Cinder & the Prince of Midnight

by Susan Ee

  She was taunting him and they both knew it. The boy was uncomfortable, maybe even afraid to be out here in the darkening night alone. It was no wonder. Cinder didn’t feel safe here alone either, even though she ran this road every night.

  “Let me catch my breath for a few steps, and then I’ll run with you,” he said. “How far is it to town?”

  “Not far. Will your…friends…be there waiting for you?”

  “Not likely. They’re my brothers.”

  “Oh. I have stepsisters who behave a lot like that.”

  “Then we are two of a kind.”

  “How do you handle it?” she asked. “The anger, I mean. It’s all so unfair.”

  He nodded. “I beat them at their own game. At least, I try to. And you?”

  “I suppose I could try to do that if I knew what the game was. But as far as I can tell, they make up the rules as they go along.”

  “What about your father?” he asked. “Does he set the rules?”

  Cinder listened to the crunching sound of their feet as they walked along the dirt road.

  “My father passed away a long time ago.”

  She expected him to say he was sorry to hear it, but he said no such thing.

  Now, it was his turn to be quiet. The frogs and crickets filled the night and the sky was filled with stars.

  “Either my brothers will kill my father, or he will kill them.”

  She looked over at him. He had a noble profile, with a firm jaw and straight nose. When her papa had been alive, he used to tell Cinder stories of noble men doing noble deeds. But these days, there seemed to be more and more stories of murder and mayhem from the nobility.

  Silver said the kingdom had taken on a dark taint when the Wild Wars took a turn for the worse. She never said the war was lost, even though everyone knew that the last war ended when the Dark King killed the Fairy Queen and began enslaving wild fairies. It was as if for Silver, the war continued, although very slowly.

  Cinder walked a little farther away from the boy, ready to defend herself if necessary. She was sure she could take him in a fair fight since he was so close to her size and age, unlike the hunters.

  The boy noticed. “Don’t worry. I’ve had enough violence for one night.”

  “So you won’t kill me?”

  “I’m not like that, not like my brothers.”

  “Oh.”

  They walked in silence for a while. They should have been running to get home faster, but she was content to keep walking. Apparently, so was he.

  “Why are you here alone at night?” he asked. “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “I am,” she said.

  “Then why?”

  “I have no choice.”

  That seemed enough for him. Maybe like her, he was someone who was used to no choices. That made her a little sad for him.

  “Do you like flowers?” she asked.

  He wrinkled his nose. “Why would you ask me if I liked flowers? Do I look like a puffed-up lady who is out to catch a man?”

  She frowned. “Not all ladies are like that.”

  “Name one.”

  “Well…” She didn’t know any ladies other than her stepmother, who wasn’t really highborn, although she liked to pretend.

  “See?”

  “Just because I can’t name any ladies doesn’t mean all of them are as you say.”

  “Well, I can name dozens of ladies and they’re all like that.”

  “How sad for you.”

  “Why? They’re mostly out to catch my oldest brother or my father’s attention. They generally ignore me.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not important enough. Ladies like men with power and fortune.”

  “Sounds terrible.”

  “It is. But not to worry. I’ll find my power and fortune one day, and then they’ll all flock to me.”

  “Why would you want them to? You just said you didn’t like them.”

  “So I can reject them, of course, and let them know how much I don’t want them.”

  She gave him a sideways glance. He smiled at her, looking proud of his own humor.

  Cinder rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Are you ready to run now?”

  She started to trot away before he answered. It was getting late and she didn’t have time to dawdle much longer.

  The boy picked up his speed and kept up. He was quite an athlete, actually. Most people who dressed in fancy clothes like him barely ever walked anywhere, much less run.

  She smiled a challenge at him and picked up her pace. He kept up.

  She ran a little faster. He passed her.

  She raced past him.

  He raced past her.

  Before she knew it, they were laughing. She ran as fast as she could on the sticky road, splashing mud all over herself.

  Soon, they ran so fast that they didn’t have enough breath to laugh. He was quite agile. They hopped over puddles, raced around stones, slipped and fell, but then got up without much fuss and raced some more.

  By the time they reached the village, they were both mud-covered and out of breath.

  Cinder smiled broadly at him while she huffed. He smiled back, looking equally delighted.

  It was fun to race him. She couldn’t remember the last time she had played with someone like that. It must have been before Papa died.

  She made a face and wiped the mud caked on her leg. He did the same and then splashed her with it.

  She squealed and laughed, flinging her mud back at him.

  Chapter 7

  People peered out from their shuttered windows and closed doorways. It was rare to hear laughter other than the cackling laugh of a madman. This was the melodic laugh of a girl and a boy, both obviously having fun.

  Several people frowned, vaguely remembering times when laughing used to be a daily occurrence. Long before the Dark King took the land, long before the wars.

  They saw two people who were nearly the size of adults but who behaved like children. They flung mud at each other and apparently thought that was either funny or fun. Most of the residents couldn’t remember the difference between the two, and that annoyed them.

  After watching them for a minute, they shuttered their windows and shut their doors, mumbling about how strange things got when the moon grew full. It was best to mind one’s own business during those times, as in all times.

  But there were a few people hidden amongst the many windows who secretly smiled at the sound of laughter. Laughing at night, of all things. It was like the old days when night or day, life was lived. Unlike now, when darkness brought the end of all things light.

  Most of those who secretly smiled had silver in their hair and rebellion in their hearts. They remembered the way things used to be before the Wild Wars.

  They wished the two young people the best and secretly promised themselves that they would be brave enough to help them should the time ever arose. And they knew it would. Trouble always came to those who laughed in public.

  “What have we here?”

  The boy who walked toward them was big, bigger than he had looked on his horse when Cinder first saw him on the road.

  “Is that you laughing, Dante?” The second boy walked over to them.

  The boy Cinder had been laughing with suddenly sobered and looked at the boys with embarrassment.

  “Let’s go home.” The muddy boy—whose name was apparently Dante—strode off toward the bigger boys without a backward glance.

  “Don’t you want to take your little girlfriend?” asked the biggest boy.

  “Come on, Damon,” said the third boy to the bigger one. “Let’s go. It’s late and they might realize we’re missing.”

  “Who won?” asked Dante as he strode toward the three horses.

  “Fine, let’s go.” Damon turned and strode toward the horses. “I’m tired of the stench of commoners.”

  “Ha!” Dante clapped his hands. “Gallant won. I knew he would.”

  �
��Since when did you and Gallant band together as allies?”

  “Since you started using your whip,” said Gallant as he mounted his horse. He looked at Cinder then. His eyes took her in under the moonlight.

  Cinder was used to being invisible. She had to admit, though—it stung that the boy she had been laughing with only a moment ago acted as if she didn’t even exist now that his brothers were here.

  And this boy Gallant made her far too self-aware. He saw her. She could tell by the way he watched her. He took in the mud on her dress, her riot of curls, her running shoes made of leather that surely cost more than she could afford.

  He didn’t comment and didn’t look particularly curious. He just saw her, which was more than the other boys or anybody else did, other than Silver.

  Then he turned his horse to go, and the other two boys followed.

  Dante was the last of the group to leave. He glanced back at her. It was a quick glance with some apology to it, but Cinder couldn’t help but notice that he only did it when he was sure his brothers wouldn’t see it. That stung too, even though it shouldn’t have. Everyone knew that nobles didn’t make friends with servants.

  The three boys raced into the dark to wherever their estate was, and the night quickly swallowed them.

  Cinder couldn’t tell by their direction which house they came from. Although Cinder had lived in Midnight all her life, there were too many noble houses around the castle to know what all the nobles looked like. They often hid their faces in public behind curtained carriages and a dozen guards. Besides, she had never been one to memorize the names and faces of the hundreds of noblemen and their families the way her stepmother and sisters were always doing.

  Her stepfamily lived off the dream of making good matches for her girls, so it was part of their daily occupation to study the social hierarchy of the eligible bachelors. Cinder, on the other hand, had no such delusions. And so she simply had never cared about the nobles.

  For the first time, she wished that she knew just a little about them. She would have liked to know which family those boys came from. Not that it mattered. She’d never see any of them again, of course.

  Still, her curious mind churned on it. She walked the rest of the way home thinking about the boys. If Dante had been a servant like herself, would they have been friends? What had the middle boy, Gallant, seen when he looked at her? A muddy peasant who’d dared to laugh with his brother?

  This whole thing was silly. Wealthy noblemen and their spawn were always causing a ruckus in town, doing whatever they felt like to whoever they felt like. She was lucky not to be running from a spontaneous hunt tonight.

  Boys like them had no one and nothing to be beholden to other than their fathers and their king. And everyone knew that the king believed that fear was a good emotion to instill in his subjects.

  She crawled into bed that night, too exhausted to do anything other than to halfheartedly wipe the worst of the mud off herself. The last thing she thought of before she fell asleep was what it felt like to run with Dante and laugh through the night.

  Chapter 8

  The night of the full moon came much faster than Cinder had hoped. It was the fastest month she had ever experienced, and every day felt like torture knowing that she couldn’t slow the time until the hunt.

  On the week of the hunt, Silver refused to let her train with her knife.

  “You sound just like my granddaughter Ruby. Always impatient, always wanting to jump three steps ahead. It takes more training than you have time for to be decent with a knife. Besides, knives are a luxury that I hope you’ll always have, but you can never count on that.”

  “So what do I fight with?”

  “Weapons. Anything you can get your hands on.”

  “But your knife is the only one I have.”

  But that wasn’t true, Cinder realized. She had kitchen knives that she might be able to hide in her skirt.

  “Look around you. Everything you see is a weapon.” Silver took off her reed sunhat and showed it to Cinder. “Even this can be a weapon. You can take the edge of the brim and slice it into your attacker’s eyes.”

  She made a quick, brutal motion with the brim.

  Cinder shut her eyes, cringing away from the hat.

  “It won’t debilitate someone, but it’ll give you a moment’s advantage. It’ll put your attacker on the defensive. Understand?”

  Cinder nodded.

  “Whether you slice his eyes with the brim or not, he’ll back up to defend himself. That’s a moment when you have your opening.”

  She jabbed her fingers toward Cinder’s throat. “He’ll be defenseless against other attacks.”

  She kicked toward Cinder’s knees and whipped her sharp elbow at her face.

  Cinder backed away, but Silver never meant to hit her. She pulled back at the last second.

  “Look around you,” said Silver. “What else can you use to defend yourself?”

  The cottage was full of flowers, utensils, bowls, clippers. Silver picked up a rose.

  “Even if all you have is a flower, how can you use that to your advantage?”

  Cinder took a fresh look at the flowers. “I can stab the attacker’s eyes with the bottom of the stem as if it was a stick.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “I can use the thorns.”

  “How?”

  “I can whip the thorns against his eyes or face.”

  “What else?”

  Cinder couldn’t think of anything else. She half grinned. “I could a lie and tell him it’s poisonous and that it will kill him in a horrible way.”

  “Exactly right. His body isn’t the only thing you can attack. The hunters have the advantage not only because they are stronger and faster on their horses. They have the advantage because the girls think they’ve lost before they even begin.”

  But they have, haven’t they? Cinder didn’t ask this out loud. She knew better than to contradict Silver.

  “Turn the conviction around. Let them believe they are superior until you’re ready to surprise them. Then pound them down in both body and mind. Only a small show of force may be required to beat down your enemy. Nature does it all the time. Many animals don’t get hurt beyond some scratches when they fight for a mate. It’s mostly about show.”

  Silver raised her arms. “So be a show woman. Convince them that you are more powerful and larger than you seem. A story of a poisonous flower with deadly thorns is a great example of being larger than you are. Understand?”

  Cinder nodded. “I convince them that they are weaker than me. That I somehow have power over them.”

  “And if you are very convincing and very lucky, you might survive the night this full moon.”

  Cinder swallowed. It was easier to think of all this training as being just for fun. But the days were speeding by, and soon one of these techniques would have to save her life.

  “I’d feel better if I had a knife,” she said. “A fast-acting poisoned knife.”

  Silver shook her head. “Poison should be used only in desperate times.”

  “This is a desperate time.”

  “A hunter would kill you before the poison killed him. Better to rely on yourself.”

  Silver led her outside. “Find as many things as you can that will help you in a fight. But don’t move your feet. You must be rooted to your place and can only grab things that are within reach without lifting your feet.”

  Silver stepped back and watched.

  Cinder stood in the middle of the yard. There was nothing but dirt and grass within reach.

  “There isn’t even a rock, Silver. What am I to do?”

  “Concentrate on what is there instead of what isn’t.”

  “I’m supposed to fight with nothing but dirt?”

  “If you must. How can you use dirt?”

  Cinder sighed. She wished she could spend her precious time training with the knife.

  “During the time you sighed, you could have had
your throat sliced by a hunter. Concentrate, girl. Or else you will not have a chance.”

  Cinder leaned over to grab a handful of dirt. “I could shove it in his mouth?”

  “What else?”

  “Smear it in his eyes?” There wasn’t much conviction in her voice. The hunters would have at least a knife, while all she had to fight with was dirt.

  “What else?”

  “Make a mud pie and offer it to him?”

  Silver bent over and picked up dirt in her hand. Without warning, she threw it at Cinder’s eyes.

  Cinder jumped back and shut her eyes, turning away to try to protect herself. “Stop!”

  Anger bubbled up in Cinder. It was bad enough that she had to put up with her stepmother’s abuse. She also had to face being a victim of the hunt. And now this?

  “You could have blinded me!”

  “Exactly.”

  Cinder blinked at Silver, wiping the dirt out of her face.

  “That would have blinded you at least temporarily if I had meant for it to. Even dirt can be your ally. Now, don’t move your feet and try it again. What can you reach to use as a weapon?”

  This time, Cinder was in a different place and the things she could reach were a little different. There were rocks, branches, leaves with sharp needles at the edges. Then she realized that she had fabric on her body. Buttons, laces, strips of cloth that she could use to choke someone.

  “That’s it.” Silver’s eyes sparkled. “Now you’re seeing it.”

  Chapter 9

  It was the day of the hunt.

  Cinder was so scared that she could barely eat. But she ate everything she could get her hands on. It wasn’t much. Just scraps from her stepfamily’s table and leftover bread from the day before. But it would be enough.

  She nearly gagged when her sour stomach tried to refuse the food, but she had to eat. She had to be strong tomorrow.

  Her stepmother, in all her generosity, or perhaps guilt, allowed her to ignore her chores for the day. Cinder wanted to go to Silver’s cottage to practice, but Silver had told her not to come that day.