Chapter 1: Marcellus - CHAPTER 1 - MARCELLUS MARCELLUS BONNEFAÇON MOVED LIKE A shadow among shadows, ducking under cables and darting around rusty cages that sat empty and gaping like sinister, hungry mouths. With every step he took through the abandoned exploit, his heart pounded harder, making him feel more and more like the traitor he had become. The traitor his grandfather always knew he would become. You were right, Grand-père. I am just like my father. Rain splattered up from the puddles as Marcellus wound his way past a collapsed hoist tower that lay twisted and decaying on the uneven ground. The old copper exploit hadn''t been operational in seventeen years, but it felt as if it had been deserted for centuries. It was an eerie, ominous place, with rows of abandoned shaft entrances, dark and empty like black holes in a galaxy.
Two weeks ago, Marcellus might have turned around, his fear sending him scurrying back to his plush, well-lit rooms in the Grand Palais. But not now. Not with the memory of the Premier Enfant''s tiny red coffin still vivid in his mind. Not with this bruise on his rib cage still tender and throbbing. Everything was different now. His senses were sharper. Sights and sounds and smells were stronger. His eyes were wide open.
And the world had turned red. A dark, crimson red. The color of death. The color of rage. The color of fire. But you were also wrong, Grand-père. I can fight back. As Marcellus shimmied along the wall of one of the old processing plants, he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the warped metal siding and nearly jumped at the sight.
He barely recognized himself. The young man looking back at him was too unkempt. Too rebellious. Not the buttoned-up, obedient officer his grandfather had raised him to be over the past eighteen years. Before leaving the Grand Palais earlier this evening, he''d washed the gel from his thick, dark hair, letting it dry tousled and wavy. He''d donned this stolen exploit coat and streaked mud across his cheeks and neck. It was an effective disguise. A good way to disappear.
A Fret rat had once taught him that. Someone he used to know. But he tried not to think about Chatine Renard now. Much. Marcellus peered up at the sky, hoping to catch a rare glimpse of the prison moon of Bastille. But of course, he saw nothing. Nothing but a dark, unfathomable abyss. The constant cloud coverage of Laterre''s atmosphere made it impossible to see anything else.
There were no Sols. No moon. No light. It was a sky entirely without stars. But Marcellus didn''t need the stars or the moon to guide him tonight. He had the fire to do that. A red-hot blaze that had been lit deep inside of him. A flame that he was certain would never die.
And of course, he had his instructions. Mysterious words written on a piece of paper by an unseen hand. Words that had lured him out to an abandoned exploit in the dark hours of morning. I will meet you at the beginning of the end. Marcellus followed a narrow path through a cluster of buildings, passing piles and piles of debris: discarded boots, cracked helmets, decomposing jackets, and a canvas gurney streaked with blood. Some people believed that the old copper exploit was haunted. That the ghosts of the six hundred workers who had perished in the bombing seventeen years ago still lingered here. Trapped underground forever.
Marcellus didn''t want to believe that. But walking through this forsaken place, he could understand why no one ever came out here. This was a picture stained with death and grief and time. A picture no one should have to see. But that Marcellus needed to see. This was the reason his father, Julien Bonnefaçon, had spent the last seventeen years of his life in prison. And this was where the mysterious instructions had been leading Marcellus. He was certain of it.
The beginning of the end. For his father. For the Vangarde. For the Rebellion of 488. The sinister silence was suddenly shattered by the sound of footsteps. Panicked, Marcellus flipped up the hood of his stolen coat and tucked himself into one of the rusty metal cages. The suspension cable above creaked and whined, and Marcellus felt his stomach drop as he glanced down into the two-hundred-mètre deep chasm below. He sucked in a breath and kept perfectly still, praying those footsteps didn''t belong to a droid.
All it would take was one scan. One encounter, and his disguise would be rendered useless. His biometrics would be detected. His identity known. And then it would all be over. This perilous task that loomed before him would no longer matter. Nothing would matter. Because he''d be rotting away on the moon with the rest of the traitors.
The footsteps grew closer. Marcellus listened in the darkness, his heart hammering in his chest. Peering out from under his hood, he tried to pinpoint where they were coming from, but the exploit had fallen silent again. Had he imagined them? He wouldn''t be surprised. After the events of the past few weeks, he''d been imagining all manner of ghastly things. His visions kept him awake at night. He''d hardly slept since the funeral. A damp breeze kicked up and started to batter at his coat.
Hearing a soft creaking noise up ahead, he stepped out from the rickety cage and squinted into the darkness where he was just able to make out a small, rundown hut with a lopsided door swinging on the hinges. Marcellus plunged his cold, shaky fingers into his pocket and pulled out a small container of matches. The first one struggled to catch light in the wet air, but the second sparked and bloomed into a brilliant orange flame. Protecting the glow with his cupped hand, he held the light up to the hut until he could see the distinct marking slashed across the door in mud. Two diagonal lines descending toward each other. The letter V , he remembered with a jolt of anticipation. He was in the right place. The roof of the structure sagged at a strange angle, and the hut''s rusting walls seemed to billow as the angry wind picked up speed.
Marcellus pushed open the corroded door and stepped inside. Shadows swallowed him. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the low light. And then he saw her. She was sitting on a wooden bench, her hands tucked into her lap, her head turned so that Marcellus could see her profile. A face pulled straight from both his darkest and brightest memories. When she turned toward him, her lips curled into a warm, familiar smile. "Marcellou.
I hoped you''d come." Marcellus''s legs gave out from under him. He sank to his knees in front of his former governess, feeling every emotion that he''d blocked out for the past seven years suddenly wash over him at once. Anger, frustration, betrayal, regret, guilt, longing. It was the longing more than anything. Mabelle had been marked as a traitor to the Regime. An enemy spy. He was forbidden from missing her.
From thinking of her in any way but resentment. But, Sols, how he''d missed her. There was so much to say. And yet all he could utter as he knelt by her feet was, "I''m sorry. I''m so sorry." What was he apologizing for? For treating her like a criminal when he''d come face-to-face with her three weeks ago in Montfer? For believing his grandfather''s lies about her? Even when they scratched against his heart in the most uncomfortable of ways? For not saving her that day seven years ago when the droids dragged her away? But he knew the answer. All of it. He was sorry for all of it.
Suddenly, he felt Mabelle''s gentle yet reassuring hand on his head. "It''s okay, Marcellou. It''s okay." And for the briefest of moments, every last drop of his anger melted right off him. He felt safe. He felt protected. The decrepit and wind-beaten hut he''d entered had turned into a warm place, a familiar place, a place of love and light. Suddenly, he was a little boy again, playing with his little plastique transporteurs at Mabelle''s feet while she read aloud from one of the books she''d smuggled into the Palais.
"Does anyone know you''re here?" Mabelle asked, her voice suddenly taking on a grave tone. "Were you followed?" Marcellus momentarily thought of the footsteps he''d heard earlier. The ones he was now certain he''d imagined. "No." "Are you sure?" Mabelle asked. "The general has spies working for him all over the planet." And just like that, the bubble burst. Marcellus was thrust back into the present moment.
Everything flooded into focus: the leaking, rundown hut; the cold, uneven floor under his knees; Mabelle''s drawn, weather-beaten skin; and the splintered bench where she sat. The anger came flooding back too, seeping into his bones, returning his vision to red. "I know all about his spies," he muttered, thinking once again of Chatine. "I took precautions." He pushed himself back to his feet. "I left my TéléCom back at the Palais. I exited the grounds through the gaps in the perimeter you showed me when I was little. I parked my moto far away from the exploit.
" Mabelle exhaled audibly. "Good. Good boy." Marcellus''s lips quirked involuntarily at the praise. She might have aged a lifetime on Bastille, but she was still the same woman who had raised him for eleven years. She patted the bench next to her, and Marcellus sat down.