Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,166

and perform the procedure myself.”

- CHAPTER 47 - CHATINE

“UP YOU GO!” ETIENNE SAID, hoisting Astra onto his shoulder. Astra’s face beamed with pride as she clipped a small piece of looped metal between the ends of two long cables, connecting the newly built chalet with its closest neighbor.

Instantly, the building glowed to life as the power channeled from the rest of the camp into the new dwelling, illuminating it from the inside.

Linked, Chatine thought with a smile.

Everyone cheered. Chatine stared at the spectacle in awe, marveling at how fast the construction had been completed. A single afternoon and a whole community working together, and suddenly these two people had a house. A home. And it was a thousand times nicer than any Third Estate dwelling.

As Chatine watched the newly linked couple—Saros and Castor—walk into their chalet for the first time, hands clasped and faces beaming, she felt a strange stirring inside of her that she couldn’t identify. It was warm and sweet. Like the hot chocolat the Défecteurs had been passing around in metal cups.

But it wasn’t just their faces that thawed Chatine from the inside. It was the faces of everyone here. All the people who had helped create this structure. They were beaming almost as much as the couple they had gifted it to.

Chatine tried to remember the last time she’d ever built something with her own hands. She’d fixed a leaky roof in her family’s old couchette once, but that didn’t count. And her face certainly hadn’t looked like that afterward. She hadn’t glowed with pride the way everyone around her was doing right now. Would she have felt that if she’d ever shown up for her job at the textile fabrique? Would she have glowed with pride over a sheet of fabric she’d woven for the Matrone’s curtains? Or a fancy tablecloth for some Second Estate manoir?

No. Definitely not.

The difference, Chatine immediately realized, was that these people had built this structure for them. Not for anyone else. They weren’t assigned to do it. An alert didn’t go off on a device implanted in their arms, telling them it was time to work. They worked because they wanted to. Because they enjoyed it. Because the result made them glow.

Saros and Castor emerged from their newly built chalet. The crowd cheered, and then the entire camp broke out in pandemonium.

Handmade instruments suddenly appeared. Music erupted. More hot chocolat was poured. And then a fire was built in a small pit in the center of the festivities. Chatine gazed into the flames, transfixed. Fire-making had been prohibited on Laterre ever since the first ancestors had arrived. It was a skill she thought time had forgotten. But clearly not here. Not among these people. She watched on as the fire grew bigger, until eventually the curling flames licked and batted at the cold air. The warmth and glow felt like a small Sol had fallen from the sky and landed right here, in the middle of the frozen Terrain Perdu.

Suddenly, everyone was on their feet. There was so much dancing. Men, women, children. Even little baby Mercure—who, up until a few minutes ago, had been asleep on Chatine’s lap—woke up and joined in on the festivities. His mother placed him back in his sling, and Chatine smiled as the woman spun and shimmied her way through the crowd, causing the baby to laugh and shriek.

It’s a fête, Chatine soon realized. But she’d certainly never seen anything like it before. Not that she’d witnessed a lot of fêtes in her life. Sure, there were the First Estate fêtes that the Paresse family held at the Grand Palais and broadcasted to the rest of Laterre—like the annual Ascension banquet and the elaborate birthday celebrations of the Matrone. But those always felt so formal and pretentious and decidedly not fun. Chatine would have rather poked her eyes out with an exploit pick than attend one of those. But this fête was different. These people—these strange Défecteurs who lived so far away from the rest of the planet, who hid from the Regime by stealing their own resources—they knew how to celebrate.

They all looked to be having so much fun, Chatine actually, for one sliver of a second, wished that she could join. That her stupide leg wasn’t still healing from that stupide Ministère explosif. But then her gaze landed on Etienne, jumping up and down and waving his arms like an idiot, and the moment passed quickly. Chatine was perfectly content to just