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When Cinder awoke it was to fire a flames, the smell of ash and sulphur filling the air. She sat in her throne in the Lunar Castle as the throne room burned around her. She watched as the woman with auburn hair dropped a match onto her lap, all she could do was watch as Levana kept her rooted in place on her throne. Her aunt’s lips quirked up into a smirk as she watched Cinder try to break from her control, mentally wreathing and screaming.
“ You were so persistent in claiming the throne,” Levana said “ it is only fit that it shall be your deathbed.”
The doors to the throne room opened and Cinder could only watch as her allies, her friends walked into the room. First Jacin and Winter followed by Cress and Wolf followed by Scarlet and Thorne and then by Kai and Iko, and the hatred that was in every one of their eyes burnt fiercer then the flames that engulfed her. She watched as they watched revealed a burning match and dropped at her feet, hoping for that little orange light at edge of her vision to flicker. It didnt.
Levana cackled and Cinder burned, stuck in the throne that so many had died to put her on, only for her to fail them. Both metal and skin melted away and warnings flashed across her vision. Searing pain crashed through Cinder’s body, wave after wave. She barely noticed as Kai stood before her, leaning as close as he could towards her and whispered
“I didn’t think anyone could possibly be worse than Levana, but somehow you completely destroyed Lunar.” and for a moment, just a slim moment the pain stoped as Cinder stared into brown eyes. Eyes that used to look at her with love but now, now they were full of disgust and hatred and something inside Cinder broke. Again the pain crashed into her metal limbs burning, engulfing the skin that meet them.
And as Cinder felt her metal limbs completely melt away from her body, her vision darkened and turned to black before Cinder finally awoke in a bed in the Eastern Commonwealth palace. More specific the emperors bed, Kai’s bed. Kai sat beside her, rubbing circles into her back and whispering comforting words. She sunk her head into her hands, resting her elbows on her knees. Kai moved closer towards her, his legs brushing against hers. His leg brushed up against where her metal leg meet with her actual skin and Cinder jolted away from him. The next thing she knew, Cinder was off the bed and pacing around the room. Kai sat at the end of the bed, eyes following her as she paced.
“Cinder,” Kai sighed before he stood and reached for her. Gently grabbing onto her right wrist and she froze, his cool hand soothing her burning skin. When he realised that she wasn’t going to flinch away from him, he let his hand move down her wrist and intertwine with her fingers and he pulled her onto the floor.
“What was it?” He asked, his thumb brushing soothing circles across the back of her hand.
Cinder opened her mouth, but the taste of soot and smoke crammed down her lungs and all she managed was a small gag before shaking her head and letting it fall into Kia’s shoulder. Kia played her body into his, shifting so that he could rest his back against the bed and ever so carefully hugged her, being careful not to touch the places where skin met metal. But for the first time, Cinder didn’t mind such caution around her cyborg parts, because for once it wasn’t because of malice or disgust, but love and care, and when Cinder did shift within his embrace, and her cyborg leg brushed against his, she did not coil away, and neither did he.