Cinder & the Prince of Midnight

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Cinder wandered for hours, trying to find her way out of the forest of shadows. She’d sometimes hear the hounds barking or men shouting excitedly. Sometimes, she heard screams. Horrible, wretched screams.

But she stayed hidden and kept moving, knowing that eventually, she’d find the edge of the forest. When the tree shadows finally thinned and she began to hear the lowing of livestock, she almost cried in relief.

She stumbled out of the forest, feeling like she’d just clawed her way back from the dead.

By the time Cinder limped back to her house, the sky was beginning to glow red from the sunrise. Her knees were skinned and bleeding. Her dress was in tattered ruins. Her hair was so tangled that she thought she might have to cut it off.

Cinder cried when she saw her house. Big, heaving sobs as she watched the sun rise over her once-happy home.

She stood by the haystacks, a field away from the edge of the woods. That forest used to be an enchanted place of make-believe in her earlier years. The years when her papa had kept the darkness of the rest of the kingdom away from her life.

But things had changed. The forest was now a terrifying place full of nightmares and monsters. The home she had dearly loved was dominated by a woman who sold her to the hunt for shopping money.

Cinder wanted to run away and never come back. She wanted her father back. And she wanted to be the girl she once was before she left an unconscious man bleeding in the dark forest.

Cinder sat and cried for a long time, wishing for a different life. But eventually, she came to the conclusion she always did. There was nowhere else to go. The only way out of the Kingdom of Midnight was through the forest. Only a few knew the way out, and they weren’t allowed to talk about it without permission of the Dark King himself.

Even if she knew how to leave the kingdom, she had no one else to go to other than her stepmother.

When Cinder limped into the house through the kitchen door, there was fresh bread and milk on the table. That was unusual.

The scent of freshly baked bread wafted to her nose. On any other day, she would have gobbled up the treat. But today, she didn’t think she could stomach it. All she wanted was to sleep for a week.

She walked like an old woman up the stairs to her tiny attic room. It was too early for anyone to be up, so she wasn’t surprised that she didn’t see anybody.

When she got to her room, she stopped. There was a dress on the bed. It was mended and colorless, but it would replace the one she was holding together against her chest.

Helene had known what would happen.

She knew that if Cinder survived the night, her dress would be ruined. Helene knew all the horrible things that could happen to Cinder in the forest at night with those horrible men who were supposed to be heroes on their steeds.

She would have wept some more if she hadn’t been so drained. Instead, she shoved the dress to the floor and slept like the dead.

The next day was an unexpectedly easy day for Cinder. She couldn’t remember Helene leaving her alone for a full day before. She saw her, of course, and she still had her usual chores to do, but her stepmother didn’t speak to her and wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Helene had also refused to look at Cinder yesterday when she had dropped her off at the hunt and taken a bag of coins in exchange. The woman had simply turned her back and walked away while Cinder begged her not to leave her there.

Cinder didn’t know exactly what would happen, but she had heard whispers of the hunt. Everyone knew about it, even if no one talked about it in polite society. But today was different. Today, everywhere she turned, someone was talking about the hunt.

Cinder walked through the open stalls of the market, trying not to look at anyone. It was a shameful thing to be one of the people in the hunt. Even the little ones sometimes threw rocks at those survivors. And now, Cinder was one of them.

“Did you hear? A girl killed a hunter last night.”

She looked up. Two merchants spoke in a normal tone of voice, which was unusual when it came to the hunt.

“I did hear. But I heard it was a wild fairy who mauled him.”

The first merchant lowered his voice. “That was just a story the man’s family put out to try to stem the embarrassment.”

“But the body was mauled, wasn’t it? I heard his arm was chewed off.”

The first merchant raised his eyebrows. “Some say it was the girl.” He nodded knowingly.

“The girl?” The second merchant’s eyes were huge. There was a spark of excitement. He swept his eyes through the crowd in the market as if he was imagining meeting that very girl right here.

Cinder turned away before he could see the guilt in her face.

She walked over to the flower stall. Her stepmother liked fresh flowers in the house whenever she had guests over. The stall was full of bright colors that smelled of honey and summer.

Her stepsisters, who unfortunately had come with her today, were whispering about the man who had been murdered. Tammy said he had been ambushed by a gang of girls in the woods. But Darlene said it was a pack of wolfkin led by a girl. The story seemed to get bigger by the minute.

“It’s about time,” said Silver the flower grower.

The flower vendor had silver hair like her name, and her stall was the only one in the market that sold flowers, the rarest of commodities in the land. Some said it almost took magic to grow them in the kingdom since the Dark King took over.

“What’s about time?” asked Tammy.

“That one of those girls stood up to those horrible men.” Silver clipped hard with her grandmother hands. She arranged flowers beside her granddaughter, Ruby, who clipped the needle-sharp thorns off long-stemmed roses.

Anyone could sign up for the hunt. The hunters paid for “volunteers” to be hunted. Desperately poor people sometimes signed up for the money, but more often, people signed up someone else they had control over. The hunters paid more for girls, so there tended to be more of them.

“They’re just disreputable girls,” said Tammy. “It’s their lot in life to serve.”

Cinder wondered if her stepsisters knew that their mother had sold Cinder into being one of those disreputable girls.

“Yes,” said Darlene. “The lords get their natural aggression out of the way with them so they can be perfectly gentlemanly to us ladies.”

“Ooh.” Tammy held up an orchid. “I should like this one. It matches my dress.”

“That one’s not for sale,” said Silver.

Tammy looked perplexed. “Why would a flower peddler not have one of her flowers for sale?”

“This one’s for sale, though.” Silver picked up an especially thorny rose and thrust it at Tammy. “It’ll go lovely with your disposition.”

Tammy raised herself to her full height and looked down her nose at Silver. “You are an obnoxious, offensive woman. I’m going to tell Mama to never give you another coin again.”

She turned and huffed off. Darlene snickered as she followed her sister.

Silver sighed as she put down the thorny rose. She gave Cinder a hard look. Ruby, who was a couple of winters younger than Cinder, looked up and gave Cinder a shy smile.

“Here, child,” said Silver. “You look like you could use this to brighten your day.” She handed Cinder the orchid.

Cinder shook her head. “I don’t have any money.”

“I didn’t ask for money. I told your nasty stepsister that it wasn’t for sale, and it isn’t. It’s a gift.”

Cinder took the orchid. “Thank you.” Her voice trembled. “It’s been a long time since someone has been kind to me.”

“Quit feeling sorry for yourself. It does not become you. You are a strong girl, just as your father was a strong boy. He made something of himself from nothing. None of us had anything during the war or after. But your father, he was both clever and strong. You have his blood running through your veins. Be proud of it.”

Cinder tried not to let her lips quiver over the kind words. “I miss him.”

Silver sighed. “When I was your age, I was already fighting in the war with both knife and sword. You think you have it tough? I’ll tell you who has it tough. The girl who killed that lord during the hunt, that’s who. She was probably only a slip of a girl with no choice but to defend herself. You could learn a thing or two from her.”

Silver turned and began clipping her flowers as if she was still fighting the war and the flowers were her enemy.