grandfather rose to his feet and immediately reached for the TéléCom on his desk, already getting pulled into a barrage of AirLinks and broadcasts.
Marcellus got to work arranging the Regiments pieces back into their starting formations. He saved his Monarch for last. With its crowned head resting against the marble surface of the game board, the stone piece looked so helpless and deserted, like Marcellus imagined so many of the monarchs had looked after those bloody battles for power and wealth that had been fought on the First World.
He supposed not much had changed since then, however. Laterre and Albion had been fighting since the first days of the System Divine. Battles for land and titan and influence had kept their leaders at odds for more than five centuries. The general, himself, had lost his own commandeur and friend, Michele Vernay, because of that grudge.
Marcellus sighed and picked up his defeated Monarch, turning it over in his hands. Over the years, he’d seen this piece fall time and time again at the hands of his grandfather. The general was just too clever, too strategic, too manipulative. And Marcellus felt like one of those lonely peasant pieces on the bottom tier of the board. Always unarmed and unprepared. Always outsmarted in the end.
But this time, as he studied the intricate carvings and bell-like shape of the Monarch, he noticed something he’d never noticed before. The piece was not made of solid stone, as it appeared. But rather, it was hollow in the middle. As he subtly lifted it up to eye level, Marcellus could see a narrow indentation carved into the base of the stone.
Deep and cavernous and …
Perfect.
“General Bonnefaçon!”
Marcellus and his grandfather both looked toward the door of the study to find one of the Palais maids, dressed in her usual black-and-blue uniform, panting breathlessly, as though she’d just been running laps around Ledôme.
“Yes?” The general looked more confused than angry by the intrusion.
“The Patriarche …”—her words were punctuated by short, ragged breaths—“… has insisted … you come … now.”
The general checked the time on his TéléCom. “Right now?”
The maid clutched her heaving chest. “He says … it’s urgent.… He’s in the … imperial appartements.”
A flash of irritation crossed over the general’s face. He evidently believed this to be just another pointless summoning from a man suffering from severe paranoia. “We’ll be right there,” he muttered to the servant, who bowed her head and slipped back out the door.
Marcellus gripped the Monarch piece tightly in his shaking hands. This could be his only chance. Carefully reaching into his pocket, he pinched the auditeur between his fingers. Tiny and round with a row of protruding filaments, it felt like an insect. And weighed nothing more than one too.
His grandfather had been right. Marcellus had been distracted tonight. So distracted, he didn’t even see what was right in front of him. The Regiments board was positioned on a small round table directly in the center of the study. It was equal distance from the general’s desk, the sitting area, and the large windows in front of which his grandfather often paced when he was on long AirLink conversations.
“Marcellus,” his grandfather said sharply as he stalked toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“Coming, Grand-Père,” Marcellus replied. And then, with his back turned to the general, he hastily shoved the auditeur into the hollow groove at the base of the Monarch and, with a soft clink, repositioned the stone piece on the top tier of the board. It stood stoic and regal. Ready for action.
Ready for the next game to begin.
- CHAPTER 10 - MARCELLUS
“THANK THE SOLS YOU’RE HERE!” the Patriarche said urgently before grabbing the general and Marcellus by the sleeves and pulling them through the door.
It was the first time Marcellus had ever been inside the imperial appartements. The walls were lined with velvet, and beautiful handwoven rugs covered the floors underfoot. Hundreds of tiny crystals on an intricate chandelier glimmered above, and in the center of the room, in a gigantic canopied bed, lay Veronik Paresse, fast asleep.
“This is a catastrophe!” the Patriarche ranted in a hushed voice as he paced in front of the bed. He was dressed in crumpled silk pajamas the color of apricots and a pair of fluffy wool slippers. At the crown of his head, a few strands of his thin hair tented upward like antennae on the top of the Paresse Tower. “An absolute disaster.”
“Perhaps we should take this meeting elsewhere?” the general nodded discreetly toward the