Chapter 13 - THE SEED OF REBELLION
"Extinct...?" Clara whispered, staring at her family's crest turning red on the news feed. "They're telling the world we died in the fire."
"It's the only way they can legally seize the Council seats," Marcus said, walking over to a heavy wooden cabinet in the corner. He unlocked it with a thumbprint scanner, pulling out a faded leather binder filled with yellowed documents and encrypted drive keys. "The Syndicate has been buying off Council members for a decade. Your mother, Nora, was the only one who realized they were manufacturing the famine in the lower sectors to force a military takeover."
Marcus turned to face us, laying the binder on the central table.
"Your father and your uncle thought they could protect you by hiding you in the system, Nora," Marcus continued, looking straight into my eyes. "They were wrong. The Vance family isn't extinct. But as long as the world believes you're dead, you have one advantage they never anticipated."
"What advantage?" I asked, setting the half-eaten loaf of bread—now cold and stale—onto the map table beside his blueprints.
"Anonymity," Marcus smiled grimly, his eyes glinting with a cold, dangerous light. "They think they wiped out the last of the bloodline. They don't know that the rightful heir to the High Council is currently standing in a scrap-metal tower in Sector 9, wearing a dead soldier's coat."
He leaned over the table, tapping a key that brought up a massive holographic map of the entire city—from the glittering spires of the High District down to the dark, suffocating mines of Sector 4.
"We aren't going to hide anymore," Clara said suddenly, stepping up beside me, her small hand reaching out to squeeze mine. The terror in her eyes had completely vanished, replaced by an iron fury inherited from generations of her blood. "We're going to take it all back."
May you like
Marcus looked between the two eight-year-old girls standing before him—one born in velvet, one born in rags, bound together by blood and a shared piece of bread.
"Then tomorrow," Marcus said, racking the bolt of his rifle, "the war begins."
