Judging by the way that her friends looked, she wasn’t the only one.
They had not gone so far ahead that Sunset and the others — Jaune at least; Ruby might have been a little out of it — that they had not seen what Cinder had done. In Sunset’s case she had felt, for all that Pyrrha made a good point about her being in no shape to continue fighting, that it was improper for a leader to put too great a distance in headlong flight between herself and her teammate who yet battled on, and so she had hesitated just beyond danger, falling back as Pyrrha and Cinder fell back, never getting too far away from them, even as she never got too close to the grimm either.
As her magic had recovered, achingly slowly though it did so, Sunset had expended it upon the grimm, not that either of them appeared to have noticed.
In fairness to them, they had both been rather preoccupied.
And then … and then, as Sunset had been perfectly positioned to see, Cinder had done something that rendered the small assistance that Sunset had been rendering to shame, as the sun shames a candle by its brightness.
And as for Jaune, well, Cinder’s display had been so bright that even he couldn’t have missed it, and as they fell back, Cinder had been forced to call upon the flames more than once.
Because even after Cinder had done her thing for the first time — Sunset had a sinking feeling that she could put a name to that thing that she’d done, but she didn’t really want to, certainly not before she’d actually spoken to Cinder about it — they hadn’t been completely out of the woods, or out of the tunnel even. More mutant grimm had assailed them, not so many perhaps — they’d come in more manageable numbers afterwards — but they had come on nevertheless. The second wave, Cinder had dealt with as she had the first, but afterwards, perhaps because they had come in more manageable numbers or perhaps because — although she was definitely trying to hide it — her little display had taken a lot more out of her than she was prepared to admit, and she simply couldn’t put out power like that again — something that might actually bring more comfort than the idea that Cinder was essentially some kind of human equivalent to an alicorn — Cinder hadn’t dealt with them the way that she had so effectively dealt with the great horde and with the second wave that followed. So they had had to fight their way out, which they had done, but although they had managed it, and they were all still here, they were all feeling the strain as well. Jaune was carrying Ruby in his arms, cradling her small form even as she pouted at being treated that way, while even Pyrrha looked almost as ready to fall over as Sunset felt.
As they emerged from out of the tunnel, Jaune flopped down onto his knees even as he was still holding onto Ruby, while Pyrrha started using her spear as a rest to lean on. Cinder glanced at them, but didn’t say anything before she turned away and started to walk off into the forest.
The forest. Forever Fall forest. It took Sunset a moment to notice, distracted as she was by the fact that her legs felt as though they were about to give up on her, to realise where it was they had come out, but — once she was sure that she wasn’t going to collapse onto the ground in a heap — she beheld the crimson-gold leaves upon the trees, the way that they had fallen off the trees in sufficient numbers to carpet the ground while at the same time remaining on the trees as thick as ever. Having noticed that, it was impossible not to know where they were.
At least it was impossible not to know that they were in the Forever Fall; knowing where they were within that great forest, and thus where they were in relation to Beacon or anywhere else, was another matter altogether. Forever Fall crawled up the Kingdom of Vale like its heart, buttressing the mountains of the east then sprawling northwestwards towards the shore, cutting the city of Vale off from Cold Harbour and such northern ports, so that the north-south railway line spent as much time passing through the forest as it did not. Saying that they were in Forever Fall, therefore, was about as useful as saying that they were in the Kingdom of Vale: it was an indicator, but a very, very imprecise one.
Although the fact that they had reached any part of Forever Fall from Mountain Glenn suggested that they had passed beneath the southern limits of the mountain range that formed Vale’s eastern wall and emerged beyond them, since the forest did not extend south beyond the mountains to come closer to Mountain Glenn. No wonder they were all looking shattered, leaving aside having to fight off the mutated grimm along the way.
Fortunately for them, the forest seemed peaceful for the moment. However, this particular forest always seemed peaceful right up until the moment it was not. They couldn’t afford to assume that it would stay that way.
Still, for however long it lasted, it appeared that, for now, they had been granted a respite.
Sunset stood still for a moment, letting the sounds of birdsong in the trees wash over her, before she turned away from the scarlet forest and stepped over the railway tracks as she walked towards her team.
“Ruby, how are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” Ruby complained. “You didn’t have to carry me.”
“Your aura was broken; that’s not fine,” Sunset said. “Not to mention that landing. Seriously, how do you feel?”
Ruby rolled out of Jaune’s arms and landed on her feet. “I’m okay, Sunset, really. My aura’s recovered and it’s healed my injuries. I’m good to go.”
Sunset smirked. “That makes you probably the only member of this team who is.”
“I will be quite alright,” Pyrrha assured her. “I’d just appreciate a moment to catch my breath. Where did Cinder go?”
“I’m not sure; I’ll find out,” Sunset said.
“Sunset—”
“I can manage this,” Sunset said. “And her.”
Pyrrha’s expression was grave. “At this point, after what we’ve just seen, I’m not sure that any of us, or even all of us, can manage Cinder.”
Sunset’s mouth tightened. “That’s not quite what I meant.”
“What she did—”
“I know.”
“What she is—”
“I know,” Sunset said. “That’s why … I think it’s important that we walk softly for now. Plus, she did save our lives.” She leaned forwards. “I know you’re worried, and I won’t even say you’re wrong to be worried, but leave this to me, okay? And while I’m gone, you see if you can get back in touch with Beacon. We could do with a lift home.”
“You want to go?” Ruby asked, sounding disappointed not just in Sunset’s decision but also, in a small way, with Sunset as well. “But we haven’t found any of the answers we came looking for yet.”
Sunset took a deep breath. “And that is … a little disappointing, but we know enough that Ozpin can send another team out here to do a recon—”
“But we’re right here,” Ruby said.
“And we almost got our asses kicked,” Sunset said. “Sometimes … sometimes, coming back alive is the win.”
“We are still alive,” Ruby said, “and we can keep going. Who else is Professor Ozpin going to send? You know that there’s no one else.”
“Four years of students, there must be someone!” Sunset snapped. “Or what hope is there for the future of Vale? Where are the third- and fourth-years? Let them get out here and earn their stripes; if they’ve done half of what we’ve already done in one year, I’ll be…” Sunset trailed off for a moment. “There must be someone else.”
“But how long will it take to get them ready and out here?” Ruby asked.
“I don’t know, days at most,” Sunset replied. “It can afford to wait that long.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Ruby said. “But we’re here now. We’re still here, and we’re all going to be okay, and we can still do this.”
“We aren’t the only ones who can do this,” Sunset said.
“Maybe not, but we are the best ones who can,” Ruby insisted. “You think that Cinder would have worked with any other team from Beacon?”
Sunset stared into Ruby’s silver eyes, but then looked away. Ruby had a point, even if that point was dramatically mitigated against by the general state of the team at this present moment. She took a step back. “Jaune, Pyrrha? How do you feel?”
“I think,” Pyrrha murmured. “I think that this discussion is irrelevant. If we can’t make contact with Beacon, then it doesn’t matter because there is no evacuation coming for us, and if we do, then Professor Ozpin will make the decision on whether or not to continue our mission, and our own opinions will be of secondary consideration, if that. We should focus on seeing if we can get in touch.”
Sunset nodded. “You make a lot of sense.” Not least when it comes to preventing an argument. “See what you can do; I’m going to find Cinder.”
That wasn’t actually that difficult. They were presently trapped, or enclosed within a stone basin, hemmed in by rocky outcrops that grew out of the mountainside from which they had just emerged. A pair of stone gates, the works of some ancient civilisation, barred their way. The train tracks progressed on through what might once have been an archway — or possibly a third ancient gate — but they had now been buried beneath a pile of rocky rubble that rose so high and so steeply that the chances of them being able to climb it seemed negligible to say the least.
Someone really doesn’t want us to reach the other end of those tracks.
I should concentrate on Cinder for the moment.
The advantage of being within a stone basin as they were was that there weren’t a lot of places Cinder could actually go: Sunset just had to follow the rough direction that Cinder had gone to find a more secluded part of the basin, where the cliffs receded to form a small alcove out of sight. It was also a place where water was streaming out of a crack in the rock, forming an exceedingly modest pool that turned into an even more modest stream running away through the long red grass.
Sunset found Cinder kneeling by that little pool, splashing water onto her face with both hands, heedless of the fact that her sleeves and, indeed, the front of her dress were getting soaked in the process. Now that Sunset had a chance to look at her, she could see that Cinder looked worse than any of her friends: she looked as though she was about to pass out, so pale and drawn looked she. When she stopped splashing her face, it was to bend down to the pool and gulp greedily of the water seeping out of the rock.
I’m not at all sure how clean that is.
“Cinder?” Sunset asked.
Cinder’s head snapped around to glare at her, fire burning in her eyes as bright as the corona of flames that had surrounded her left eye in that cavern. The fire died when she saw who it was. “Sunset. It’s you. It’s just you.” She bowed her head and cupped some water into her hands before she drank from it.
I can see you weakened, but no one else can, is that it? But I can’t see you pressing your face to the water and drinking like a dog.
Sunset knelt down beside her. “Cinder—”
“Is Pyrrha afraid of me?” Cinder asked, her words coming slowly, as though they too were so weary that they struggled to walk out of her mouth. “I … think she might be.”
“Pyrrha…” Sunset frowned. “Pyrrha is apprehensive.”
Cinder paused for a moment. “I’m afraid I have misplaced my thesaurus, so you’ll have to explain whether you’re pointing out a difference or splitting hairs.”
“I … I think,” Sunset said. “I think that Pyrrha is too shocked at the moment to be frightened; she is wary of … of what you did. Wary of what you can do.”
“I see,” Cinder whispered. “You know, there’s a certain irony to the fact that I would have loved this, not too long ago. I would have delighted in having Pyrrha Nikos quiver in terror before me.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Sunset said.
Cinder glanced at her. “Yes, I would.”
“No,” Sunset repeated. “You wouldn’t.”
“Because you know me so well with that semblance of yours?”
“Because if you really wanted that, you would have broken out those abilities when you were fighting her,” Sunset pointed out.
Cinder was silent for a moment. When she spoke, it was with a certain huffiness in her voice, despite how tired she sounded. “Nobody likes a smartass, you know.”
“Yes,” Sunset said quietly. “I’m aware.”
Cinder closed her eyes for a moment. “I … you’re still not entirely correct, though. I wanted to defeat Mistral’s Champion with my own strength, my own two hands; that’s why I didn’t use … I wanted to defeat Pyrrha on her own battlefield. I wanted to show that I was stronger than her as I was … as I was born. But, even as I wanted to defeat Mistral’s Champion—”
“Apparently, that’s someone else now,” Sunset said idly. “Someone named Metella, the Mermaid Knight.”
“The one with the seashells?”
“You know her?”
“I think Phoebe has beaten her at least once,” Cinder declared incredulously. “She boasted about it, and then her mother told her that besting a fish was nothing at all to feel proud of. How in Remnant did she become the Champion?”
“She has a lot of heart, apparently.”
“That’s what people say when they can’t think of any real compliments,” Cinder pointed out.
Sunset shrugged. “And yet, nevertheless.”
“Indeed. Nevertheless,” Cinder murmured. “Nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless. Nevertheless, despite who may wear the crown at present, Pyrrha will always remain something … something special, in the eyes of her people. Something great, something tremendous, something … invincible. It was that which I wished to defeat, armed only with my native abilities. But … I must confess that another part of me would have relished frightening … another part of her.”
Sunset frowned. “'Another part'?”
“The Mistral princess with her head in the clouds,” Cinder said, “thinking that everything is going to work out because it always does for people like her.”
“Like you used to be?” Sunset asked.
Cinder tensed, and for a moment, Sunset feared that she had said the wrong thing. But eventually, Cinder nodded. “Yes. Like I used to be.” She splashed some more water on her face. “Do you … do you remember when we went for ice cream? We talked about the Immortal Man, and then … and then we met Phoebe on the street outside.”
“You were frozen,” Sunset murmured. “You looked … I didn’t understand it then, but … you’re still scared of her, aren’t you?”
“I am not afraid of anyone,” Cinder declared. “Not even death himself, but … seeing her … I felt like a child again, a helpless child, trembling before her. I hated it, but … but I couldn’t do anything except … except … I couldn’t do anything.”
“You didn’t need to,” Sunset said. “I took care of it.”
“Yes,” Cinder agreed. “Yes, you took care of it. For which I am truly grateful, even if my pride would not let me say so at the time. But my point is … Phoebe didn’t recognise me at all.”
“She probably thinks you died in the fire,” Sunset pointed out. “I think most people think that.”
Cinder shook her head. “I doubt she cares enough to think about what became of me, or cared enough to look at what I look like now. I haven’t dyed my hair, I don’t wear coloured lenses on my eyes, I … you could look at a picture of that stupid girl and look at me and guess that there was some connection between us, but Phoebe just didn’t care to. She doesn’t care, she has no need to care, she is … careless. That’s what they are, the Old Blood of Mistral: careless people.”
“Pyrrha’s not like that,” Sunset said. “Pyrrha’s kind. I thought like you did when I first met her, but I had her all wrong. You had her all wrong. At that party … if she had honestly known what your situation was, I truly believe that she would have tried to help you.”
Cinder was silent, and still for that matter. The only sound was the trickling of the water into the pool and the singing of a bird in a nearby tree. “Help me,” Cinder murmured. “I found … I found someone better to help me than Pyrrha Nikos.”
“Salem,” Sunset sighed. She watched as Cinder drank some more water from the pool. “So, which one are you?”
Cinder lifted her head up, a vaguely guilty look on her face. “Which what am I?”
“Maiden,” Sunset said. “I know magic when I see it, and I know that the four seasonal maidens are the only beings in this world with anything like the kind of powers that you just threw around, so which one are you? Winter, spring, summer—”
“Fall,” Cinder said, her voice subdued. “I’m the Fall Maiden.”
“Who…?” Sunset hesitated. She did not want to ask this question; she really didn’t want to ask. But at the same time, she had no real choice but to ask. “Who did you kill?”
Cinder looked at her.
“I’ve read enough to understand that’s how it works,” Sunset said softly. “You kill the previous Maiden to become the Maiden. So … who?”
“No one you know.”
“Cinder—”
“Why do you care?” Cinder said. “Does it really matter who she was?”
Sunset didn’t move, nor did she take her eyes off Cinder’s face.
“I … suppose it doesn’t, not really,” Sunset admitted. “But I … feel I ought to ask regardless of whether it really matters or not. I ought to ask or else … I’ll be a worse person than I already am.”
Cinder snorted. “You’re not a bad person, Sunset.”
“Ruby would disagree, if she knew.”
“Yes, well … Ruby,” Cinder murmured. “If you’re a bad person, then what does that make me?”
Sunset didn’t reply to that. She just kept her eyes on Cinder and held her peace. What answer could she possibly give, really? How was she supposed to respond to that?
What did Cinder want from her?
Cinder rocked back on her haunches and then sat back against a nearby tree. Her arms fell down listless by her sides, as though she no longer had the energy to move them.
“She was the previous Fall Maiden,” she said. “Obviously.”
“Did you know her?”
“Of course not,” Cinder said dismissively. “I wanted her power, so I killed her for it. I … I suppose the answer to my own question is that if you’re a bad person, then I must be a monster.”
Sunset said nothing.
Cinder glared at her. “What are you still doing here?”
“Does it bother you that I’m here?”
“It…” Cinder scowled. “I don’t get you, Sunset Shimmer. I thought that I did. I thought that you were like me.”
“More than I’d like.”
Cinder shook her head. “But you’re not. Not at all, not really. It may be that your system of morals is not up to the exacting standards of Ruby Rose, but at the same time … you may have enjoyed Mistral, but you didn’t really understand it, did you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you saw the tourist traps, guested in a grand old house, took in some of the great architecture, befriended Pyrrha, and skimmed The Mistraliad, and on that basis, you imagined that you understood Mistral, and you liked what you thought you understood. But Mistral is … Mistral is not architecture, Mistral is not museums or theatres or the sanitised Colosseum of the modern day, Mistral is certainly not Pyrrha Nikos — much though I will concede that, in skill at least, she embodies the martial qualities of our heroic past. But Mistral is not kind, Mistral is not sweet, Mistral is not adorable, Mistral is … Mistral is blood and violence. And that makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it? I know that … Emerald told me that the two of you bonded over how absurd you thought that Pyrrha and I were being.”
“You were being pretty ridiculous,” Sunset muttered. “This … all of this, it’s why Salem stepped in, isn’t it? She saved you because you’re the Fall Maiden, and she was worried that if you died then … the powers would have passed to Pyrrha.”
“Mmm,” Cinder murmured. “Something like that. A great missed opportunity for her, wouldn’t you say?”
Sunset didn’t respond to that. She wasn’t certain how she ought to respond to that. On the one hand, Cinder was absolutely right; it was a missed opportunity for Pyrrha to … to ascend, for want of a better word, to become … well, if she were going to ascend, then there was only one thing that she could become: an alicorn. Not literally, obviously, but that was the path that Sunset’s mind took; it could take no other road, for all that Maidens were not alicorns.
On the other hand … on the other hand, Maidens were not alicorns. If Pyrrha had triumphed over Cinder and taken her power, she would not have been renowned throughout the land: Pyrrha Nikos, Princess of … what? Victory? Battle? Love? Princess of Doing Silly Things to Get Your Confidence Back? No, that was a bit much for the common herd to cheer.
Anyway, the point was that that would not be Pyrrha’s fate, much as she might deserve it; instead, Pyrrha would … Pyrrha would live a life in hiding, knowing that if she emerged, she would be hunted for the rest of her days.
A missed opportunity … or a lucky escape?
“I … suppose that we don’t have as much in common as either of us originally thought,” Sunset admitted. “But … so what? It doesn’t change the fact that … I’m here because I want to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Your exhaustion might disagree,” Sunset said. “Do the Maiden powers take that much out of you? Or is it whatever Salem did to you to connect you to the grimm?”
Cinder’s eyes opened. “How … I suppose I wasn’t being very subtle about it, was I? Still, I’m a little surprised you considered it possible.”
“A lot of things are possible once you start to believe in magic,” Sunset said. “Does it … hurt?”
“Being part grimm or being a Maiden?”
“Both. Either.”
Cinder sighed. Her breast heaved up and down. “Take a drink of water.”
Sunset looked from Cinder to the pool and back again.
“Is it clean?” she asked.
Cinder smiled. “This is an enchanted forest, Sunset; how else do you explain the fact that it is always fall and never winter? How else do you explain the fact that the leaves are always falling but the trees are never bare? Some magic lies upon this place, and that same magic which holds the trees in this kind of stasis keeps the water clean and drinkable to all the creatures who dwell here.”
Sunset had never heard that. “Do you know that for sure?”
“No, but what else makes sense?” Cinder asked. “Just drink the water. Please. I have a point to make.”
Sunset snorted. “Well, if you have a point to make, then how can I refuse?” Slowly, cautiously, she inched her way closer to the pool. She cupped her hands, and in those hands, she drew some water and raised it to her lips. It was cool and sweet. Very sweet. Amazingly sweet, in fact, maybe the freshest water that Sunset had tasted since coming to Remnant, and even in Equestria, there were places where the water was not so sweet as this. “It’s … it’s wonderful.”
“Is it?”
“You should know; you’ve been gulping it down.”
“I know,” Cinder said.
Sunset could feel the hairs on the back of her neck starting to prick. “But you didn’t feel a thing, did you?”
Cinder smiled. “I don’t taste, and I don’t remember taste. I could drink that water until the stream ran dry, and I’d barely even feel how cool it was. I hunger constantly, and yet, I can’t taste food. I eat it, I eat and I eat and I eat and … nothing. I thought that it might be … might be the grimm, so I tried to eat raw flesh that I bought from a butcher, because isn’t that what monsters eat? Turns out that not even that could sate my hunger. Blood was running down my mouth, and I couldn’t even feel it. I don’t even remember how it used to taste. You could … kiss me on the lips, and I wouldn’t feel that either.”
“You’ve tried,” Sunset asked, driven by a sense of morbid curiosity.
“Yes,” Cinder said. “Lightning was … confused, but understood that it was a purely transactional affair, and one that she should not speak of to anyone. In any case, I felt … nothing. I don’t feel, not anymore. Nothing but hunger and cold burning within me. Hunger, cold, and my pride in who and what I am and what I will do and what I am capable of. My pride is the only joy that I have left in this world.”
“Because of the grimm.”
“Actually, it got worse since I became the Fall Maiden,” Cinder said. “I know, you wouldn’t have thought so, would you?”
“It sounds…” Sunset trailed off. Cinder wasn’t the sort of person who would want pity, but pity was honestly what she felt. “It sounds terrible.”
“I do what I must.”
“For what?” Sunset asked. “What could be worth that? What could we worth allowing yourself to be turned into…”
Cinder smiled. “You can say it.”
“Turned into a monster,” Sunset said softly.
“Better a monster with power than a cockroach without, scurrying between the feet of great ones trying to survive,” Cinder said.
“I used to think so,” Sunset said. “Then I was shown a better way.”
Cinder snorted. “Friendship?”
“I don’t need people to fear me,” Sunset said, “because I know that there are people who love me.”
“Lucky you,” Cinder said. “Who’s going to love me?”
“Someone might, if you gave them the chance,” Sunset said. “Let me help you, Cinder.”
“I don’t need help from you or anybody else.”
“I don’t think even you can say that with a straight face.”
Cinder’s eyes narrowed. “Even if you really wanted to help me, you couldn’t. I’ve chosen my path.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t turn around,” Sunset said.
“I’m a human grimm; that puts me pretty far down the road.”
“There are magical powers I know of that can purge a person of any darkness,” Sunset said. “They have cleansed beings who were completely consumed by their own darkness, possessed so totally by evil forces that they weren’t the same people before, and yet, that darkness was banished like that.” She snappedflicked her fingers. “Getting the grimm out of you would be child’s play by comparison.”
Cinder paused. She was — she appeared to be — considering it. “And then what? I serve Ozpin like you?”
“He’s not so bad,” Sunset said, “but you don’t have to.”
“I wouldn’t have a choice,” Cinder said. “Haven’t you understood this yet, Sunset? This world is divided between two powers at war: Ozpin and Salem. You serve one, or you serve the other, and even if you don’t know that one of them exists and have no idea that the other is anything more than a headmaster, then that just means that you’re serving one or the other unwittingly. Look at us. I serve Salem, you serve Ozpin, we are standing on opposite sides of the war—”
“And yet, here we are,” Sunset said.
“Yes,” Cinder said. “Here we are because someone has presumed — someone has dared — to try and set up as a third player, and as a result, both of our masters have turned their ire upon this fool and sent us, their agents, to bring about their destruction. I’m the Fall Maiden. Neither of them will let me run loose on the board. If I don’t serve one, then I must serve the other, or they will come together to kill me, just as we have come together to destroy the upstart.”
“I’ll—”
“You’ll what? You’ll protect me?”
“I’ll take you somewhere neither of them can get to you,” Sunset said. “Somewhere utterly beyond their reach.”
Cinder stared at her, as if she were seeing Sunset for the first time. “Your home,” she whispered. “You’re talking about your home, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Sunset said softly.
She knew that she was making a big promise here, and she also knew that Twilight and Celestia would both have every right to be furious with her for so much as offering this, whether or not Cinder accepted it, but she didn’t have time to write to Celestia via the diary and get her permission for this. Cinder was in front of her now. Sunset’s chance was now. And right here, right now, she would do what she thought was right, and Celestia would have to be content with that.
“You would hide me there?”
“I would hide you there, and heal you,” Sunset said, because surely the rainbow magic that Twilight had spoken of would be sufficient to this meagre task, even if no power in Remnant was. She reached out and took Cinder’s hands in her own “And then … and then I would stay with you, for as long as you needed me.”
Cinder stared at her. She looked at Sunset as though she’d sprouted an extra head. She gawped at Sunset as though … as though she’d turned into a unicorn right before her eyes. “You would … you would turn your back on your friends, on your dreams, abandon all of it … for me?”
“Yes,” Sunset whispered.
Cinder’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“Because maybe saving you is the most important thing that I could do in this world,” Sunset said, “and because you need my help more than anyone else in Remnant.”
“You would bind yourself to me — to me — for altruism?”
Sunset shook her head. “For your sake and for yours alone.”
Cinder looked away. She looked away, and she bowed her head, so that her long black hair fell down all around her face like a curtain, shielding it from Sunset’s gaze. Sunset couldn’t see her face, and so she couldn’t gauge Cinder’s reaction save by her voice.
Well, that and the fact that she feels the need to hide her face.
“Sunset,” Cinder said. “Nobody has … you’re the first person since … thank you. Thank you.” She climbed awkwardly and a little unsteadily to her feet. “No matter what happens between us, I will not forget one line of this; I will always remember this moment, this second.”
She looked at Sunset, and if Cinder had looked at Sunset just a moment ago as if she were seeing her for the first time, now Sunset felt as if, for the first time, she were not seeing Cinder Fall but Ashley, the little girl who had been cruelly ill-used by the world until it had made her cruel in turn.
There were tears in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said again, as soft as the gentlest breeze that ever lapped at Sunset’s face.
“You will thank me … but you will not come with me,” Sunset said quietly with a sinking feeling.
“The exile’s life is not for me.”
“But this life is?”
“We are what the world makes us,” Cinder said. “Perhaps … perhaps if I had met you sooner….” She trailed off. “You should go back. I’ll follow you in just a moment.”
“Cinder—”
“Thank you,” Cinder said.
She sounded grateful. She sounded so grateful. Sunset might not have believed that it was possible for her to sound so grateful … and yet, as she turned away, Sunset felt like nothing so much as a total failure.