Sky Without Stars Read online

  He didn’t want to go back to being that cowardly, ignorant, spoiled Second Estate pomp he’d once been.

  He’d seen too much now. He’d come too far.

  The TéléCom beeped.

  “Connection successful.”

  Marcellus sucked in a breath and tentatively walked back to his bed. He scooped up the device and stared at the screen. The TéléCom was now displaying the microcam’s contents.

  There was only one item.

  A lump immediately formed in Marcellus’s throat as he recognized the date attached to the footage. It was two days before an explosif went off deep inside the copper exploit, killing six hundred workers.

  Four days before his father was sent to Bastille.

  Two weeks before the people stopped fighting, Citizen Rousseau was arrested, and the Rebellion of 488 finally came to an end.

  This was it. Marcellus could feel it in his bones.

  This was the “proof” Mabelle had been talking about.

  With shaking hands and a pounding heart, he hovered his fingertip a millimètre above the screen, took a breath, and clicked play.

  A moment later, his grandfather’s face filled the entire screen, as though he were looking directly into the microcam. Looking straight at Marcellus.

  “Sols!” Marcellus shrieked, and dropped the TéléCom onto the bed.

  What on Laterre . . .

  Marcellus blinked down at the device. His grandfather’s face still peered up at him from the screen.

  “AirLink request pending from General Bonnefaçon,” the TéléCom announced.

  Marcellus breathed out a sigh of relief. His grandfather had sent him an AirLink request right as Marcellus had pushed play on the footage.

  Feeling stupide for reacting like a child afraid of his own shadow, Marcellus picked up the TéléCom and poised his finger to accept the request. It was an instinctual movement. A reflex.

  When the general requests an AirLink, you accept.

  That’s it.

  There’s no other way to be.

  For Marcellus, there had been no other way to be for as long as he could remember.

  But now, curiously, he hesitated.

  “AirLink request pending from General Bonnefaçon,” the TéléCom repeated.

  But all Marcellus could hear in his mind was his grandfather bellowing, Connect, you worthless coward! Connect!

  Marcellus glanced up and caught sight of his own reflection in his titan-framed mirror. His hair was wild and unruly, and he could already see the bruise starting to form on the side of his neck, beneath the edge of his collar. Always in a place that could be hidden. Never anywhere visible. Otherwise all of Laterre would know General Bonnefaçon’s dirty little secret.

  Marcellus felt the familiar urge to fix his hair, adjust his clothing. To make himself more presentable. Like a Ministère officer should be.

  But instead, he simply reached out and hastily tapped the screen.

  “Request declined,” the TéléCom announced, reminding Marcellus of what he had just done.

  Marcellus winced, waiting for the guilt.

  Yet, all he felt was relief.

  Like he’d stripped off a layer of heavy, sopping-wet clothes.

  In fact, he was so shocked by the unexpected sensation, he didn’t even notice that the footage from Mabelle’s microcam had started to play until he saw his grandfather’s face again. This time it wasn’t close up on the screen, but far away and obscured by shadows. He was sitting at his desk in his study. The one right down the hall from Marcellus’s rooms.

  How had Mabelle managed to hide a microcam inside General Bonnefaçon’s office without him noticing?

  “My apologies,” the general was saying, “but this feels rash and impulsive. I’m certain we can come up with another solution if we—”

  “This is the only solution,” another voice replied. It was stern and unyielding.

  Marcellus couldn’t see who else was in the room. The person speaking must have been out of the microcam’s range.

  “You’ve let this rebellion get way out of control,” the voice continued. “That Citizen Rousseau woman is ruining everything my ancestors worked so hard to achieve. It’s time to end this.”

  “Monsieur Patriarche,” his grandfather said in a placating tone. “I strongly advise against this approach.”

  Monsieur Patriarche?

  This must be the former Patriarche—Claude. He died two years ago, in 503, fifteen years after this footage was captured. Marcellus remembered attending the funeral when he was sixteen. That’s when Lyon—the current Patriarche—inherited the Regime.

  “I thank you for your counsel, as always,” Claude replied. “But my mind is made up. I don’t have time for this anarchy. I have enough on my plate right now dealing with that incompetent son of mine. The whole business with that Villette girl is a disaster.”

  Marcellus snorted. Even Lyon’s own father knew he was a joke.

  “I told you I would handle that,” the general said, and Marcellus could hear his grandfather’s composure starting to slip.

  “It doesn’t seem like you have been handling anything lately, General. Which is why I’m taking control of the situation.”

  The general paused, clearly collecting his thoughts. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed, almost pained. “Have you considered the number of casualties this tactic will incur? Six hundred workers are scheduled to be in the copper exploit at any given time.”

  “Good,” the Patriarche replied coldly. “That should be enough for the rest of them to see what kind of monsters these people are. I want rescue teams on call, ready to try to get people out. The Vangarde will look like terrorists and we’ll look like the heroes. Citizen Rousseau won’t stand a chance after this.”

  Marcellus grabbed hold of his bed to keep the room from spinning.

  “Yes, Monsieur Patriarche,” the general replied, but he sounded far from convinced. “Although we must be extremely careful. This can never be traced back to the Ministère or the whole plan will backfire.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Patriarche Claude replied. Marcellus heard a shuffling of something, and then a moment later, the man was on the screen. His back was to the microcam, but Marcellus recognized his short, stocky frame. “We will need to pin this on someone. A suspect who can’t be doubted.”

  When the general spoke next, his voice sounded haunted and hollow. “You already have someone in mind.”

  “I do,” the Patriarche said firmly, and for a long time, the two men just stared at each other, exchanging silent words and accusations. The general rested his elbows on his desk and leaned forward, his face falling into a shaft of light, so that Marcellus could now see his features. Even though he was seventeen years younger, he looked exactly the same. Stoned-faced and hardened. Yet, in that instant, Marcellus saw something else in his grandfather’s eyes. Something very, very foreign.

  Fear.

  The Patriarche was the first to break the silence. “Ever since your son betrayed his planet to join the Vangarde, your own loyalty to the Regime has been called under question. I hear whispers about it all over Ledôme. I can’t have a general whose loyalty is doubted.”

  “Monsieur Patriarche,” the general replied, sounding appalled, “surely, there’s someone else who—”

  “There is no one else. Julien must take the fall so that your reputation remains untarnished and the Regime remains steadfast.”

  The general swallowed visibly, and Marcellus could almost read the defeat in his eyes. “Yes, Monsieur Patriarche. I will take care of it.”

  Marcellus jammed his finger at the TéléCom, ending the playback. His breath was coming out in ragged gasps. His knees were buckling. It felt like the floor beneath his feet was cracking wide open, and any minute he would fall straight through to the fiery core of Laterre.

  His father had gone to prison for that bombing.

  He’d lived seventeen years on a cold, dark moon for that
bombing.

  He’d literally frozen to death for that bombing.

  And it was a lie. It had all been a lie.

  The Patriarche was the one who’d ordered the bombing.

  His father had joined the Vangarde, but the Vangarde had never been behind that senseless act of murder. They were never the violent, lowlife terrorists Marcellus had been taught to believe.

  The Ministère was. The Patriarche was. The Regime was.

  His grandfather had sacrificed his own son to save his reputation. To save face with the Patriarche. He was the true terrorist. The true murderer. The true coward.

  And Marcellus had been blindly following in his footsteps the whole time.

  - CHAPTER 67 -

  ALOUETTE

  ALOUETTE COULD SEE HER LEG stretched out in front of her. Yet there was nothing. No feeling. No sensation. It was as if it weren’t even a part of her body anymore. It was someone else’s leg lying on the wet forest floor.

  She could feel her heart, though. It was pounding inside her chest. She fought against the metal wound around her wrists, binding her to the base of the tree. But the wire was tied too tight, and all she managed to do was dig the cable deeper into her skin. She glanced over at her father, bound to the same tree beside her, with the dirty cloth still stuffed into his mouth. Alouette couldn’t understand how he hadn’t managed to break free. He appeared to be tied up with the same type of wire. Clearly he was stronger than a thin piece of metal?

  A single lamp stood in the tall grass in the middle of the clearing, illuminating a few of the strange gravestones. An open sac lay next to it, the contents spilled out. Alouette could see her father’s clothes strewn in a haphazard pile and his titan candlestick lying on the ground.

  “Would you look at that,” a voice said, and Alouette glanced up into the eyes of a woman clutching a rayonette in her hands. “We asked the Sols for one fugitive, we got two!”

  She was standing next to the man who had tied Alouette to the tree. He was small—a third the size of her own father—but there was something quick and menacing in the way he moved.

  “Yes, ma chérie,” the man replied with a wolfish grin. “The Sols are shining on us after all.”

  Where the man was all narrowness and angles, the woman beside him was all girth and gigantic curves. And every time Alouette looked at them, something strange and unsettling stirred deep inside her.

  An ache.

  A fear.

  A familiar terror.

  As if her father could hear her worried thoughts, Alouette felt his hand brush against her own, reassuring her. Telling her, in his silent, subtle way, that all would be fine.

  But there was something about this couple. There was a wickedness in their eyes that made it impossible for Alouette to feel reassured.

  “We lost our dear Azelle today, our precious daughter,” the man said, pulling his lips into what Alouette assumed was supposed to look like a frown. “She was such a hard little worker, that one. A true asset to the family. Kept up a nice stream of largs coming in when times got tough.” His menacing grin returned as his greedy eyes settled on Alouette. “But then, ta-da, just like that, our luck changes. And now, we’re going to be rich!”

  Rich?

  Was that what this was about? Did these people know what her father had buried here?

  “Oh my, how you’ve grown,” the woman was saying. It took a moment for Alouette to realize she was speaking to her. She waddled up to Alouette and hooked a finger under Alouette’s chin. “Our little Madeline. It’s so lovely to see you again.”

  At this, Hugo immediately shouted something angry and incomprehensible into his gag. But Alouette couldn’t understand why her father was so upset when the woman had clearly mistaken Alouette for someone else.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” the woman asked, withdrawing her hand so quickly, her fingernail scraped against Alouette’s skin.

  When Alouette didn’t respond, the woman kicked her dead leg. “Do you?”

  Hugo’s face twisted and pulled, as though he were trying to fight against his restraints but couldn’t. Instead, he shouted again into the dirty cloth.

  “Calm down, old man”—the woman waved the rayonette—“or I’ll give you another blast in the neck. That’ll settle you back down.”

  Alouette struggled to hold in the gasp that rose to her lips. The woman had shot her father in the neck? No wonder he’d been unable to get away. Nearly his whole body must be paralyzed right now.

  “Besides, she can’t feel a thing,” the woman went on, turning back to Alouette. “Can you, Madeline?”

  Alouette stared up at the woman, completely dazed.

  Why did she keep calling her Madeline?

  Alouette could tell the woman was waiting for her to respond, but she had no idea what to say.

  “I don’t believe this!” the woman exploded, her eyes suddenly wild and full of rage. “You lived with us for nearly four years! I raised you from a squealing baby. You ate our food and slept under our roof. Then you just disappeared into thin air, without so much as a thank-you! And now you don’t even remember us? The kind Renards who took you in when your mother couldn’t even afford to buy you chou bread?”

  “Well, what did you expect?” the man snapped. “She was always an ungrateful little clochard.”

  Alouette’s mind was whirling. What was this woman talking about? She had to be mistaken. There was no way Alouette could have lived with these terrifying people. These Renards. Surely, she would have remembered them.

  The woman snorted. “And stupide.”

  The man—Monsieur Renard—smirked at Alouette. “Stupide, to be sure. You never did do anything right. We used to send you out to the Tourbay to collect reeds for the wine. It would take you hours to come home.”

  Madame Renard cackled. “She probably forgot where she was supposed to go.”

  Alouette flinched. That strange fear inside of her throbbed. It was as though there was a memory there, trying to break free. Trying to take shape. She could feel her fingers curling into fists behind the tree.

  Remembering the cold handle.

  The blisters.

  The weight of a pail filled with reeds covered in sticky, dark mud.

  “And then this one,” Monsieur Renard said, crashing through the tenuous threads of her memory. His beady gray eyes flitted from Alouette to her father. “He showed up, with his fancy clothes and snooty airs, and took our little mademoiselle away before we could train her to actually be of some use.”

  Monsieur Renard gave Alouette’s father a nasty kick to his thigh.

  “Don’t!” Alouette cried out, speaking for the first time since she’d arrived in the clearing. “Please, don’t.”

  “How sweet,” Madame Renard cooed. “She really loves him, doesn’t she?” She winked at Alouette. “Well, don’t you worry, Madeline. We love old Jean LeGrand too. We love him a lot.”

  Alouette’s head started to pound. Who was Jean LeGrand? Why were these people calling both of them by different names?

  Everything was wrong here.

  It had to be.

  And yet, there was a part of her—that part that still ached deeply inside of her—that wondered if any of it could be true.

  “That’s right,” Monsieur Renard said, puffing up his scrawny chest. “That hefty reward on his head is going to solve all of our problems.”

  “Reward?” Alouette blurted without thinking.

  The woman snickered and nudged her husband with her elbow. “Did you hear that, chéri? She doesn’t know about the reward.” Then she glanced back at Alouette. “Still the little bimbo, aren’t you? You don’t know a thing.”

  The words hit Alouette like another paralyzing pulse from the rayonette. Because the woman was right. Alouette really didn’t know anything, did she? She’d thought herself so clever these last few days, with all her snooping and creeping around and stealing of motos. When really, she was just as stupide and ignorant as always.r />
  “Turns out our good friend LeGrand here is worth a pretty larg,” Monsieur Renard said to Alouette. “Not long after he took you away, Inspecteur Limier came around asking for him, offering a big fat reward to anyone who could help find him. Lucky for us, the reward is still good and that fritzer flic is on his way here right now to pay us twenty thousand tokens for this rotten croc.” The man tilted his head back and shouted into the sky, “We’re going to be rich as Patriarches!”

  He grabbed his wife’s hands and started to dance with her. The two spun in a circle, cackling and singing at the top of their lungs, “Twenty thousand largs! Twenty thousand largs!”

  After they’d danced themselves breathless and finally come to a halt, the woman’s gaze landed back on Alouette and her face fell into a theatrical scowl. “I will say, though,” she said with a forlorn sigh. “We could really have used that money back then. Those were hard times. No food. Too many debts. We lost our inn. We were so poor, we even had to sell one of our babies. My poor little Henri.” She let out a long, dramatic sniff that was clearly supposed to be a sob. “My one and only son—”

  A loud cracking noise suddenly reverberated from somewhere in the woods, interrupting Madame Renard. She clutched the rayonette with both hands and swung it toward the trees behind her. “What was that?”

  Monsieur Renard laughed. “Now, now, love. Don’t get your culottes in a bunch. It was just a falling branch.”

  But Alouette could no longer focus on anything that was going on around her. It all seemed to be happening in a fog. All she could think about was what Madame Renard had told her. That she had lived with them. That her father had a twenty-thousand-token reward on his head. That a Policier inspecteur was on his way here right now to take him back to Bastille.

  It was all too much.

  She turned to her father, her eyes begging for him to tell her that it was all a lie. That these wicked people were making it up. But her father wouldn’t even look at her.

  “Is it true, Papa?” she demanded. “Tell me! Is it true?”

  “Hear that?” Monsieur Renard nudged his wife. “She calls him Papa. Like he was her real father.” The man crouched down low in front of Alouette, staring deep into her eyes, until Alouette no longer felt the numbness only in her leg. She felt it everywhere.