to strangle someone.
She knew it wasn’t the asinine opinion of the conspiracy theorist that actually bothered him; no, it was the lewd comment the first speaker made, with its vulgar subtext.
“Kai.”
“They have no right to treat you that way,” he seethed. And it was probably true. But Kai was obviously overtired and hungry, as was Cinder.
Sighing, she settled her metal hand on his forearm to assuage him. “Let’s end today on a good note, okay? Besides, I don’t worry about them.” As she stroked his skin, she was pleased to see the goosebumps that erupted from her touch. “I have you to protect me.”
Barking out a laugh, Kai pressed a kiss to her temple. “My darling, if you think I’m the better defender between the two of us, we’re both going to end up dead.”
Their laughter occupied them for a while until hunger became the top priority and they tucked into dinner. Grabbing the remote, Cinder began flicking through different netfeeds, lingering for a while on a travel show before jumping to a cooking show, then watching five minutes of a netdrama, and then a reality drama.
“Stars, would you pick something?” Kai snarked through a mouthful of food, something he only did in closed quarters where Torin wasn’t around to send him a withering glare.
“Fine, Your Majesty,” she retorted, flicking to a random channel and tossing the remote onto the coffee table. It was another street interview, and for a moment she tensed, anticipating another volley of insults against herself. When the host asked the participants the question, “If you could have dinner with anyone in history, dead or alive, who would it be?” she relaxed and took a swig of her beer.
The programme wasn’t that interesting. Vaguely thought-provoking questions, a variety of answers from participants. She mostly tuned it out, focused on mopping up the garlic sauce dripping from her gyros. It was a rare occurrence, but sometimes she loved being royalty. Especially when it meant that they could make a last-minute request to the chefs for any food from any cuisine in the world and have it arrive at their door half an hour later.
Although, thinking about it, that wasn’t that different from just ordering food delivery.
“If you could marry any person in the world and they had to say yes, who would you pick?”
She snorted. Why would you want to marry someone who didn’t actually love you? Who was forced to marry you? The flaws in this proposal weren’t acknowledged by the participants, who quickly chimed in with celebrities, actors, high school crushes. And of course, Kai. Three women professed their endless love for him, to which the host joked that it sounded like they would all have to share him.
Beside her, Kai cringed. “No, no, and no.”
“What—not your type?” Cinder teased.
His nose wrinkled. “Don’t start.”
She reached over to tweak that nose. But, hearing her name, her hand halted in midair.
A man, not much younger than her, answered the host without hesitation. “Empress Selene. I would marry her in an instant. If Emperor Kai died—not that I want him to; long live the emperor”—laughter from the group—“but yeah. I would be on her doorstep with a ring in a second.”
Cinder’s mouth fell open.
“And why her?” prompted the host, adding, “Not that we question the choice of our lovely empress.”
The participant raised his eyebrows like it was a stupid question. “Uh, because she’s the most amazing person alive? Because she literally saved the entire world? Plus, she looks really hot in a pantsuit.”
This garnered another round of laughs from the host and the participants. Cinder stared dumbly at the screen, feeling her whole body shake. It wasn’t her; she was frozen. No, Kai’s rolling laughter was reverberating into her. Scrambling for the remote on the coffee table, she switched off the netscreen, enveloping them in darkness.
“What?” Kai complained.
“I—that was—it’s—” she stammered.
“You gotta admit, that was funny.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “And I agree with the part about the pantsuit.”
“It was—” She knocked her knees together. It was embarrassing. “It was stupid,” she landed on, “he was lying.”
Listing his head, Kai examined her, smiling. “He wasn’t lying.”
“Yes he was,” she insisted.
“Was your lie detector flashing?”
No. She bit her lip.
Rolling his eyes, Kai moved their plates onto the coffee table before wrapping his arms around her, swaying them back and forth. “It’s true: you are the most amazing person alive, and you saved the whole world. Do you believe it when I say it?”
“That’s different,” she mumbled as he set his chin on her shoulder. “You’re my husband. You’re maritally obligated to think that.”
“I didn’t think that about your aunt, and I was married to her.”
“Hey!”
There were two main rules in their marriage. One, don’t cheat on each other. And two, don’t bring up the fact that for a few days, you were legally uncle and niece.
Kai kissed her neck in apology. “You know, love,” he said, voice suddenly low, “I’m not the only person who thinks you’re the best thing to happen to this world. Other people, yes, even strangers, love you.”
His serious tone, the awkward mix of flattery and embarrassment churning in her gut, made her squirm. “They love the idea of me,” she disagreed. “They’re not actually in love with me. You’d have to be crazy for that.”
He jabbed her side. “Rude.”
She grinned despite it. “Don’t get upset; we can be crazy together. I mean, I had to lose my mind to fall in love with you.”
The jab quickly evolved into a tickle. When he wouldn’t let up, Cinder resorted to a long kiss, thoroughly distracting him. The perfect opportunity to counterattack. Kai shrieked as she tickled his stomach, jumping away to try to evade her. He fled the couch, running into the kitchen with Cinder hot on his tail, the two chasing each other with shouting and laughter so intense they had to take breaks to recover their breath. Miso had woken up from her nap and was delighted by this development, joining the chase with yips.
It was when they were back to hunting each other down that Iko walked in, announced: “Guess who’s back from Luna?” assessed the two adults screaming, the half-eaten meals on the table, the beer bottles—
“Stars, how much have you two had to drink?!”
———
“Okay, so where are we meeting?” Cinder muttered, not really paying attention.
Her secretary, short and impeccably dressed—a precision that did not extend to her temperament—stood before her desk in the empress’s office, reading from her portscreen. Seeing that Cinder was idly flipping a stylus across her knuckles, Khine flicked her fingers at her. “Selene.”
Snapping back to attention, Cinder dropped the stylus. “Yes, sorry?”
Khine deadpanned. “Selene.”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“No, that’s the name of the street. The restaurant is on Selene Promenade.”
Her brow furrowed. Selene Promenade? She hadn’t heard of it before, though she supposed she hadn’t thoroughly explored the north side of the city. At least she would remember a name like that. “Okay, at 6, right?”
“5:30.”
Cinder buried a laugh as she watched the visible frustration rolling off Khine. She was the personification of put-together. Her blonde hair was always neatly slicked back, and she never went more than a day with her dark roots growing in before they were bleached to perfection. She was fastidious in her work; her reports were delivered early, her scheduling exact. She was the perfect secretary, maybe except for how badly she failed to conceal her annoyance. But that was exactly the reason Cinder had selected her. She wanted a personal assistant who treated her like a person, not royalty. Who would do her job well but also complain about something ‘someone or other had done in the break room, ugh.’ One day, she’d be telling Cinder she was “absolutely not allowed to get pregnant this year. Do you know how many things I’ve scheduled for you?” Then the next day, she would be ripping into paparazzi for shouting invasive questions at her.
And she reminded Cinder of Iko, who would always snap her back to reality if she got too caught up in herself and her own problems.
“Okay, I’ll put in on my retina,” Cinder promised. At Khine’s sceptical look, she laughed. “I will!”
“Good. Do you need me to organise a hover?”
As she glanced out the floor-to-ceiling window to the bustling city, she saw the sun drawing closer to the horizon with the afternoon. “Is it far?”
Khine checked her port. “Eight minutes by hover.”
“I’ll walk,” she decided. “Some fresh air would be nice. I’ve been stuck here all day,” she emphasised with a pointed look.
“You asked me to make your schedule, honey,” said Khine, tutting. “Okay—you’re walking.” Her fingers tapped something onto the screen. “Do you want bodyguards?”
Cinder shrugged. “Nah.”
“Easy. Well, if someone attacks you, stab them,” she said with no change in her tone, as though this was as inconsequential as what shoes she would be wearing. “And Your Majesty? Remember, this is a nice event.” Her eyes darted to Cinder’s chest—Cinder looked down to see a sauce stain from lunch on her blouse. “So try to look nice, please? I know it’s hard, but try.”
Smiling sardonically, Cinder replied, voice syrupy and mocking, “I’ll try my best. Now go away.”
As Khine flounced away, Cinder got up from her desk, stretched out her stiff limbs, then journeyed to her quarters to get ready. Once inside her and Kai’s enormous walk-in wardrobe, she ripped off the offending blouse, tossing it on the floor and swearing to herself that she would pick it up later (translation: Kai would pick it up later). After some deliberation, she decided on a light blue top with flowy sleeves that would protect her arms if the night air got cold, paired with simple black pants. Khine would probably insist she wear heels—she had been listening to Iko too much—but if Cinder was going to be walking for half an hour, nothing less than tennis shoes would be acceptable. Still, she went to the effort of some light makeup, fluffing up her bangs, and putting in simple gemstone earrings—the same silver as her necklace, the pendant bearing a swirling Kai.
Deeming herself satisfactory, she set up a commlink with Kai. It circled and circled fruitlessly. She tried Torin.
“Yes, Your Majesty?” he answered after a few rings.
“Where’s Kai? His meeting should be done by now.”
A barely concealed sigh. “Her Majesty Queen Camilla is being…somewhat demanding.” Code for insufferable. “He’s still inside.”
Her wry “Oh,” told him she heard his implication loud and clear. “Send him my condolences and please tell him I’m heading out to dinner.”
“Certainly, Your Majesty.”
She headed down the elevator, out the palace gardens and through the main gates, bidding goodbye to the guards as she went. The crisp air tickled her cheeks as she began her trek down the grand mountain the palace sat atop. With her hands tucked into her pockets, she looked out at the scenery. New Beijing was set amongst gorgeous, picturesque mountains. From afar, it would look as though no one lived here at all. But past the towering mountains, settled in the heart of the range, was the city.
It was always alive, always vibrant, but it was particularly stunning at this time. Dusk settling over the skyscrapers, hovers and ships zipping in and out, weaving between buildings and contributing to the perpetual hum that never seemed to die out. After three years as empress, she felt that this city was her home now more than ever—even more than those years working at the market. She had purpose now. Belonging.
When she reached the city level, she braced for the hard part. Most people today had the bioelectrical lock installed, meaning that any concealment her glamour could offer was nullified. Still, she donned one anyway, as some sceptics refused to install the lock and would be fooled by her glamour of a middle-aged woman. For those who saw through it, she slipped on sunglasses. It made no sense to wear them now with the sun setting, and she didn’t even need them anyway—her artificial eyes filtered out any harmful radiation. But they would obscure her face well enough.
It worked, mostly. People didn’t seem to recognise her, less because her disguise was exceptional and more likely because they were too focused on their own journeys to pay attention to anyone else. Of course, there were some double-takes, some whispers to friends. None of them approached her, though, so Cinder concentrated on the conditions in the streets surrounding her.
While she’d lived and worked in these streets, the litter and overcrowding had been obvious. Since becoming empress, she had taken particular pains to address these problems, even derailing some government legislation plans to prioritise them. Looking around now, she could see the positive effect, but also the areas that needed further intervention. She took mental notes on her retina to review another day.
Distracted by these ruminations, it took passing a few streets to realise that she wasn’t sure where she was headed. Selene Promenade, Khine had said to her. Swivelling around, she squinted at the illuminated street signs.
She knew this area. There had never been a Selene Promenade.
“Excuse me,” she said to an elderly lady passing by, “would you know where Selene Promenade is?”
“Two streets over, darling,” said the woman in a raspy but cheerful voice. She blinked several times; Cinder thought maybe she was recognising her empress, but the woman trotted off quickly and almost tripped on a gutter. Just partially blind, then.
As directed, she crossed two streets and found the glowing sign, Selene Promenade. Whipping her head around, she identified the library on the corner, the coffee shop with the cat poster in the window, and the neon green awning over the hairdresser’s that the locals always joked was the colour of snot. She knew this street.
This wasn’t Selene Promenade. This was Guanting Promenade! She’d walked this street hundreds of times for the parts supplier at the other end, where she’d often picked up android parts.
Confused, she willed her feet to drag her along until she reached the restaurant sign. It was surprisingly hidden amidst the larger restaurants. A narrow door leading to a staircase, and at the top a gorgeous bar, with plants hanging from the ceiling and soft purple lighting filling the restaurant.
Khine was already there, of course, adjusting the napkins and chopsticks on the table. Cinder joined her.
“Oh, you made it. Here, put out these cups,” Khine ordered.
Chuckling, Cinder obliged, asking, “Isn’t this the server’s job?”
“Yes, but clearly they didn’t do their job properly.”
The others hadn’t arrived yet, so once all the arranging was to Khine’s perfect standards, Cinder asked what was niggling at her thoughts. “This was called Guanting Promenade, right? Not Selene?”
“Yeah—they changed it six months ago. Guanting was some old, boring guy from the second era. Not important.”
“He was a part of the first mission to colonise Luna,” she corrected.
“Exactly, not important. Plus, it came out that he’d been into some shady tax evasion stuff on the side, so—you know—no longer an icon or whatever. So the city all voted on a new name.”
Cinder cracked up. “And they chose Selene? It’s not even a Chinese name.”
Khine stared at her like she was stupid. “They named the street after you.”
Oh.
What?
“Why?” she spat out.
“Because you’re the empress and they like you?” Khine said, like it were obvious, adjusting her napkin again. “Unless you forgot about that—you do know you’re the empress, right?”
Again, discomfort rose within her chest. The sense of feeling complimented, yet being accompanied by the certainty that it couldn’t be entirely sincere. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“I did. In a meeting, remember? We were talking about the new water filtration policy?”
Right. That meeting. Not that Cinder remembered anything that happened in that meeting. All she remembered was that Kai had gotten a haircut right before, and it was the first time she’d seen the new look. His former shaggy locks—so adorable, but admittedly boyish—had been shorn into something shorter, more refined and distinguished. Not only did it better reflect his maturity, but it also put his jawline on full display. She remembered this meeting purely because she recalled how hard it was to keep it together when all she wanted to do was kiss him senseless.
Cinder also recalled how Kai had kept smirking at her, knowing full well where her thoughts were.
“Must’ve slipped my mind,” she eventually answered.
Just before her expression could draw suspicion from Khine, Cinder was saved by the arrival of the other guests. Over the past two years, she and Kai had begun the tremendous undertaking of legislative and social reform in the Eastern Commonwealth. While many of the already established advisers had invaluable advice, they were all holding onto their positions from Rikan’s reign, some even from Kai’s grandfather’s reign. Some younger, fresher perspectives were a much-needed change, and working with peers put far less pressure on them as the expectation of mimicking the previous emperor and empress was removed.
Not only were they all a great team, they were also just good friends. As the group filed in—military representatives, university professors, scientists, political advisers—Cinder noticed her husband wasn’t among them. She quickly jotted off another comm.
Cinder
You out yet?
Kai
onm y way
Khine hovered by the table, ushering everyone to the seats she had assigned for them. One seemed particularly startled as she basically manhandled him into the seat across from Cinder almost frantically; when he hesitated, she squawked, “Sit! Sit! Jensen! Put your butt on that chair!”
Catching his eye, Cinder sent him a look, to which he chuckled and sat down. Jensen was a nice man, relatively quiet unless comfortable, a couple of years younger than her. His appearance was unassuming—brown hair, grey eyes that were a little too close together; nothing to suggest the genius locked inside his skull. It had allowed him to graduate high school three years early and speed through university degrees in microbiology and environmental science. His brain had made him the first pick to work as a consultant for the new bill Cinder and Kai were pushing to revise the legislation governing the sustainable disposal of waste.
Jensen’s eyes widened at the empty seat next to her. “Is His Majesty not coming?”
“Wrapped up in a meeting.” She shrugged, trusting that was explanation enough. Some of the staff on this table liked to set records of how long royal meetings ran for. “He’ll join us soon. How’s the project going?”
As usual, Jensen was a little stiff and awkward at first, and it took Cinder probing him with insightful questions before he softened, relaxed and got caught in tangents about how fascinating he found the science to be. Then he’d catch himself, scratch the back of his neck and apologise for getting carried away.
“Don’t apologise for being smart,” she chastised. “You have something the rest of us would never dream of having. Use it.”
Maybe it was just the coloured lighting in the bar, but his cheeks seemed to tint pink.
Khine insisted they wait for Kai to arrive. After fifteen minutes and no appearance, Cinder suggested that they all order.
“We will all wait for His Majesty for however long he takes,” Khine insisted, staring them all down. “Right?”
Amidst the few nods, Cinder saw at least three others stuffing the complimentary bread in their mouths with dismay.
“Don’t be silly. I can order for Kai.”
Khine huffed. “It would be most impruden—”
Cinder wagged a finger at her. “Don’t make me turn it into a royal command, Han-jie.”
The whole table laughed. Khine smouldered temporarily, replaced the expression with a calm vacancy, then agreed. Funny, she was always hard on Cinder, never on Kai. But Cinder guessed that was because he wasn’t her responsibility to coordinate. Based on the number of times she saw Torin’s eye twitching, she knew her husband was no easier to manage than herself.
Scrolling through the digital menu, she selected something she thought Kai would like, then something for herself, and when the waiter passed by, she requested that they keep his meal in the kitchen until he arrived so it wouldn’t go cold.
Soon enough, plates were arriving at the table in quick succession. The chatter of the group was loud as always, and Jensen was quiet as usual. Thus, she made sure to ask him questions to enfold him in the conversation. She knew his silence wasn’t by choice, but by insecurity.
Most were already halfway through their meals by the time Kai burst through the door. Cinder gestured at the waiter, who nodded and whisked off to the kitchen.
“Sorry for the delay.” Kai bowed to the table, who all accepted his apology with assurances that it was no trouble.
He was still catching his breath as he dropped into the seat beside her. “Hey,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her neck, just under her jawbone.
She plucked a chip from her plate and offered it to him. “Your food’s coming out.”
“Thank you, love.”
Turning back, she found Jensen’s eyes tracking them. Upon being discovered, they dropped to his plate.
The server returned with Kai’s food—creamy garlic prawns in a bed of sautéed vegetables and steamed rice, topped with saffron and caviar. Being in public, he maintained all his perfect table manners, though he shovelled bites into his mouth quickly.
Cinder tsked. “What would Tashmi Priya say?” she teased, recalling the multiple sessions leading up to their wedding where their planner delicately reprimanded Cinder for her less-than-perfect dining etiquette.
“She would say that I’ve worked hard and deserve a nice meal,” he quipped back. “And it is delicious. How did you know exactly what to order for me?”
“I like to think I know you.” She smiled, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her fist.
“I think you do.”
Jensen scrutinised the plate suspiciously from his side of the table. “Do you really like caviar, Your Majesty?”
“You don’t?” Kai patted his lips with the corner of his napkin. “This is one of my comfort meals.”
Cinder sent a deadpan look at Jensen. “Of course, the fanciest thing on the menu is his comfort food.”
He allowed a smirk, a rare sight of his true humour. “Ugh. Rich kids.”
Kai’s exaggerated gasp made them all laugh. The conversation at the table carried on, light and jovial without the typical weighty political agendas at hand. Kai had only just set down his chopsticks when Khine jumped up, clapping her hands together. “It’s time to go!”
Kai groaned. “I just got here!”
“We’re not going home. We’re going—drum roll please...to karaoke!”
Both cheers and groans rose up from the table. Kai tied an arm around Cinder, grinning. “Oh-ho-ho—this will be fun.”
“Kai, I’m not singing the theme song to Key to My Metal Heart,” she said.
“Why not?” He pouted, despite knowing exactly why.
With a quick jab to his side, she pulled them both up and allowed him to guide her as they followed Khine to the door. Kai offered to pay for the meal, but Khine merely winked at him.
“Don’t worry, I put it on the imperial charging account.”
He frowned. “You do know that comes from my money, right?”
“Exactly.”
Though the sky had coloured a cloudy black, it was barely noticeable when the lights from the skyscrapers and hovers and billboards illuminated every inch of the street. Cinder’s hot breath billowed out in front of her, surprising her. A sudden cool change was sweeping through, confirmed by the spots of rain that began to soak into her scalp. She regretted forgoing a coat.
“This way,” Khine directed, waving a hand and marching down the street. At first, the rest of them were slow to follow, too caught up in a whirlwind story that Drew—a defence officer—was regaling them with. Then, realising they were losing Khine in the crowd, they all scrambled to follow. Kai locked his fingers around hers.
It was moments like these that Cinder truly loved her life. Yes, she’d had untold hardships and suffering in her formative years. But now she had friends. And purpose. And love. True, she often missed a life of anonymity, of being a simple mechanic who could walk the streets without drawing even a glance her way. And yet, would she return to that if it meant losing what she had now? Losing these friends—
Counting their heads, she faltered, her feet stalling. Her hand automatically let go of Kai’s—he, caught in the flow of bodies, didn’t seem to notice.
Her eyes swept over the street, the milling traffic, until she spotted him through the haze of rain. Jensen, stuck at the crossing behind them, eyes anxiously scanning the hovercycles speeding past. Cinder pushed through the passersby and stopped at the edge of the footpath, waiting for him as rivulets of water trickled down her cheeks. When he saw her, his mouth fell open, his surprise quickly replaced by relief.
“Thank you for waiting,” he said once he’d made it across.
“I couldn’t leave you behind,” she easily replied.
As they jogged to the shelter of the street awning, they found Kai also waiting. “Sorry, I didn’t realise I’d lost you,” he apologised, taking her hand again.
Khine, however, did not seem bothered that they’d disappeared once they met her outside the karaoke bar. “Come on, come on, our session starts soon!”
Inside, there were three main sections—a lounge with a bar in the centre, an arcade to the left and karaoke booths to the right. Kai seemed to spot something in the arcade, a mischievous look forming on his face as he stroked his chin. Cinder didn’t have time to question it, because within seconds they were holed up in a karaoke booth with disco lighting, sticky chairs and pumping music.
And, okay: Cinder wasn’t one to intentionally make a fool out of herself in front of esteemed colleagues. But she’d make a concession this time.
There were three microphones, so they took turns singing in bunches. Cinder and Kai shared a mic for most of their songs with the others—neither was as good a singer as Cress, but together their loud, sometimes brassy warbling was splendid. Until Kai requested the theme song to The Key to My Metal Heart, to which Cinder held up her hands.
“Not a chance!” she yelled, eliciting a round of boos from the peanut gallery.
“But babe: this is our song!” Kai joked. Everyone but Cinder cackled. The Key to My Metal Heart was just one of the atrociously bad netdramas fictionalising their love story. Given that Cinder and Kai had been fairly private with the personal details, producers and scriptwriters had to take some creative liberties, and oh boy, did they. In this drama, the standout moment was when—amidst the final battle against Levana—‘Cinder’ had sat up, knife still embedded in her heart, and begun to cry out a soaring ballad of her endless love for Kai, who—rather than call for medical attention—cupped her face in his hands and sang in turn.
Perhaps it could’ve been a touching—albeit completely contextually inappropriate—moment, if not for the blood being the colour of ketchup, ‘Kai’ pirouetting around the throne room, and ‘Cinder’ being decked out in full glam makeup, smoky eyeshadow and all.
It was still a number five charting single across Earth and Luna, though, and so it had chased Cinder even since.
At her refusal, Drew—the group’s jokester—jumped up and declared, “I’ll sing it with you, Your Majesty!”
“Finally! Someone who cares about me,” Kai exclaimed, sticking his tongue out at her.
The duet was passionate. On the line: “Will you catch me when I fall?” Drew dramatically fell into Kai’s arms. Kai, unprepared, struggled under the weight, teetered and sent them both crashing to the floor. Snickering, Cinder stretched out her hand to help him, but not before she commanded her retina display to save the moment to send to Thorne.
Taking her hand, Kai got up, groaning and rubbing his shoulder. “Okay, time out. I’m going to get a drink. You want one?”
“Sure. You know what I like.”
She could feel his smile as he pressed his lips to her temple. “I do.”
The rest of the gaggle ran through a couple more songs, both times egging Cinder on to join them. In truth, it wasn’t nearly as fun without her husband, so she plopped onto the sticky couch next to Jensen where they could both laugh at Khine’s awful attempt at a high note.
“This next one’s for our empress!” Khine screeched. It was always about fifteen songs into karaoke that she started acting like she’d drunk five glasses of wine, despite always being conscientiously sober at work functions. The twangy guitar of a country-pop tune filled the room.
Cinder frowned. “I don’t like country.”
Ignoring her protestations, they began crooning away. Cinder only half paid attention. Just as she was thinking that Kai had been gone a while, he slipped back into the room, grinning triumphantly. Cinder gave him a once-over. “Where are the drinks?”
His smile faltered. “Oh. I forgot.”
“Then what were you doing?”
His words were drowned out as the song got louder. Her retina display recognised the song and pulled the lyrics over her vision. The verse seemed to be talking about a self-absorbed woman who called herself the “bee’s knees” and the “cream of the crop.”
Then they got to the chorus:
“Do you mean you’re a royal pain,
When you say that you’re the queen?
Cause I’ve seen and heard the things you’ve done
And you ain’t all that discreet.”
Was this why they dedicated the song to her? Because they thought she was a royal pain? Ouch. Just before a “hey!” could leave her lips, the singers spun around, pointing at her.
“And you say you’re the perfect woman,
But you ain’t Empress Selene!”
The rest of the chorus became unintelligible. In her periphery, Kai whooped and cheered.
No. It had to be a silly version Khine was making up, right? She followed a link to the official music video, saw the 50 million views, confirmed the lyrics on her retina again.
Perfect woman. Empress Selene.
Without any warning, Cinder sprang up, boiling, and escaped the stuffy booth, desperate for a cold drink.
———
Despite looking at her face every day in the mirror for her whole waking life, Cinder was getting sick of it.
She was everywhere. A throwaway reference in a netdrama. On people’s T-shirts as she walked around the city. Her Imperial portrait framed and displayed next to Kai’s on shop walls. While she was accustomed to disreputable cyber-mags prying into her personal life and propounding all sorts of ludicrous rumours about herself, she was not accustomed to acclaimed publications splashing her wedding photo on their cover page, listing it as one of the top 10 most culturally significant photos of all time.
Eventually, her curiosity won out over her principles. Knowing from her childhood with Peony that there were thousands of online fanclubs for her husband, she put ‘selene blackburn fans’ into her netsearch. Instantly, hundreds of thousands of results began streaming over her vision. People fawning over her. Her outfits. Her sarcastic jokes. Every public appearance scrutinised to its infinitesimally smallest detail.
The deeper she went, the weirder it got. One fan page was dedicated solely to pictures of her collarbone and how amazingly ‘sharp’ and ‘alluring’ it was. Which—admittedly—Kai had told her before. But he wasn’t keeping a collage of it on his desk.
Groaning, she shut off her netlink and collapsed back onto the couch.
She couldn’t pinpoint exactly why she so vehemently hated this attention, this adoration. Shouldn’t she be pleased? After years of prejudice and reviling for being cyborg and Lunar and a fugitive, she finally had swarms of people who looked past it, who saw her as something worthy, something admirable. Wasn’t this a sign that she had singlehandedly changed the public perception of cyborgs, ushering in a new era of acceptance and tolerance?
No matter how many times she reasoned on it, the whole thing still made her skin crawl.
Her back ached as she lifted off the couch. Distraction. That’s what she needed. Reopening her netlink, she flicked over to a channel she particularly enjoyed—a network for mechanics reviewing androids and hovers, tools and parts, with installation guides and a hearty share of lame mechanic puns. The latest vid played in the corner of her retina as she folded laundry, only vaguely paying attention to both. The new engine on this hover seemed particularly tricky, though Cinder had already mapped out an alternative method that would make its installation more feasible.
“Now this engine installation is not for the faint of heart; unless you’re Linh Cinder, you’re going to run into problems with it. Sorry to throw a wrench in your plans.” The host gave an obvious wink before signing off.
The towel Cinder was folding slipped from her hands. She gritted her teeth.
So much for distraction.
Fortunately, her annoyance was tempered by Thorne’s voice-comm. If her noticed her nettled tone, he ignored it, jovial as ever as he caught up with her for the first time in a couple of weeks. It had been months since they’d all got together, and though Cinder would never admit it to his face, hearing his familiar voice stirred longing in her chest. She missed him and Cress, and all of their friends scattered across Earth and Luna. His amusing anecdotes and typical quips greatly improved her mood until his next story about Scarlet and Wolf’s newest kitten. When he sent her a photo, she again noticed that same mechanic vid in the corner of her display.
“—And can you guess who they named the cat after?”
“Me?” Cinder grumbled.
“Wow, someone thinks highly of herself. No, they obviously named it after me,” he boasted. “The kitten escaped nine times. I was the only logical choice.”
“They named it Thorne?” she asked sceptically. She couldn’t imagine Scarlet dignifying him that much.
“Close. They named him Cadet. I mean, Cress and I were already considering adopting him, but that just sealed the deal. Cress is already calling him her baby. We’re going to pick him up next week.”
“Kai won’t be able to ever visit you two again without constantly sneezing,” she commented, thinking of her husband’s unfortunate allergy to all felines.
She could hear his grin through the commlink. “That’s half the appeal.” He went on to regale her with the tale of the kitten—the smallest in the litter born to Scarlet and Wolf’s cat. A gorgeous calico with blue eyes that made him really look like Cress and Thorne’s child. She listened absentmindedly, humming at the right places, but her thoughts were drifting again.
After a lull of silence, he just said it. “All right—what’s up with you? You’ve been weird all call.”
A sigh. Would he really understand? Carswell Thorne, who lapped up compliments and praise, who lived on the very stuff?
Eventually, she asked, “Does it ever make you uncomfortable? People obsessing over you?”
He didn’t respond right away. Probably biting back whatever self-adulating comment first rose to his tongue.
Finally, he admitted, “Sometimes. It’s weird when they follow me around when I’m at the grocery store. You know one of them tried to call my doctor pretending to be Cress and asked them to send her all my test results? Turns out she’s been following me everywhere. I got a restraining order put out on her.”
Cinder folded her knees against her chest, resting her chin on them. “I’ve had some people like that.” Not that she really knew much about those nutjobs. Her security as empress was so tight that she often didn’t know about her stalkers until her team informed her that they were being detained by the police. She figured it was better for her own peace of mind that she didn’t ask too many questions. “I wasn’t really thinking about those kinds of people. More like…people who just adore you, even when they don’t even know you.”
Miso must have noticed her mood, as she trotted across the living room and curled up at Cinder’s feet, nudging her and gazing up at her with sympathetic eyes. Cinder gave her a scratch behind the ears.
He hummed. “Oh yeah, like last week. Cress and I were walking through Central Park when some girl came up to us. She was raving about how she was in love with me, asking me to date her. I told her I clearly had a fiancée. And she said, ‘But we all know what you’re like. You’re not serious about her.’ Let me tell you—I’ve never wanted to punch a woman aside from Levana so much in my life. Probably would’ve yelled at her if Cress hadn’t dragged us away. But it made me furious.” And it must have been true, because Cinder had rarely heard such vitriol in Thorne’s voice.
“Furious that they presume all these things; that they think they know the real you?”
“Yeah.” A pause. “What brought this up?”
And now, having spoken about it, Cinder felt she could finally put her finger on it. Why this acclaim made her squirm. Before, facing hatred, discrimination, she felt misunderstood. Misrepresented. Now she felt the same, except in reverse. These people didn’t love her. They loved an image, a mere idea of her.
“It just feels weird. All these people acting as if they know me—love me—when not that long ago those same people hated cyborgs and Lunars.”
“But they changed, Cin. You changed their minds.”
She scoffed. “Some of them, maybe. But I’m sure that if most of them knew me personally, they wouldn’t be giving me endless praise.”
She heard his sigh, followed by a sarcastic dryness. “Yeah, because you’re so unlovable and being friends with you is a punishment worse than imprisonment with terrible soap.”
“Be serious,” she spat back.
“I am! People like you, Cinder, because you’ve given them a reason to.”
She opted to run her tongue around the inside of her mouth rather than respond. Thorne wouldn’t change his mind on this; neither would she. Right now, she was in the public favour. But sooner or later, her policies or her outfits or something would upset them, and they would just as quickly turn their backs on her.
“Well, who cares about them anyway?” she deflected.
“You do. You’ve always cared about people,” he responded emphatically. “That’s why you’re a good empress. And if they knew you personally, they’d probably like you even more.”
A snort. “Oh, so you also think I’m the perfect woman?”
“Not a chance. That’s Cress,” he said immediately, making her laugh. “But you’re not half-bad,” he added, like an afterthought.
Tired of talking about herself and her supposed benevolence, she diverted, “So how will Cosmo cope with having a little brother?”
Thorne picked up his doting tone again. Cress and Thorne’s cat, Cosmo, was a cute thing, though very possessive of them and unwilling to let anyone else near her. Cinder couldn’t imagine her adapting to a new kitten very well, though Thorne seemed sure, based on his and Cress’s endless research, that their two fur babies would soon become best friends. They were even planning on making them the ring bearers for their wedding. Cinder only just managed to stifle her chortle.
Hopefully Cadet liked Cinder more than Cosmo did. Cress always assured Cinder that Cosmo only avoided her because Miso’s scent lingered on her clothes. Based on the glares Cosmo sent Cinder, she guessed that she just hated her either way.
Cinder didn’t mind. At least the cat didn’t pretend to love her.
———
Admittedly, the popularity of the bio-lock sometimes had its disadvantages. Of course, she would never regret protecting Earthens from manipulation and constantly living in fear. Still, it was awfully convenient to be able to sense people through a wall. More than once had she been lazing around in her office, slouching in her chair and boredly staring out the window. Then her gift would hum with the bioelectricity of approaching bodies, giving her just enough time to right herself and her desk into the expected order of an empress.
Now that the bio-lock prevented her from sensing people, she had been caught slacking off one too many times.
But she never minded when it was this particular person swinging by. Often, right when she was thinking that she wanted to see him, the door to her office slid open on cue.
“Ah, did you get my message?” she asked coyly as Kai glided into the room. While her door prevented access to anyone without her verbal permission, Kai had override privileges. Which of course meant he sashayed in like he owned the place.
Which—well—he did.
One hand behind his back, the other reached for the port at his belt. “Oh, sorry. Did you comm me?”
“No, I meant the telepathic message I just sent to your brain telling you I wanted to see you.”
His lips curled into a smirk. “Ah. Yes, I did get your message. Something like: ‘I’m bored and need a distraction in the form of a cute husband?’”
“Exactly.” Noticing his hand still hidden, she perked up. “Did you bring me tea?”
“Sorry, not this time.” Seeing her pout, he added, “Don’t be disappointed—I have an even better offering.” “Oh yeah?”
Kai propped up one knee on the desk, leaning towards her in what was definitely an unprofessional distance. “Well, reforming environmental legislation has by no means been an easy undertaking, and I’m extremely proud of you for taking the initiative to fight for change and for never backing down from doing what’s right.”
Reaching for his free hand, she squeezed, feeling his warmth seep into her cooler skin. “You put just as much work in as me.”
“But without my amazing revolutionary wife, I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to challenge the legislation anyway. Probably wouldn’t have even questioned it to begin with.” His lashes lowered, his gaze full of intent and meaning. “And so, to congratulate you, I got you a little something.”
“You shouldn’t hav—”
“—I can buy you as many gifts as I want, and you can’t stop me,” he interrupted. “Now, I was going to give this to you to celebrate the completion of your report, but given that you still haven’t finished it…”
“Oh, rake me over the coals, why don’t you?”
“I don’t need to; your aunt already did that,” he said, eliciting shocked, booming laughter from her. “So I—” he tried, the words drowned out. “So I—Cinder! Be quiet!”
She slammed her mouth shut, lips trembling with the effort to keep the laughter contained. “G-go on,” she croaked out.
His exasperated head shake was undermined by his eyes, twinkling with pride at his own joke. “Close your eyes.”
“What are we—five?”
“Yes. Close your eyes.”
Huffing, she closed her eyes, felt his hands take hers and fold them around something fluffy.
Fluffy?
“Please don’t tell me you bought a puppy. Miso would hate us.”
Miso lived for fun, and given that almost every single maid, guard and gardener was willing to pat her or play fetch, she received a lot of it. However, their little princess was a bit conceited, and thereby suspicious of any other dog. It was how they named her. The placeholder name she’d been given at the shelter was Snowy—being a Samoyed, she had a gorgeous pure white coat. When they let her run around the palace gardens for the first time, her little puppy brain could not handle.
The ecstasy of swatting at butterflies, running in circles on the lawn, and dipping her paws into the ponds was suddenly crushed when she spotted another dog across the bonsai garden. A British diplomat, innocently taking her older collie for a stroll. Miso lost it. Chased the poor thing around at least a third of the garden before Kai finally managed to pin her down. But in her travel, her white coat had been soiled with dirt, staining it brown. Kai apologised over and over to the diplomat and scolded Miso firmly. Back in the palace, as they gave her a bath, Kai tutted, “Look what you did. Your coat is so dirty! You don’t look snowy, you look like you rolled in miso paste!”
The name had stuck around, along with her protective tendencies.
“It’s not a puppy,” Kai confirmed. “Go on, open your eyes.”
It was not a puppy. It wasn’t even a fluffy toy resembling a puppy.
The creature could not be described as anything other than an abomination. Its white body was long and spindly, contorting in ways no animal should. Accompanying the horrible, jagged teeth was a pair of beady black eyes that stared into your soul. Cinder released it from her hands like it had burnt her.
“What the hell is this,” she said severely.
“Your new best friend! I bought it for you!”
She made a face. “Well unbuy it. It’s hideous.”
“Cinder, marriage is all about making compromises,” he lectured, crossing his arms.
“Uh, marriage rescinded.”
At his laughter, she looked up and saw he wasn’t at all dejected.
“You did this on purpose! To laugh at me!” she accused.
His hand flew to his chest, gasping with faux-offence. “How could you? I chose this is as a symbol of my love and affection for my wife, and she dashes all my pure intentions?”
Her fingers pinched between her brow. “Is this punishment for me not finishing the report?”
Another round of laughter. She thrust it into his hands before those creepy, devious eyes made her shiver.
“Don’t be mean to him.” Kai hugged it to his face, pouting. Then his smile turned wicked. He stuck his nose up. “You know what? I think I’ll just leave him here so you can learn some respect.”
“Don’t leave me with this thing!” she protested as he set it on the desk and headed for the door.
A wink. “I’ll let you two get acquainted.”
The door slid shut.
The creature stared at her.
Her plan to stuff the damned thing in her desk drawer was interrupted by a comm. Her report was almost done (yeah, Kai, it wasn’t that late), and she was quickly sucked back into the flow of it, comms pinging back and forth from her and the team. Her final edits were required for the report to be officially submitted. She ploughed through page after page, underlining and notating any needed adjustments. When she got stuck on a sentence, her eyes would wander around the room as though the answer would be written on the wallpaper.
Doing so, her eyes landed on the bear. If it could even be classified as that.
Her knuckles went white as she clenched her fists. Inhaling deeply, Cinder returned to her portscreen.
Rinse and repeat. She would work for a solid fifteen minutes, reach a roadblock, instinctively look around as her mind worked through the problem. And every time, there it was.
That stupid bear.
Forcing herself to focus, she noticed a string of comms from the work chat filtering through that she hadn’t paid attention to from Mihyung, an environmental consultant.
(14:20) Dr. Kang Mihyung
Hello everyone, we just need the final copy of page 34 to proofread. Anyone know who was on that?
(14:23) Col. Andrew Devon
Empress Selene is due to submit those pages today.
(14:23) Dr. Kang Mihyung
Is that ready, Your Majesty?
(14:47) Dr. Kang Mihyung
Is Her Majesty in the office today?
(14:50) HIM Emperor Kaito
She is, she probably got distracted. I’ll go check on her progress.
Wow. Thanks honey, she thought. Just embarrass me in front of all our coworkers.
Her finger was poised to send a short but direct message stating that she was in the office, was not distracted, and was about to submit those pages. Then she heard the approaching footsteps.
I’ll go check on her progress.
Jumping to her feet, she rounded the desk, grabbed the bear, listened as the door whistled open.
Cinder spun around, aiming the bear to launch it at Kai’s head.
Jensen jumped, eyes wide as saucers.
“Oh my stars. I’m so sorry—I thought you were my husband.”
He let out a nervous chuckle. “And you were going to…throw a toy at him?”
Clarity replaced her surprise. She released the bear onto a seat opposite her desk. “How did you get in without being announced?”
“Oh, Khine just let me in,” he explained, awkwardly scratching at the back of his neck.
Of course she did. Rolling her eyes, she ushered him forward. “Please, take a seat.”
Jensen entered with that sheepish smile that seemed a permanent fixture on his face. His gait was stilted as he closed the distance; odd, she thought, as he’d never seemed this nervous in the many times he’d come to her office for meetings.
When he reached her desk, he let out a half-laugh, gesturing to the already-occupied chair. “Uh, I’m not sure that I can, Your Majesty.”
“Sorry, let me just—” Grabbing the bear, she stomped over to the storage cupboard, stuffed it inside and slammed the door shut, ignoring the rumble of things falling over.
His face was quizzical.
“It’s just something my husband bought,” she explained through gritted teeth.
“The emperor brought you that for you?” he asked disbelievingly.
“No, we’re giving it someone together,” she lied. Well it wouldn’t be a lie soon. It would be passed on to someone, a child, a maid, the first willing giftee. They would not be keeping it.
Jensen accepted this answer with no less amusement.
Kai should teach a course: how to make your staff lose respect for you 101.
Hoping to act as though nothing was awry, Cinder returned to her desk with only a brief offer of eye contact. “So what are you here for? Is everything okay with the project? I mean—techincally the project is done and your team aren’t involved with the delivery, but you’re still kinda overseeing it, right?”
Jensen took his seat and paused before speaking, as if searching for courage. “Well, actually, my role is complete now, so I—I came to say goodbye.”
She frowned, checking the internal clock on her retina. “It isn’t even 15:00 yet.”
“No, I don’t mean for the day. Once this project is submitted, I’ll be leaving the palace team.”
Her face fell. “Oh. I thought you were going to continue on with the waste project. We could really use your expertise,” she said encouragingly.
A tight smile. “I was…I was considering it. But I think it’s best that I go.”
Her heart clenched. It would be a massive loss to the team. And more than that, Jensen was a friend to all of them.
“We’ll miss you,” she managed, eyes downcast. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. “Was there…was there a particular reason you’re leaving? Because if you’re being mistreated in any way at all, I won’t tolerate that.”
Seeing her serious expression, her tone laden with implication, Jensen was quick to shake his head. “Not at all, Your Majesty. Everyone here has been kind and accommodating.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
He twiddled his thumbs, sighing. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. Just as she was about to retract her words, to apologise for prying, he mustered up words. “There has been a…a development. One that seriously impairs my ability to work on this team—in this palace. It would be the fairest to everyone and to myself to leave before further damage is done.”
Her brow furrowed. There were plenty of accommodations offered at the palace for people of different circumstances—those with disabilities, family crises, mental health battles. Cinder—the cyborg empress—had made sure of that.
But he didn’t let her ask her question, because the second his next words left his mouth, the whole world stopped beneath Cinder’s feet.
“I’m leaving because…I’m in love with you.”
Her body was ice. Rigid. Unmoving. Yet somehow her mind had melted, the only thought echoing round and round her skull being: What?
“You’re…” Her words dried up.
“I didn’t mean to fall in love with you. Though I guess no one can ever really stop it from happening. But there’s no sense me continuing to work here when it will only make you uncomfortable and bruise my heart further.” He was embarrassed, but not ashamed. At her blank stare, he clarified, “And please don’t misunderstand—I have no intention of trying to get between you and your husband. Not that you’d ever allow that anyway. In truth, I was horrified when I realised. So I’ve handed in my resignation. Today is my last day.”
Finally, a coherent sentence pushed through the sludge of her thoughts. “Why? What could’ve possibly made you fall in love with me?”
“Did you ask your husband that?” he said.
“He—I—”
Jensen folded his hands atop each other. Now that the confession was out, he was serenely calm. All his anxious tics had disappeared, replaced with an uncharacteristic confidence. Perhaps bottling this up for so long had been eating at him, and only now he finally had peace.
No valid reason came to her mind as to why it was fine for Kai to love her but completely unimaginable for anyone else to. “How long?” she asked.
“About six months since I realised, though I suspect it started from the day I met you.” There was a tenderness in the way he said it; a sentimental recollection he clearly treasured. “I didn’t grow up with much. I only made it into the most prestigious university with the best scholarship because of my brain. But I was never treated like I belonged there. I was always an outsider. An underdog who got lucky. When I got selected for this privilege, well, my classmates were furious. Most of them grew up wealthy, already had connections in the palace. I felt like an impostor. And on my first day here, I was so mortified that I was ready to quit before lunch.”
An ugly feeling festered in her stomach, pity for this man she only knew to be goodhearted.
“And then I met you,” he continued, a new light blazing in his eyes. “You actually got to know me, as opposed to everyone else who only offered a ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’ You were kind. And then in every meeting after, you were always making sure I was heard. If I was getting talked-over in a conversation, you’d tell everyone to stop so I could speak. You care. It’s not just a slogan for your political campaign. It’s in everything you do.”
“I-I’m not all that,” she stammered, sure she was managing to blush despite its impossibility.
He shook his head, bashful but proud—of himself, of her, she wasn’t sure. “You are. You just don’t see it.”
And what could she say to that?
It occurred to her that not once had her lie detector flashed through his confession. He was telling the truth. And it wasn’t like this was just a whirlwind surge of emotion. She and Jensen had worked together for two years. They knew each other. They were friends. And, yes, she supposed that what he had said was true to an extent. She remembered seeing him for the first time at that inaugural conference, noticing how he was blending into the background, dread creeping up his face, and deciding to go talk to him. She recalled chatty Drew and Mihyung and even Kai sometimes unintentionally overtaking the conversation in meetings, leaving Jensen to slump back into his chair. She had certainly spoken up a few times, knowing he was smarter than all of them combined.
She remembered looking back on the drizzly city night, noticing him stuck on the other side of the crossing, and waiting for him.
“Thank you for telling me,” she murmured. “I know this couldn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t,” he admitted. “I nearly talked myself out of it about a million times.”
Her hands clenched, imagining herself in his scenario. If Kai was married to someone else. Could she have the strength to confess? Most likely, she thought, she would’ve run away and hoped he’d forget all about her.
“So why did you tell me in the end?”
The corners of his mouth twitched up. “I think you deserve to know just how wonderful you are.”
Her mouth fell open and stayed there.
Jensen got up, his head dropping in a bow. “Although, I’m sure the emperor tells you that enough already.” The words were tinged with wistfulness, not jealousy. “You two really are perfect for each other. I can see that you’re best friends. And you make each other stronger.”
She wasn’t sure what to say. Fortunately, the universe decided to spare her by instead exploding the cupboard doors open, dumping everything in a heap on the floor.
They both stared, dumbfounded.
After a beat, Jensen rushed to clean it, prompting Cinder to yell, “No! I’ll do it!”
Hurrying over, she began shoving everything back inside, albeit a little more neatly this time. Jensen couldn’t resist and got down to his knees, sorting through the pile. At the bottom, smiling up at her with its evil grin, was the bear.
“You did this, didn’t you?” she accused, although knowing full-well that the cupboard was bound to explore sooner or later with how carelessly she stuffed things into it. “You are going straight to landfill.”
Jensen snickered. “Do you hate it that much?”
She waved it in front of his face. “And you don’t?”
“Not really. It’s a little creepy, I guess, but its eyes are kinda cute—”
“Please, take it.”
Gently pushing away her outreached hands, he shook his head. “No, it’s yours. I can see why the emperor chose it for you. He knows you.”
She made a derisive sound. “What? He knows how to mess with me?
“Well, yeah. But he also knows how to help you.”
Cinder cocked her head, not understanding how this all tied together.
Jensen didn’t elaborate. He stood and bowed again. “Besides,” he added, “it’s in my best interests not to accept anything from you. I’m trying to get over you, you know.”
Her nails dug into the bear’s fur. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
She didn’t. For a moment, she wondered what would happen if she weren’t already married. If Jensen would’ve asked her out. If she would’ve accepted, perhaps out of a feeling of obligation or pity. Or awkwardly turned him down. She had no romantic feelings for him—she knew that for certain. But that didn’t explain away the ache in her chest.
As he turned to the door, his back to her, she suddenly understood why. She would miss her friend.
“Jensen! Wait!”
He had only a moment to turn around before she enveloped him in a hug. His arms hesitated for a moment before gradually returning the embrace. Always keeping a distance. Scrunching up his face, as though he hadn’t already given away all his feelings.
She pulled away, aiming for lightness. “You know, once you’ve moved on, you’re always welcome to come say hi.”
Surprise flickered in his gaze. Then he pressed his lips together in a thin smile. “Thank you.”
When he left, Cinder felt as though all the air had returned to the room.
———
Cinder didn’t want to think about this right now. She couldn’t.
So she returned to her work. It turned out, Mr Ugly-Bear was useful. Every time she got caught on a phrase, overthinking the wording and rehashing it again and again until it came as garble, she would look at the bear and realise that the sooner she finished, the sooner she could throw it off the palace rooftop. Landing on a simpler wording, she would move on, and to her genuine surprise, the entire report was finished an hour and a half earlier than she had expected.
Cinder sent it across to the team, jotting off a comm to Mihyung specifically, who was probably refreshing her portscreen all afternoon, chewing her fingernails waiting for it.
With nothing to do, she paced around her room, unable to keep the thoughts from seeping back in.
She didn’t know what to make of it all. Jensen. In love with her. Leaving. Despite him clearly explaining why he fell for her, her brain still registered it as untrue.
Her thoughts ran around in circles with no end in sight. Sighing, she poked her head out of her office. Khine was at the end of the hall at her desk from which she oversaw all secretarial duties.
Taking the bear with her, she passed Khine on her way out. “I’m going to call in early for today. Walk around the gardens for a bit. You can finish whenever you want.”
Khine’s fingers typed without missing a beat. “Thanks, but I’ve got work left to do. I’ll clock out at my normal time.”
Shrugging, Cinder left her to it. For as snarky as Khine could be, she was also one of the reasons things got done around this palace.
The walk was lovely, the air cool but not uncomfortable and the flora glowing with condensation from recent rainfall. Cinder let its tranquillity wash over her, hoping it could quiet her thoughts. When her favourite gardener openly laughed at the creature she was holding, Cinder tossed it at him. He aimed his shovel like a bat and hit it right back to her.
An hour of meandering passed. Having covered most of the grounds, she looked back at the palace, searching for the window to Kai’s office fourteen floors up. It was too high to pinpoint it exactly. Still, she wondered if he was looking for her, too.
When she made her way into their quarters some time later, she found him in the kitchen, humming as he stirred a saucepan. His formal work attire had been replaced by an old, worn blue shirt and grey track pants. It was a much-welcomed sight. Though their personal suite was as spacious and gorgeously furnished as the rest of the palace, she and Kai had decorated it in a way that made it look more like a home and less like a hotel lobby. Immediate relief and calmness settled into her bones every time she entered their home, knowing he would be there waiting for her.
Abandoning Ugly-Bear on the sofa, Cinder came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face between his shoulder blades.
“Well hello, love. Did you have a nice walk?”
Her response was muffled by his shirt.
“My back doesn’t have ears, you know.”
Pulling away, she repeated, “I did. But I wished you were with me.”
“But then who would be making dinner?” he countered, shuffling to the sink to wash a capsicum with her still glued to him.
“The palace chefs we pay to feed us?”
“Touché.”
But to be honest, Cinder much preferred the homely, simple meals she and Kai cooked together than any of the immaculate, perfect dishes the chefs prepared for them. Of course, the palace was still maintained by the staff, but in their quarters, they put in an effort to be industrious and not completely slack off. This meant handling their own laundry and cleaning, with some help from a couple of serv droids.
Cinder had never gotten used to being waited on, so she had readily agreed when Kai brought it up. His motivation stemmed more from paranoia that a spy disguised as a maid would enter and plant a listening device in their home. Another one of his conspiracies, but a well-founded one that Cinder couldn’t disagree with, especially when Levana had done that very thing. So no servants entered their quarters, no matter how much they complained to each other about laundry and dishes and yes, cooking. It made their diplomatic dinners more exciting, and their date nights more special.
Cinder was content to stay wrapped around him, lulled by the melody of the sizzling pan, the knife chopping against the board, the running of the tap. Until he had to cross the kitchen to the pantry, requiring him to perform an awkward duck-waddle to try to get over there.
Sighing, Cinder relented and disentangled herself from him.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he insisted.
“No, I’m getting in your way,” she said, plopping herself down on a kitchen stool by the bench.
Part of her wondered why Kai wasn’t asking about her gloomy mood. Certainly, he’d noticed it. Perhaps he was waiting for her to open up.
She didn’t really know why she was hesitating. Though he wasn’t the jealous type, a small part of her worried that if she named names, he would be unable to treat Jensen impartially, which didn’t bode well with her hope that they could all be casual friends again someday. Maybe it was naïve of her to believe that things could ever again resemble normalcy.
She was dwelling on this as she watched Kai sift cumin into the pan, shake the bottle harder when nothing came out, causing nearly half of it to fall in. Cue the panicked scrambling for a spoon to scoop it out. Cringing, he spun around to her as she hid a snicker behind her hand.
Pointing the spoon at her like a sceptre, he ordered, “You saw nothing.”
In response, she averted her eyes to the ceiling, feigning obliviousness. And as simple as that, he’d already lifted her spirits.
“Someone confessed their love for me today,” she finally said.
Kai hummed, rinsing the spoon under the tap. “I know. I do that every day.”
“Not you,” she whined. Her words was thick in her throat. “Jensen came into my office and…and he told me that he’s in love with me.”
He was silent for a moment, wiping his hands dry with a kitchen towel and leaning over to switch off the stove. “Oh.” The sound was flat. No shock, no offence, not even mild surprise.
This…this was not what she was expecting.
He turned back to face her, giving her his full attention. She knew it as soon as she saw his face.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
A shrug. “He came by my office this afternoon. Told me he was leaving and why.”
It made sense. Kai had commed the work chat saying he was going to check in with her. He never did, since Jensen must have visited him and advised him of his plan. She searched his face carefully, trying to gauge his reaction, which was apparently complete placidity. “Why would he tell you?” she asked. Surely telling the husband of the woman you loved was worse than telling the woman herself.
“He wasn’t sure if he should tell you. He said he didn’t want to unnecessarily upset you. I thought it was rather kind of him to give me the heads up.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I told him to go for it.”
And here she’d been worried about his reaction. It was a testimony to Kai’s trust in her that he, in fact, encouraged the confession. But also proof of how highly he regarded Jensen.
“Thank you. I would’ve felt awful if he just got up and left with no explanation. I probably would’ve worried that it was my fault.”
“Well, it was your fault,” he teased.
Groaning, she pulled her hands through her hair, gripping so fiercely her scalp stung. “I didn’t mean to make him fall in love with me! You don’t think I was leading him on, do you? By being his friend?”
Kai let out a psh. “Of course not. It just happened.” Leaning over the bench, he dragged her hands out of her hair to entwine them with his. “I happen to know how easy it is to fall in love with you, and how impossible it is to stop it from happening.”
As she continued to look injured, he pulled her hands up to cup his face instead, keeping his wrapped around them. “Love, I know it bothers you how people idolise you. But I don’t want you to forget that a lot of people genuinely love you for you. And you’re allowed to embrace that feeling sometimes, rather than always run away from it.”
She caressed his cheek with her thumb. “But I don’t want anyone but you to be in love with me.”
His chuckle reverberated through her hands. “Me neither. But it was bound to happen. You are amazing, you know? Now come on—dinner’s getting cold.”
Cinder prepared them both a drink as Kai dished out the stir-fry. They ventured to the living room, agreeing to be lazy for another night. But as she was placing her drink on the coffee table and her eyes darted to the couch, she almost threw her bowl in the air.
“Oh, by the way, I hate you,” she said, deadpanning, setting her bowl down and dangling Ugly-Bear by its leg.
“Aww, come on! He’ll grow on you.”
“Yeah, like a leech.” Inspecting it again, she scowled. “Where did you even find it?”
A sly smile. He stroked his chin. “Hmm, I don’t think I’ll tell you.”
She whipped out her finger blade, positioning it in front of its face. “I’m going to commit first-degree bear slaughter.”
“It was the arcade! When we did karaoke—I spotted it over in the arcade in a claw machine.”
She gave him an incredulous stare. “You won it?”
“No,” he admitted, scratching the back of his neck. Both of them knew Kai had a long history of never winning at claw machines. “I snuck away while you were distracted and paid the staff way too much to unlock the door and give it to me.”
The events of the night flooded back to her. Kai’s mischievous look. He ostensibly leaving to get drinks and returning with none.
“So all to—what? Mock me with this hideous thing?”
“No!” he protested. “It’s cute—in a morbid, off-putting sort of a way. Kind of like you!”
Fluffy insides spilled from its ear as she dug in the blade.
“I’m joking!” He didn’t exhale until she’d retracted the knife. Pondering for a moment, he then suggested, “How about we pawn it off to Thorne? Pretend it’s some priceless second-era surrealist piece worth a bunch?”
“Deal.”
Hurling the bear across the room, Cinder sat beside him, pressing into his side. Miso strutted into the room, enticed by the aroma of food as they began eating, but was quickly distracted by inspecting this new object of interest. After a few cautionary sniffs, she took its tail in her teeth, dragged it to them and deposited it at Cinder’s feet.
Grinning, Kai bent down to scratch her head. “Good girl.”
Miso lapped up the attention from her father before sending Cinder the poutiest look ever and shoving Ugly-Bear closer to her.
Cinder kicked it back to her. “Miso, are you seriously going to guilt-trip me into keeping it?”
Miso’s whimper confirmed this.
“We don’t have to keep it if it weirds you out that much,” Kai said, breaking his farce. For as much as he loved messing with her, he never pushed the joke too far.
“I guess it’s not the worst gift I’ve ever gotten,” she conceded. “Remember that time anti-Lunar protesters replaced my bouquet with a rotten fish on a live newsfeed?”
His chopsticks scraped the side of the bowl. “Believe me, I still remember the smell. At least that was the only time that’s happened.”
“Yeah, well that’s because—”
Because now she got Khine and her security team to intercept all gifts and letters addressed to her. Not only did she not want the humiliation of a practical joke, there was also the real threat that someone could try to send a bomb to her in the form of a harmless gift. Since the fish incident, Cinder hadn’t asked to see a single gift.
Mouth full, Kai raised an eyebrow at her.
“It’s nothing.”
Once they’d loaded their dishes into the dishwasher, waited the thirty seconds for them to be washed and dried then packed them away, he kissed her cheek and left to practise his piano in the music room.
Her thoughts were consumed—pondering, debating, resolving. After almost talking herself out of it twice, she finally sent the comm to Khine:
Cinder
Can i have the link to my fanmail?
She wasn’t expecting a reply; it was well past work hours. But—the chronic workaholic—Khine responded immediately and predictably dryly:
Khine
Your ego isn’t big enough already? jk, here <correspondence archive>
Cinder
Go. home.
Khine
You’re not the boss of me
Cinder
I literally am. Clock out before I fire you
Khine
Ugh fine
Once Khine’s status had switched to inactive, Cinder clicked on the link. It opened to an archive, categorising digital letters into separate months and years. Opening a random entry, she began to read.
Dear Empress Selene, I don’t know if you actually read these messages, but I wanted to tell you how much you’ve helped me. I’m autistic, and I’ve always felt like an outsider, like I don’t belong the way other people do. Seeing you fight against prejudice and stand up for what is right and important has really inspired me.
Dear Miss Cinder, My name is Ebony and I’m 6 years old. My mummy is helping me write this letter. I am from Sector GC-6 on Luna. My older brother got taken to be a wolf soldier, but when you became the queen, he came back to live with us. I missed him a lot. He has cool fangs now! Mummy says you saved us. Thank you!!! 💗✨
Selene, I am a cyborg like you in the Eastern Commonwealth. I used to hide my prosthetic arm from everyone. I lived in fear of the cyborg draft ending my life. Thanks to you, I finally feel that I can show my true self. Seeing you and the emperor together so happily and openly has finally helped me feel like I can go out in public with my husband Dataran with my arm showing.
A headache formed at her temples as she read entry after entry. Victims of the war or Levana’s army. Cyborgs. Lunars. People who felt underrepresented.
Some of the letters were short, others twenty pages. She read through a whole week’s worth. It took her all night. Checking the archive, she searched for the total amount received. Over 700,000 letters.
She’d never get through them all.
Clutching her port to her chest, she felt overwhelmed. She wanted to meet all of them. To hug them. To tell them she understood them. But according to them, she had already done that through her actions. Her outreach. Her hope.
These people weren’t raving about her outfit or her makeup. They cared about her.
Some of the sentiments were close, if not the same, as what Jensen had earlier confessed to her. How he thought she was wonderful. How she replied dismissively that she ‘wasn’t all that.’
You are. You just don’t see it.
———
Iko did not tell Cinder what she wanted to hear. Though if she’d wanted sympathy and endless reassurances, she should’ve commed Cress.
When Cinder told her about Jensen’s confession, Iko snorted. “Well duh. Of course he fell in love with you the first day he met you. I styled you that day, and I did an amazing job.”
Then, when she described her struggle to process the feeling of being admired, Iko shamelessly kicked up her heels onto her desk. “That’s not news to me. Cinder, Adri used to lie to you all the time in a ‘nice’ way,” she said with air quotes, “like when she promised you could have a dress for the Peace Ball. Your brain is hardwired to perceive praise as being disingenuous.”
Cinder shoved Iko’s feet off her desk with her elbow, grumbling, “You couldn’t have told me this years ago?”
Iko sprang up, smiling wickedly. “Oh, I hadn’t realised it back then. I just downloaded this famous psychiatric journal into my interface, and I’ve been having revelations all week. Wait till I psychoanalyse Jacin—he’s gonna love it.”
Before Cinder could emphasise that Jacin would definitely not love that, Iko was prancing to the door, flipping her magenta braids over her shoulder. “Let me know if you need any more evaluations. The first two are free,” she said with a wink. “I’m going to ask Khine which shoes I should wear for the conference in Toronto next week. Ta-ta!”
Cinder couldn’t stay mad at her for long. Iko was so busy in her role of ambassador, travelling around Earth and Luna for the diplomatic missions that were a little too rough for the fair-hearted Winter. Though she often returned to the palace, Cinder still missed her best friend.
As per his usual routine, Kai sauntered into Cinder’s office at 15:00. This time, however, he tossed her thick woollen jacket at her and left with instructions for her to meet him at the palace gate after work.
Knowing better than to question it, she worked the rest of the day, shrugged into the jacket and was glad for it when she felt the chilled air outside sink into her bones. Miso abandoned her immediately when Cinder dropped her off with the gardener, her favourite fetch partner.
At the gate, her husband, handsome as always in his casual dress, stood by a hover. One of the bolder guards wolf-whistled when Kai opened the door for her with a, “After you, milady.”
Once inside, she laid into him. “What are you up to?”
His eyes smiled while his lips stayed sealed.
The setting sun was their backdrop as they ventured through a night market in the heart of the city, filling up on steaming hot okonomiyaki and dumplings. Right by the dumpling stall was a faded brick wall covered in tattered posters. Front and centre was herself flaunting painted red eyes and horns and the messy inscription: “Tyrant Mother. Tyrant Aunt. She will ALWAYS be a tyrant.” Kai looked at her funny when a truly carefree laugh burst from her chest.
For dessert, he pulled them to a van right by the market entrance.
“Ice cream?” she laughed. “It’s like 10 degrees!”
Wrapping his arms around her waist, he rubbed his hands up and down her back. “Now you’re warm.”
The ice cream was delicious, which made up for the cold almost numbing her tongue. They walked along Liangma River, which ran just outside the heart of the city, and watched the lights flicker in the otherwise inky black water. Their clasped hands were sticky from the ice cream that had dripped off the cones. Couples and groups passed by them on the boardwalk, all too consumed by themselves to notice their leaders taking a stroll. Or maybe they were being filmed right now, posed to be the front cover of tomorrow’s newsfeeds. Cinder found that she didn’t care that much either way.
“Okay, I’ve gone along with everything. Now tell me—what’s this for?” she probed.
He squeezed her fingers tighter. “Can’t I just take you for a nice evening?”
“Well then, thank you.”
But he shook his head. “No, you’re right. I may have had a motive. I wanted to celebrate the completion of your report.”
She frowned. “But you already did that. With Ugly-Bear.”
No, tragically, Cinder had not pawned off Ugly-Bear to Thorne. Miso had taken a liking to it, and Cinder felt guilty about discarding a present from Kai, even an ironic one. Besides, Miso’s ‘affection’ meant Ugly-Bear had already lost its tail, claws and one eye, now resembling more of a strange cat with dental problems than an eldritch creature of horror.
He guffawed. “That was a joke, love!”
“Not entirely. I figured out your little scheme, by the way.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You gave me that knowing it would distract me with its awfulness, preventing me from getting too caught up in overthinking my report.” She crossed her arms over her chest, smug.
His nose wrinkled, confirming that she had accurately deduced his plan.
To be truthful, she confessed, “I didn’t realise until Jensen made a vague comment about it, though.” A pause, then: “Would you be okay with us being friends with him again someday?”
His too-quick shrug failed to feign nonchalance. “Sure. I mean, once he’s married with two kids and isn’t making eyes at you—then by all means.”
Ah. Here was the possessiveness she had been expecting. She buried her grin in the collar of her coat.
He gave a little huff of defeat. “Well, you were going to figure it out eventually. You always get way too in your head with the wording on reports.”
“I want it to be perfect,” she defended.
They reached the end of the boardwalk. He pulled her close by the lapels of her coat, his eyelashes glinting almost golden under the street lamp overhead. “I know you do, and you work so hard. But it doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be ‘the perfect woman,’” he sang, voice unsteady with his chuckles.
“Oh, so you don’t think I’m perfect?” she challenged, batting his arm.
“No,” he said plainly, but not unkindly. “You’re messy. You never pick up your clothes off the floor. You’ve got quite the temper”—a pointed look—“and your cooking isn’t the best.”
“Excuse me! You almost started a grease fire two days ago!”
“Which I saved,” he corrected, sticking his nose up in the air, “unlike the pasta you put four tablespoons of salt into. Tablespoons.”
“I will throw you in this river.”
Seizing her hands and caging them so her attempts would be fruitless, he continued. “But, in spite of your imperfections, you are the perfect woman. For me.” He whispered the last word, punctuating it with a kiss on her nose.
And at the end of the day, that’s what she wanted to be.
Pulling his lips to hers, she revelled in the feeling of being loved unapologetically. Of embracing it. Yes, she would receive that from strangers as well as friends. Iko. Thorne. Khine. Obsessed fans online. People whom she had inspired. Perhaps now she understood that better than before. And yet, there was still no one else she wanted it from more than him.
When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers, lingering close. His hot breath tickled her cheeks, the sensation warming her whole body even with icy wind beginning to whip around them.
“I love you a lot, you know,” she whispered.
“I’d hoped so.”
“I think you’re probably the best thing to happen in my life.” Because she couldn’t imagine being a princess, a queen, an empress—any of it—without the strength he imparted to her. But she would happily give those things up if it meant she could keep him forever.
And because he just had to one-up her, he said, not for the first time, “I think you’re the best thing to happen to this world.”
And tomorrow she’d berate him for it and roll her eyes. But right now, bound up in his arms, she’d let herself believe him.
Notes
Having a friend confess to you is not fun, would not recommend 🫠
Thank you to everyone who suggested a name for Kaider's dog! There were some really good ones but I just had to go with @cyborgcourt's suggestion of Miso. It's just so cute!!
Btw in the comms, HIM means His Imperial Majesty, im not just randomly yelling HIM lol.
@grungybooklover @cindersassasin @hayleblackburn @spherical-empirical @just2bubbly @gingerale2017 @slmkaider @luna-maximoff-22 @kaixiety @cyborgcourt @therealkaidertrash21 @cinderswirecutters @winterrhayle let me know if you'd like to be added!
