have this Regime fall under my watch. My father successfully stamped out a rebellion seventeen years ago. We cannot allow another one to break out. We must get this planet under control once and for all.”
“We will,” the general assured him. “Just … think about it.”
Marcellus heard a grunt, then the sound of footsteps retreating, followed by the door of the study opening and closing as the Patriarche made another one of his dramatic exits.
As soon as the general’s office had fallen quiet again, Marcellus was on his feet. He barreled out of the couchette, down the hallway, and up the stairs to the bridge, where he found Alouette and Cerise gathered around the flight console, talking in hushed voices.
“Bonjour, sleepy head,” Cerise said brightly.
He ignored her and focused on Alouette. He’d been worried sick about her for the past day. After listening to the general’s conversation with Directeur Chevalier, she’d disappeared into her couchette and hadn’t come out since. He’d tried talking to her, but she’d said she wanted to be alone.
Are you okay? He mouthed to her now.
She shrugged in response and refused to meet his eye.
He turned his attention to Cerise and the glowing console. “What’s going on?”
Cerise beamed at him. “We got the coordinates for the meeting with the source. Alouette just decoded the message, and I’ve already entered the new destination into the nav system. It looks like it’s a small town on the outskirts of Queenstead.”
Marcellus nodded numbly, barely able to follow her words. “I guess that’s good.”
“What’s wrong?” Cerise asked, clearly noticing the haunted expression on his face.
“I—” he tried to figure out where to begin, but then was struck by an idea. “Wait. Cerise, do you still have access to the Ministère portal on your TéléCom?”
“Yes, why?”
Marcellus let out a shaky breath. “Pull it up. Now.”
A minute later, Alouette, Cerise, and Marcellus were all gathered around Cerise’s TéléCom as the mysterious footage began to play on the screen.
It was juddering and slightly grainy, as though whoever had captured it was on the move. But Marcellus could make out a nearby hothouse glowing under an inky sky and a field of crops stretching out into the distance. The image suddenly jerked to the left, revealing three men kneeling on the muddy ground. They wore regulation green jackets and matching felt hats, marking them as hothouse superviseurs.
Two of them had their eyes shut, but the third had his wide open.
And they shone with terror.
The footage tilted upward. Five figures stood behind the kneeling men. All of them were in matching coats with hoods pulled down to obscure most of their faces.
They were dressed head to toe in the color of blood.
The color of death.
“The Red Scar,” Alouette whispered.
One of the figures stepped forward. Marcellus couldn’t see much beyond the hood of the jacket. But when she spoke, he knew it was her.
Maximilienne.
“These men are guilty of enslavement and oppression.” She gestured to the kneeling superviseurs. “They are yet another cog in the great broken machine that is this planet. And they will pay for their complicity with chains of their own.”
“Oh my Sols!” Alouette cried. “What is she going to—”
But her words were swallowed up by a flash of blue light across the screen. Marcellus’s eyes blurred for a second before he saw the laser clutched in Maximilienne’s hand.
Dread squeezed his lungs as two of the hooded figures grabbed one of the kneeling men and yanked back the sleeve of his jacket. Maximilienne stepped toward him, the tip of her laser glowing a vivid blue.
The humming, sparking sound filled Marcellus’s ears, followed by the screams and pleas of the superviseur.
The laser bore down, scorching and carving and burning the man’s skin into a smoking and sickening rectangle. With one final yelp, he fainted from the pain.
Marcellus glanced over at Cerise, whose face was twisted in disbelief and horror. He could almost see the realization play out on her face. What happened at the Jondrette wasn’t just for show. That could have been her.
On the screen, Maximilienne moved on, and in a cacophony of whirs and sparks and screams, the two other Second Estate men underwent the same torture, their arms branded with the same terrible scar.
As the Red Scar guards grabbed each of the kneeling men and yanked them to their feet, Marcellus could swear he recognized one of the hooded figures. His gaze zeroed in on the guard on the far left, and the single long curl that sprang out from under his