Echoed Lullabies (Lunar Chronicles x Reader)

Chapter 88

I winced as the towel brushed over the bandage on my chest. While most of my wounds had been healed, there were still a few spots that still required coverage.

One being the A beneath my collarbone.

I finished drying the rest of my skin and changed into the spare clothes Cinder had found in the closet. They were as un-extravagant as she could find—shimmering shorts the color of champagne and a sequined tank top. Lunars didn't exactly understand the concept of...subtlety.

Thorne had briefly updated me on everything that had happened. The uprisings in the outer sectors, Scarlet and Winter separating to find reinforcements, Cinder and Wolf getting captured. Apparently Cinder had escaped somehow, and with the others' help found me and took me with them to an abandoned Lunar mansion, where they had tended to my wounds.

I don't know how long Thorne and I spent wrapped in each other's arms in the guest room. I had tried my best to tell him what had happened, but I broke down repeatedly. He didn't seem to care, though. Each time he'd wipe my eyes and murmur words of reassurance into my ear. He was so...accepting. So soothing. So different from his usual charm and swagger.

I grit my teeth as I drank in my appearance in the mirror. I had lost a considerable amount of weight from the time spent in Aimery's quarters without eating. My lips were thin and bitten. There were shadows beneath my eyes.

But there was a fire behind my (e/c) irises, especially when they once again strayed to the bandage on my chest. If Aimery thought he was able to claim me, he was wrong. I was not and never would be anyone's property.

A muscle in my jaw jumped when I thought of him and Isaac. The fact that he might have done to Isaac what he did to me. The fact that Isaac might be...

I angrily wiped away a tear that had collected in the corner of my eye.

They say there are five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Well, I'd like to add one more.

Revenge.

***

When I exited the bathroom, I spotted Cinder and followed her to the mansion's home theater, with enormous lounging chairs that each had a built-in beverage dispenser on its side. Thorne was standing beside a larger-than-life holograph depicting Levana.

"Jacin says they found my body?" Cinder said.

Thorne gave her a passing glance. "That's the word, corpse girl. You were dredged up from the lake last night. They even have this mannequin thing with a painted metal hand and they keep showing a grainy photo of it. Stay around a while—you'll see. It keeps looping with this speech from Levana. They have the most boring entertainment on this rock."

"What is she saying?"

Thorne's voice pitched high in imitation of the queen. "The impostor of my beloved niece is vanquished ... Let us put this messiness behind us while we go forward with the coronations ... I am a psychotic, power-hungry nut basket and my breath smells really bad under this veil."

Cinder snickered. "How long until the coronation?"

"Nine hours," said Iko.

Nine hours. We'd been in this mansion for an entire day and night and I had been a weeping mess for most of it.

"There's also the ticker..." Cress pointed to the holograph, where a list of sectors was trekking across the bottom, making a constant floating ring around Levana.

"That's the interesting part," said Thorne. "She's passed an edict that any sector found in violation of curfew or suspected of assisting 'the impostor' will be barricaded, to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis after the coronation. Then she goes on some spiel about repentance and begging their queen for mercy."