Between Burning Worlds

by Jessica Brody

  - CHAPTER 2 - MARCELLUS

  IN THE CENTER OF LEDÔME, the Grand Boulevard bustled with Second Estaters, promenading and shopping, gossiping with friends and flaunting their latest fashions. Cruiseurs and motos flitted up and down the street, delivering passengers to the hundreds of shops and restaurants lining the sidewalk.

  Marcellus steered his moto past the Opéra and the Musée of the First World before pulling to a stop near a large roundabout where the Grand Boulevard ended and other smaller avenues jutted out like spokes on an old-fashioned wheel. He tugged at the collar of his stiff officer uniform, feeling like it was already cutting off the circulation to his brain.

  Before returning to Ledôme, he’d washed the dirt from his face and changed back into the crisp white trousers and lapelled jacket that he loathed so much. He was, once again, Officer Bonnefaçon, the grandson of General César Bonnefaçon, and the son of the notorious dead traitor, Julien Bonnefaçon. He was, once again, Laterre’s commandeur-in-training, a dutiful servant of the Ministère.

  And today, he would have to look his grandfather in the eye and pretend that he didn’t just pledge his life to bringing the general down.

  He felt sick with dread and impossibility. He couldn’t help but think that the Vangarde had made a huge mistake in entrusting this task to him. It still felt like a fool’s errand. The general was too clever, too secretive, too strategic. How was Marcellus ever going to find this weapon? Where would he even begin?

  Releasing a sigh, he tipped his head back and glanced up at the Paresse Tower that stood tall and regal at the center of the roundabout, watching over every street and park, every manoir and garden. Erected twenty years ago by the former Patriarche, Claude Paresse, to celebrate the Laterrian Regime, the tower used to be one of Marcellus’s favorite sights in Ledôme. The view of the magnificent structure, motionless and vast, shooting up into the TéléSky, used to inspire him.

  But today, like everything else around him, the Paresse Tower felt gaudy and grandiose and so very wrong. Now Marcellus could see it for what it really was: a tower erected to mark centuries of oppression and inequality. A landmark built to celebrate the elite few who were fortunate enough to live in luxury in this climate-controlled biodome while the rest of the planet starved and froze.

  Today, the tower only served to make him angrier.

  He kicked off from the ground and sped the rest of the way back to the Grand Palais. After docking his moto outside the gates, Marcellus walked the length of the perimeter, scanning the little fleur-de-lis ornaments that topped each post of the titan fence, until he located the one that was bent at a slight angle. He climbed the fence and slipped through the invisible breach in the security shields, silently thanking Mabelle for her ingenuity.

  He remembered the first time she had shown him the bent ornaments, when he was just a little boy. She’d made a game out of locating them. “Which ones are not like the others?” It wasn’t until years later, after Mabelle had been arrested as a Vangarde spy, that Marcellus realized Mabelle had bent them on purpose. To mark the loopholes where she had compromised the shields surrounding the Palais grounds, allowing her to come and go without being noticed or tracked.

  Marcellus let himself in through the servants’ entrance and climbed one of the back staircases to the south wing, where he and his grandfather lived. As the head of the Ministère and the Patriarche’s primary advisor, General Bonnefaçon was awarded dedicated residences in the Palais. It was an honor that used to make Marcellus feel lucky, privileged, prestigious. Now these walls felt like prison bars. And the spacious, well-appointed rooms that he passed along the way only served to remind him that this morning’s visit to the copper exploit had not gone as he’d planned.

  When he’d crept through the dark, sleeping Palais only a few hours ago, he thought he was leaving it for good. He thought he’d never have to return. He was fueled by the idea that he would never have to be in the same room as his grandfather again. He’d thought that joining the Vangarde would take him away from all of this. Just as it had for his father.

  And yet, here he was. Back within these suffocating walls. With his grandfather’s loathsome lies clinging to every fiber of every tapestry.

  “Access granted.” The door to his rooms opened and Marcellus lifted his palm from the panel on the biometric lock and barged inside. He stalked over to the bed, collapsed down onto it, and screamed into one of the silk pillows. Loud and hard until his throat burned and the sound silenced the voices of doubt and helplessness in his head.

  “Are you finished?”

  Marcellus sprang up from the bed and glanced around, his heart leaping into his throat when he saw his grandfather standing near the door to the balcony. The general’s tall, muscular frame was half silhouetted by the artificial Sol-light streaming in through the gap in the curtains.

  “G-G-Grand-père,” Marcellus said, stammering slightly. How long had he been standing there? “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” his grandfather said coolly.

  Marcellus’s pulse spiked as a hundred thousand crimes filtered through his mind at once.

  Does he know where I’ve been?

  Marcellus glanced back down at the ruffled comforter of his bed, where he’d just thrown his little tantrum. His grandfather had seen that.

  “You weren’t answering your AirLinks.” The general nodded to the TéléCom that was folded up and sitting idly on Marcellus’s bedside table. Even though the tracking capabilities on the device were deactivated, he’d still left it behind as a precaution.

  “Yes … um … ,” Marcellus began, wishing that, just this once, he could talk to the general without stammering like an imbecile. “I just stepped out to get some air and I … forgot it.”

  His grandfather lifted an eyebrow. “And Chacal says he stopped by the TéléSkin fabrique yesterday—where you were supposed to be investigating the recent attack—but you weren’t there.”

  Marcellus felt a storm brewing in his chest. His grandfather had appointed him lead officer on the investigation of the recent TéléSkin fabrique attack. It had killed twelve workers, including Chatine’s sister, and they still had no idea who was responsible. But Marcellus had been so busy deciphering the message that the Vangarde had slipped to him in the Frets and mentally preparing himself for his meeting with Mabelle, he’d let some of his officer duties slide. But he never thought that clochard Chacal would rat him out for it.

  Marcellus fought to keep his face neutral as he tried to come up with a believable excuse. “I’m sorry, Grand-père. I haven’t been myself since the funeral.”

  The general’s cool hazel eyes bored into Marcellus. “Must I remind you that Laterre is in a precarious state right now?”

  Thanks to you, Marcellus thought bitterly but he shook his head and muttered, “No, sir.”

  “Tensions are mounting. The Third Estate are getting out of control, rioting almost daily. And with Inspecteur Limier still missing, we need everyone around here to pull their weight.”

  The fearsome head of the Vallonay Policier had vanished two weeks ago. He’d ventured out to the Forest Verdure to arrest two wanted criminals and never came back.

  “This is not the time to be lazy and distracted, Marcellus.”

  Marcellus felt his blood start to boil. His fists clenched at his sides, desperate to strike, to pound, to pummel. But he forced himself to remember Mabelle’s words.

  “… you’ll have to work extra hard to convince him of your loyalty.”

  Marcellus swallowed down the rage. “Of course, Grand-père. I apologize for my actions. It will not happen again.”

  The general scrutinized him, the edge of his jaw pulsing. It’s what his grandfather did when he was holding something back. Then, silently, he stepped forward and reached a hand toward Marcellus’s face. Marcellus flinched as his grandfather dragged a single finger across his cheek. When his hand retracted, Marcellus could see the smear of mud on the gen
eral’s fingertip. Remnants of his disguise.

  For a long, tense moment, both of them just stared down at it.

  Finally, his grandfather spoke. “You need to come with me.”

  The room tilted. Marcellus wished he could grab on to something for balance. For a moment, he considered running. He eyed the balcony, trying to gauge how far down it was to the forecourt below. Would he survive the jump?

  “Why?” he whispered.

  The general released a heavy sigh. “The Patriarche has summoned us to go hunting.”

  Hunting?

  For a full three seconds, Marcellus was certain he had misunderstood.

  “Prepare your status report on the investigation and make yourself presentable.” The general nodded dismissively toward Marcellus’s face and then strode toward the hallway. “And meet me in the foyer in thirty minutes.”

  The moment the door slid shut behind the general, Marcellus let out a shuddering breath. The beautiful air flooded back into his lungs. He darted to the bathroom and splashed ice-cold water on his face, trying to bring the sensation back to his skin. Tilting his chin at various angles, he searched for any more traces of mud before drying his face with a towel and turning back toward the door. But something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and pulled him up short.

  He spun around and stared down into the corner of the bathroom. Beside the toilette, a single floor tile glinted in the light. He’d accidentally wrenched it loose when he was a little boy, and it had been his secret hiding place ever since. When he was younger and Mabelle was teaching him the Forgotten Word, he used to hide folded-up pieces of paper in there, lines and lines of practiced letters and shaky misspelled words. Now the small nook under the tile held the microcam he’d found two weeks ago, hidden in the painting in Mabelle’s old room. Proof that his grandfather was guilty in the bombing of that copper exploit seventeen years ago.

  His heart started to pound again in his chest as he glared at the tile.

  What had his grandfather really been doing in his rooms? Looking for Marcellus, as he’d said? Or looking for something else?

  Slowly, tentatively, Marcellus walked over to the toilette, crouched down, and used his fingernails to peel up the loose floor tile. He almost didn’t have to look. He almost knew what he would find before he saw it.

  Nothing.

  He found nothing.

  Because the microcam was gone.

  - CHAPTER 3 - CHATINE

  CHATINE RENARD HAD KNOWN DARKNESS all her life. From the moment she was born eighteen years ago, it had surrounded her, clinging to her like a cloak. But nothing compared to the darkness that lurked two hundred mètres below the surface of Bastille. This was a darkness like Chatine had never known. It was a living, breathing thing. A murkiness that seeped into her bones and coated her lungs.

  This was the kind of darkness that brought the dead back to life.

  The droid closed the metal cage with a bang that reverberated down Chatine’s spine. The lift started to descend, slow and painful and creaking, into the ground. With every centimètre they lowered, Chatine’s teeth chattered harder. Not because of the temperature. It was mercifully warmer down here than on the surface of the moon. But if Chatine had learned anything since arriving on Bastille, it was that the cold wasn’t the only thing here that could make you shiver.

  The lift wrenched to a stop and the door of the cage creaked open, revealing a warren of gloomy passageways that extended out from the main shaft. Two more bashers stood watch, their bright orange eyes cutting through the darkness. No human guards dared set foot on this wretched moon. The prison was manned entirely by droids while some overpaid warden supervised from his plush, cushy office back in Ledôme.

  “Single-file line,” one of them droned. “Look down. No talking. No running.”

  Chatine almost snorted aloud at the warning. Running? Seriously? Where would they even run to? The craggy walls and looming ceilings of the exploit tunnels snaked and dipped, burrowed and crisscrossed through the Bastille rock, going nowhere. Always ending in cold, dark nothingness.

  And even if it weren’t for the dead-end tunnels, Chatine was barely capable of crawling out of her bunk each morning, let alone running. Her body had never felt so useless and heavy and beaten. Her head was almost always pounding, her mouth was constantly dirt dry, every centimètre of her ached, and no matter how tired she was at the end of her twelve-hour shift down here in the darkness, she could never ever seem to get enough sleep.

  The inmates called the condition the “grippe.” Chatine could certainly understand why. It felt like every organ in her body—including her mind—had been placed in a merciless vise. It was the result of the thinner air on Bastille. Chatine had heard that it could take up to six months for your body to adapt to the climate.

  She had been here two weeks.

  The inmates formed a line and began to shuffle into the tunnel. Beside them, the droids paced, their heavy metal footsteps clanking, the rayonettes embedded in their arms glowing menacingly in the dim light. After grabbing a headlamp and a pick, Chatine followed the procession into the tunnel. With each collective step they took, the walls and ceilings rumbled ominously around them.

  Chatine hated the crackles and pops that came from above, rippling through the ground and threatening to bring two hundred mètres of hard rock crashing down on top of her. She’d heard stories of prisoners dying in the zyttrium exploits. They were some of the first stories told to newcomers on Bastille.

  She paused, glanced up, and cringed as a scattering of loose dust and debris rained down on her face.

  “Prisoner 51562,” one of the droids boomed, “look down and keep walking.”

  Chatine lowered her gaze and scuffled forward. They seemed to be walking forever today. Much farther than Chatine had ever ventured into the tunnels. The light from the headlamp clipped onto her helmet was a poor contender for the murky depths of the exploit. And the farther away they got from the main shaft, the darker the tunnel became.

  Chatine pushed back the sleeve of her prison uniform and touched the darkened screen just above her wrist. It blinked to life, providing a dim halo of light. The Skins had limited functionality on Bastille. There were no broadcasts, no AirLink messages, no Universal Alerts, no Ascension points or tokens. Up here on the moon, the Skins were only used to track time and people. Including, now, Chatine. All her former Skin hacks had been removed by the droids when she’d first arrived. But Chatine liked to look at her Skin from time to time, if for no other reason than to remind her of why she was really here. Why all of them were here. This small rectangular device that had been implanted in her flesh since childhood was the reason the Regime spent millions of tokens a year running this Sol-forsaken prison.

  The Skins were needed to keep the Third Estate in line.

  Zyttrium was needed to make the Skins.

  And the dusty craters of Bastille held the last known deposits of zyttrium in the entire System Divine.

  Chatine spotted the glint of metal up ahead, and the procession finally slowed to a stop. In front of them, the giant machines that dug the tunnels and secured the supports stood motionless, idling like sleeping silver beasts.

  “Every inmate is required to excavate one hundred grammes of zyttrium,” the nearest droid announced, causing a stirring among the prisoners.

  “One hundred grammes?!” shouted one of the inmates. “That’s double what we had to dig yesterday.”

  “No talking!” the droid boomed, its eerie monotone voice ricocheting off the low-ceilinged tunnels, making it sound even less human than it already did. “Look down, start digging.”

  Silently, Chatine positioned herself in front of the tunnel wall and got to work, jamming her pick into the hard rock. With each strike, she paused and waited, listening, expecting, holding her breath. Would today finally be the day the voice in her head didn’t come? The day that Chatine’s mind finally got ahold of itself and came back to its senses?
/>   Chatine couldn’t decide what was worse: a mental breakdown, or losing that voice all over again.

  And then, finally, after the tenth strike of her pick against the wall, Chatine heard it. From deep in the dark corners of her mind.

  “Brrr! It is so chilly here. Way colder than on Laterre.”

  Chatine’s shoulders slumped in relief. Azelle was here. For at least one more day, Chatine would not be alone on this moon.

  “How are you not freezing, Chatine?” the voice asked.

  Chatine didn’t reply. She never replied to the voice of her dead sister. But just like in life, it didn’t stop Azelle from talking.

  “Did you hear those new quotas? You’re going to be here forever. How do they expect you to mine one hundred grammes in a day?”

  Chatine shone her headlamp into the heap of rock that had gathered by her feet. There wasn’t a single hint of glowing blue zyttrium. She’d heard prisoners whispering about the shortage on Bastille. How each week, the tunnels stretched farther and farther, and the exploit carts came back less and less full.

  “I remember this being a problem back at the Skin fabrique,” Dead Azelle said knowledgably. “Not enough zyttrium to make the new Skins. The superviseurs tried to hide it from us but we weren’t stupide. We saw the supply transporteurs coming in. How many of these prisoners do you think are here because of an actual crime they committed? And how many are here because the Ministère just needed more people to dig?”

  Chatine momentarily glanced up at the inmates lining the tunnel, wondering if Azelle was right. Was Chatine’s existence here—as well as the existence of every other prisoner on this moon—no more complicated than a dwindling supply of zyttrium? Chatine had never known her older sister to be very wise or observant in life. But often, as Chatine lay in the cold, damp prison bunks, she wondered if she’d underestimated her sister. If maybe there had been more to Azelle Renard than Chatine ever knew.