Echoed Lullabies (Lunar Chronicles x Reader)

Chapter 104

I moved to sprint forward, eyes locked on Aimery, but Cinder held onto my elbow.

"No," she said out of the corner of her mouth. "I need you here with me. By my side."

I hesitated only for a moment before tearing my gaze away from the thaumaturge. Then I nodded.

The army was surging forward, the civilians pooling through the open gates while the soldiers ran for the fence, scaling to the top and hurling themselves into the gardens on the other side.

The queen did not flinch. Her thaumaturges did not stir.

They had reached the base of the marble steps when Levana raised her hand. Her thaumaturges closed their eyes.

It was a moment of contrasts.

The mutant soldiers, their first line of attack, fell as one. Their enormous bodies crumpled to the ground like forgotten toys, and a hundred men howled from what pain I could only imagine. I had heard such inhuman noises only once, when Cinder had tortured Thaumaturge Sybil Mira—driving her to insanity.

A lump formed in the back of my throat, and I willed myself not to let my eyes sweep up and down the road in a panic to look for Isaac.

The civilians whose minds were protected by Cinder and those who were strongest with their gift pushed forward, heaving themselves over the wolf soldiers as well as they could. But the others began to stumble and halt as the queen claimed them. Many collapsed, their weapons thudding to the ground. Those under Cinder's control swarmed around them and over them, tripping over fallen bodies, charging forward with weapons raised.

The thaumaturges, I realized, mentally coaxing them toward the distinctive red and black coats. Every dead thaumaturge would equal a dozen soldiers or citizens returned to their side.

But the rush of civilians was met with resistance as the queen's palace guards formed a wall, dividing the queen and her entourage from the attackers who barreled toward them.

They crashed into one another like a river into a dam. Steel rang. Wooden spears thumped and splintered. Cries of war and pain reverberated down the streets.

Cinder groaned and fell to one knee, and as I took a step forward in order to aid her, my foot froze.

Horror doused me from head to toe, like a bucket of ice water poured down my back.

Cinder's cyborg brain was broken. And if it was broken, that meant she could no longer resist being controlled herself and that meant...

That meant that none of us were protected anymore.

That meant that none of us could protect her anymore.

The battle ended before it had truly begun.

The screams of the soldiers dwindled into whimpers and groans of the dying. Even from that brief collision, the iron smell of blood tainted the air.

Please let Isaac be okay, I found myself praying. Please.

Levana started to laugh. Delighted and shrill, the sound was as painful to listen to as the screams of a hundred warriors.

"What is this?" said the queen, clapping her hands together. "Why, I had been looking forward to a battle of skill, young princess. But it seems you will not put up the fight I'd been expecting." She laughed again. Raising a hand, she stroked her fingernails through Wolf's hair, a gesture that was both endearing and possessive.

"There is an easy treat for you, my pet. Already caught in a snare."

He growled, his enlarged teeth flashing as he prowled down the steps. The guards parted for him and he stepped over the collapsed citizens as if he didn't even see them.