Chapter 47
ELARA
The knife stopped an inch above her chest, the tip angled at her matchstick tattoo.
“What the hell are you doing?” Fernand snarled.
“Trying something new,” she panted. “We have to find another way. Look!”
Fernand faced The Market. Flames crawled up a building, devouring the crumbling infrastructure like hay. Mothers screamed over their fallen children. Officers dragged their injured comrades out of danger.
“This was unavoidable,” she said. “I realize that now. The bombing was just the beginning. They were trying to warn us. My mother tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen. And I didn’t listen to you.”
Behind her, Lafontaine’s breath was haggard but steady. He was smart to remain silent. If he opened his mouth, she might not let him live.
“Then let me finish this,” Fernand said. “Let me cut his miserable throat so we can start over.”
“Can we?” Elara motioned to the destruction.
“These soldiers, the Counseil … they have families, and when their loved ones don’t come home?
This will all start over. Unless you show them the truth about this monster.
Show them how his lust for power was only beginning with the Restes.
Show them we’re not who he says we are.”
Fernand’s knife trembled.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
Elara turned to Lafontaine. “You forgot dessert, Souverain.”
“Get away from me, you bitch!” He struck her. Only once. Fernand pinned his arms back, ensuring it wouldn’t happen again.
Elara shook off the sting and held out the lavender mousse she’d collected on a spoon. One bite was all she needed to break him. Fernand pinched his nose, and Elara waited for him to gasp for air to shove the spoon in.
She didn’t care about the poison.
She cared about her magie.
His wrinkles deepened with sorrow. His fingers reached for someone who wasn’t there, and his lips trembled with Haydee’s name.
“Do you see her?” Elara asked.
“Stop this,” Lafontaine wheezed.
His eyes glazed over, swirling white.
“If she could see you now, would she be proud? You were going to murder her son. You used him to try and destroy her people.” She couldn’t find Nik in the crowd. Her heart seized with worry. Later. She could find him later.
“She chose me,” Lafontaine spat. “Not him.”
“As if a heart doesn’t have capacity to love more than one thing. Haydee loved her neighbors, and she wanted to free them. But she also loved you. Just as my mother loved me.”
It had taken Elara too long to realize this. Her mother hadn’t chosen a rebellion over her. She’d chosen it for her. Corinne had refused to let starvation and labor be her daughter’s destiny.
“Your mother was a devil!”
Elara resisted the urge to let Fernand bury that knife in the cavern where his heart should’ve been.
She had to keep going, push harder.
“Did you get to hold Haydee as she died?” she whispered, only for him. “I hope you did. I hope it was more peaceful than what my mother got.”
Tears coursed down his wrinkles and into his finely kept beard.
“I killed her.”
“If you hadn’t turned your back on her, chosen reputation over love, she would still be here. And you … you would be so much happier.”
Lafontaine slumped with a sob.
Elara nodded for Fernand to let him go.
They both stepped away, leaving Lafontaine to become what he’d always been: a miserable excuse of a person. His shoulders curved as he collapsed on himself, body heaving with wet cries.
People started to notice. The cracks of guns lessened, the cries of fury ceased, and there was stillness as they all witnessed their Souverain break.
“There’s still time,” Elara said gently. “You can make her proud.”
Lafontaine’s tremoring slowed. His sobs quieted.
“There is?” he murmured.
Elara knelt beside him, pushing even harder. Knowing he would rankle at her touch, recoil at her sympathy.
“Put an end to this,” she said. “Step down. Admit what you’ve done.”
When he lifted his chin, Elara was alarmed to find him so frail. Shadows unfurled beneath his bloodshot eyes, and he was as pale as the robes he’d armored himself in for decades. Lafontaine was no monster. He was just a man. Pathetic. Mediocre. Self-serving.
“I will,” he murmured. “Just like I put an end to your mother.”
All the air fled her lungs.
The world tipped in a sickening whirl.
“What?”
Pain pierced her core. And not from the horrific truth alone. Lafontaine’s gnarled hand gripped the syringe that he’d buried deep in her chest.
Fernand’s screams were far away.
There was only her and Lafontaine.
“Do you think I would have let anyone else have that privilege?” He leaned in and whispered, “I enjoyed slitting their throats. Your mother’s most of all.”
With that, he injected the purple liquid, and she felt every drop burn through her veins. The lights overhead brightened, brightened, brightened, until everything blazed white.
Then her soul was torn in half.
Nik was right.
She was going to die, and she couldn’t even scream.