Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,2

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