Welcome back to Lunarthon! This week we’re reading chapters 16-31 of Scarlet. In this week’s chapters, we learn more about the backstories of several of Meyer’s characters, including Cinder herself, and how she and Scarlet are connected.
In the first book of the Lunar Chronicles, we saw Cinder begin to come to terms with her identity as a cyborg and a Lunar in a society which hates both. But in Scarlet, she’s forced to undergo another complicated identity struggle – her sudden new status as a wanted fugitive and a princess.
Cinder gripped her shaking hand with the steady cyborg one. She was tired of everyone deciding her life for her. She was ready to figure out who she really was – not what anyone else told her to be.
Cinder doesn’t want to be the long-lost princess of a country she knows nothing about. She wants a say in her own future. Scarlet and Cinder’s stories begin to converge as Cinder decides to retrace her steps to learn more about her forgotten past – and finds answers in a secret chamber hidden beneath Scarlet’s grandmother’s now-abandoned farm.
A tank sat in the centre of the room, about two metres long with a domed glass lid. It was empty, but the vague imprint of a child could be seen in the goo-like lining beneath the glass dome.
The girl’s outline in the goo seemed too small to have ever been hers, but she knew it was. The left leg appeared to have been significantly heavier than the right. She wondered how long she had lain there without any leg at all.
“What do you suppose it’s doing down here?”
Cinder licked her lips. “I think it was hiding a princess.”
This chapter is one of my favourite scenes of Scarlet. It’s such a classic superhero moment – the young, inexperienced heroine discovering her mysterious origins and realising how many people have willingly put their lives in danger to keep her safe. Cinder’s not comfortable with that burden yet, but she’s beginning to understand the difference she could make if she chooses to accept her birthright and reclaim her throne.
Cinder isn’t the only character we learn more about in these chapters. While Cinder, Thorne and Iko track down the missing princess, Scarlet grows closer to her travelling companion, Wolf… only to realise too late that he’s a soldier in Queen Levana’s army, and he’s been leading her into a trap.
What do you make of the revelations about Cinder and Wolf in these chapters? Sound off in the comments below – and don’t forget to read chapters 32-47 for next week’s Lunarthon!
