“Stop it.” Whispering did no good. Her voice was everywhere.
Lafontaine reached out to stroke her cheek. She was frozen with fear, stuck between fighting or running. If she did either, it would only add tinder to whatever fire he wanted to stoke.
His voice flooded with sympathy as his cold thumb stroked her blistering face. “You’ve been manipulated your entire life, my dear girl.”
She would’ve bit his fingers off if she could.
“I know the truth is hard to swallow. But it will set you free.Iwill set you free.”
Lafontaine stood as the rumble of the mechanized stage died.
“Out of respect for the festivities of the Objet d’Art, I struggled to find an opportune time to convey to you all the devastating truth about the passing of our great Souverain Lisette Plouffe.”
What did she… no. Oh no.
“According to the most recent autopsy, it is my sound conclusion that Plouffe did not die of natural causes.”
The room gave a collective gasp. Frenzied chatter spread like wildfire, just as Lafontaine had planned.
“She was murdered.”
Chaos. From the darkness, people stirred like angry wasps, swarming closer to the stage and the Counseil’s light.
“Elara Rousseau is not guilty. She is but a victim, bent to the whims of an evil force threatening to rise in Anespérer again. How did you truly enter this contest?”
He was looking at her.
Elara gaped.
She turned to the crowd for Chantal. Blai. Nik. Someone to help her.
“I… I don’t know. The coat just arrived.”
Lafontaine nodded sympathetically. “Convenient that it should arrive on the doorstep of Corinne Rousseau’s daughter directly after the death of her Souverain.”
Lafontaine raised his arms, and light spread through the room, enough to ease the panic. People were huddled together, clinging to their families as if they were actually in any danger.
It didn’t matter if they were.
Lafontaine had made them believe the threat was real.
“The rebels have returned.”
Someone screamed, and the people pressed closer to the stage, looking to the Counseil des Sept for safety.
Elara was going to be sick.
“But I bring balm to this wound. Justice.” Lafontaine pointed toward the front doors, which burst open.
Elara’s knees gave out as she crashed to the stage.
It took two guards to drag Gaetan forward. He stumbled against the heavy chains on his ankles and wrists, the clanking filling the silence between her thundering heartbeats. The great symbol of peace in the Restes was broken. They’d dappled him with bruises and cuts that wept down his brawny arms. His beard was matted with spittle and old blood. They’d ruined him. Destroyed him.
Elara broke her silence with a plea. “He’s innocent.”
“He has led you to believe that,” Lafontaine replied. “Who but Corinne’s right-hand man could see this plan through? He burrowed his way into your heart so you wouldn’t notice his schemes. In a recent raid of an old rebel’s home, we found this.”
He held up a photograph.
