Between Burning Worlds (System Divine #2) - Jessica Brody Page 0,8

crisp white trousers and lapelled jacket that he loathed so much. He was, once again, Officer Bonnefaçon, the grandson of General César Bonnefaçon, and the son of the notorious dead traitor, Julien Bonnefaçon. He was, once again, Laterre’s commandeur-in-training, a dutiful servant of the Ministère.

And today, he would have to look his grandfather in the eye and pretend that he didn’t just pledge his life to bringing the general down.

He felt sick with dread and impossibility. He couldn’t help but think that the Vangarde had made a huge mistake in entrusting this task to him. It still felt like a fool’s errand. The general was too clever, too secretive, too strategic. How was Marcellus ever going to find this weapon? Where would he even begin?

Releasing a sigh, he tipped his head back and glanced up at the Paresse Tower that stood tall and regal at the center of the roundabout, watching over every street and park, every manoir and garden. Erected twenty years ago by the former Patriarche, Claude Paresse, to celebrate the Laterrian Regime, the tower used to be one of Marcellus’s favorite sights in Ledôme. The view of the magnificent structure, motionless and vast, shooting up into the TéléSky, used to inspire him.

But today, like everything else around him, the Paresse Tower felt gaudy and grandiose and so very wrong. Now Marcellus could see it for what it really was: a tower erected to mark centuries of oppression and inequality. A landmark built to celebrate the elite few who were fortunate enough to live in luxury in this climate-controlled biodome while the rest of the planet starved and froze.

Today, the tower only served to make him angrier.

He kicked off from the ground and sped the rest of the way back to the Grand Palais. After docking his moto outside the gates, Marcellus walked the length of the perimeter, scanning the little fleur-de-lis ornaments that topped each post of the titan fence, until he located the one that was bent at a slight angle. He climbed the fence and slipped through the invisible breach in the security shields, silently thanking Mabelle for her ingenuity.

He remembered the first time she had shown him the bent ornaments, when he was just a little boy. She’d made a game out of locating them. “Which ones are not like the others?” It wasn’t until years later, after Mabelle had been arrested as a Vangarde spy, that Marcellus realized Mabelle had bent them on purpose. To mark the loopholes where she had compromised the shields surrounding the Palais grounds, allowing her to come and go without being noticed or tracked.

Marcellus let himself in through the servants’ entrance and climbed one of the back staircases to the south wing, where he and his grandfather lived. As the head of the Ministère and the Patriarche’s primary advisor, General Bonnefaçon was awarded dedicated residences in the Palais. It was an honor that used to make Marcellus feel lucky, privileged, prestigious. Now these walls felt like prison bars. And the spacious, well-appointed rooms that he passed along the way only served to remind him that this morning’s visit to the copper exploit had not gone as he’d planned.

When he’d crept through the dark, sleeping Palais only a few hours ago, he thought he was leaving it for good. He thought he’d never have to return. He was fueled by the idea that he would never have to be in the same room as his grandfather again. He’d thought that joining the Vangarde would take him away from all of this. Just as it had for his father.

And yet, here he was. Back within these suffocating walls. With his grandfather’s loathsome lies clinging to every fiber of every tapestry.

“Access granted.” The door to his rooms opened and Marcellus lifted his palm from the panel on the biometric lock and barged inside. He stalked over to the bed, collapsed down onto it, and screamed into one of the silk pillows. Loud and hard until his throat burned and the sound silenced the voices of doubt and helplessness in his head.

“Are you finished?”

Marcellus sprang up from the bed and glanced around, his heart leaping into his throat when he saw his grandfather standing near the door to the balcony. The general’s tall, muscular frame was half silhouetted by the artificial Sol-light streaming in through the gap in the curtains.

“G-G-Grand-père,” Marcellus said, stammering slightly. How long had he been standing there? “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” his grandfather