silence descend behind him. Eerie and sudden like the flick of a switch. It was as though Chatine had not only zapped the power from the garden lights, but from the crowd as well.
Marcellus’s feet dragged to a halt, and when he turned around, every droplet of blood in his body pooled, in one great showering gush, down to his toes.
In the darkness, it almost looked like fireflies. Innocent sparks of light twinkling amongst the hedges and the flowerbeds. Two hundred Skins flickering at once, flashing a deep, crimson shade of red.
- CHAPTER 70 - ALOUETTE
ALOUETTE SQUINTED THROUGH THE DARKNESS at the two officers lying by her feet. Unconscious but not dead. She peered at her hands, raw and thrumming from the energy still pulsing through them.
They hadn’t even had a chance to fight back. As soon as the general had disappeared down the terrace steps, the familiar sensation had bloomed inside of her like the brilliant rays of a Sol. Warm and strong and deadly. Her muscles had tightened and coiled. Her body had tingled with anticipation. And her pulse had slowed to a steady, even hum.
Within minutes, they were both on the ground.
Every time Alouette performed Tranquil Forme as a weapon, she felt as though she were separate from her body. Detached from her own mind and thoughts and emotions. Yet, at the same time, she felt as if her body and her mind were strangely part of everything too. The skies above, the ground beneath her, and even the guards she was fighting. They all seemed connected. But now, as she finally returned to herself and settled once more into her skin, her thoughts came rushing back as well. Everything that had happened in the past few minutes slammed into her like a tidal wave.
Lisole.
The Patriarche had called her by her mother’s name. He’d thought that she was Lisole. He had known her mother.
Her heart started to pound again.
Something was happening to her. Something she couldn’t quite explain. She suddenly felt like she was back on that voyageur, space bending impossibly around her, warping her thoughts, detaching her mind. She sank to the ground, leaning back against the pedestal of a nearby statue.
Black tendrils clawed at the corners of her vision. Her senses all tangled together until she could taste her fear and see her breath and hear the darkness rushing toward her.
The planet spun. Round and round and round.
Lisole.
Fired from the Palais.
Forced to sell her blood.
A fake funeral.
The Renards.
A giant crushing hole gaped inside Alouette’s chest. It was a hole that had been growing for weeks.
Ever since she’d discovered that Hugo Taureau was not her real father.
Ever since she’d aimed that rayonette at Inspecteur Limier’s head.
Ever since that message—When the Lark flies home, the Regime will fall—had appeared on Marcellus’s TéléCom.
Ever since she’d walked into the Assemblée room to find that the sisters had been lying to her for twelve years.
Ever since the Patriarche—the most powerful man on the planet—called her by her mother’s name.
Wider and wider and wider the hole grew. Until it felt like it would drown her. Consume her. Become her. Until she no longer bore any semblance to the girl she thought she was. Where was that person now? Where was Alouette Taureau? Lost in the abyss? Swallowed by a truth that seemed to keep expanding and stretching and changing?
Every. Minute. Changing.
Who am I?
She’d been chasing the answer to that question for so long, she’d forgotten what it felt like to be content. To be satisfied with ignorance. And now that she was certain she was brushing up against the real answer—the complete answer—she wasn’t sure she wanted to know anymore.
Because suddenly the truth felt like a blazing hot atmosphere, ready to burn her alive upon entry. Ready to scald away any hopes of ever being satisfied with that blissful ignorance again.
She thought back to that small titan box whose ashes were now drifting and dancing through space. The one thing her mother had protected, guarded, defended. For all those years. Like a baby bird too young to fly.
Like a secret too dangerous to reveal.
Alouette shut her eyes and tried to remember the feel of the intricate design carved into the lid. Two lions facing off, claws outstretched, teeth bared.
The same symbol etched into that man’s green robe.
The Paresse family crest.
She squeezed her eyes tighter and forced her mind to go back to that ship. To that couchette. To that moment lost in time when she’d held the titan box in her