Chapter One
Eclipse
Maxence
An eclipse.
The rifle’s muzzle at point-blank range was aneclipsethat began as a pinprick of darkness and expanded as the mercenary walked toward where Maxence lay on the ground, covering Dree with his body.
Under his back, Dree gasped.
The gunmetal gray circle filled with darkness swallowed the throne room into its maw, becoming an enormous black hole punched out of the air as it hovered in front of Max’s face.
Sulfurous gunpowder stink wafted from the muzzle of the gun, filling his sinuses and stinging the back of his throat.
In the room around them, shouts and yelps parleyed as people bargained or begged for their lives.
Maxence raised his hands, showing the mercenary holding the rifle he was unarmed.
The levitating circle of darkness twitched to the side, indicating that Maxence should stand up.
He rolled to his side, whispering to Dree,“Move away from me.”
“No, I—”
“Get out.I’ll distract them as long as I can.”
As he turned over and his left side was downward, Maxence reached into his pants pocket and flipped his cell phone toward her.
Dree caught it and tucked it into her skirt.
Oh,good girl.That was the move of someone he could rely on to hold the castle despite anything that happened to him.
Max slowly rose to his feet.
Behind the circle of darkness, a long steel beam stretched to the man’s face and his squinting eyes resting atop the stock of the gun.
As they made eye contact over the gunsight, the man’s black eyebrows furrowed on his pale skin.
Maxence smiled at the mercenary over the gun. “It’s okay. We’re all okay here.”
The man blinked, and his eyebrows lowered.
Maxence tried speaking French to the man. “Why have you come here today?”
The terrorist replied in the same language over the length of the rifle. He growled, “Because she has paid me.”
“But what has she taken from you?” Maxence asked.
The man’s eyes narrowed more.
Maxence didn’t know exactlywhathe did when the wave of conviction rolled through him when he spoke, when the emotion in his body reached other people and filled them too, but he knew when he was doing it.
And he knew how to make it happen when he needed to.
Max said, “Marie-Therese always asks something in return. What is it?”
The muzzle of the gun lowered slightly as the man stared at him.
