Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1)

by Marissa Meyer

They took away her beautiful clothes, dressed her in an old gray smock, and gave her wooden shoes.

She was met with startled copper-brown eyes and black hair that hung past his ears and lips that every girl in the country had admired a thousand times.

Lunars were a society that had evolved from an Earthen moon colony centuries ago, but they weren’t human anymore. People said Lunars could alter a person’s brain—make you see things you shouldn’t see, feel things you shouldn’t feel, do things you didn’t want to do. Their unnatural power had made them a greedy and violent race, and Queen Levana was the worst of all of them.

Some conspiracy theorists thought the princess had survived and was still alive somewhere, waiting for the right time to reclaim her crown and end Levana’s rule of tyranny, but Cinder knew it was only desperation that fueled these rumors. After all, they’d found traces of the child’s flesh in the ashes.

“I’m not sure I would label it a ‘survivor,’” said Iko, her sensor darkening with disgust. “It looks more like a rotting pumpkin.”

“I’m sure I’ll feel much more grateful when I find a guy who thinks complex wiring in a girl is a turn-on.”

“Miss Linh, from your blood samples I have deduced that you are, in fact, Lunar.”

“Maybe her programming was overwhelmed by Prince Kai’s uncanny hotness.”

“No,” said Kai, allowing a cold smile. “Eventually, I’ll have an empress for that.”

But if there was one thing she knew from years as a mechanic, it was that some stains never came out.

“My dear girl. You are Princess Selene.”