The hall stirred with the murmur of ready voices; the torchlight flickered on the gilded walls as if echoing the assembly’s hesitation. Sébastien Lacroix stood upright, shackles on his wrists, his own blood all over his shirt. Inside him churned shame and anger and that which had once been called pride. He heard every one of Strauss’s words as if they had been cast in iron and driven into flesh.
Strauss spoke slowly, with the strain of a scholar used to turning facts into verdicts:
“Guilt is obvious,” Strauss pronounced with icy certainty, addressing the Primogens. “You have torn the order in Los Angeles apart. You trampled agreements built over years. You carried out bloody purges — not for order but for revenge and amusement; you trampled on the rights of the Primogens and put us all at risk. You openly ignored neutrality pacts with independent houses and allowed conflicts to flare that nearly led to an open clash with mortals. You used Camarilla resources for your private games. You risked the Masquerade for your own glory. Los Angeles fell. The Masquerade was endangered. Your ambition and stubbornness have jeopardized everything we have built. Gentlemen, if we do not punish him with the highest measure, it will be a sign of Camarilla weakness.”
He paused, and everyone inhaled as if from a communal chill. Then he hurled the heaviest stone:
“And the vilest thing: the sarcophagus. You sought in it a power you could barely understand. You intended not only to awaken what was sealed within — you aimed for diablerie. You did not simply tempt fate; you attempted to consume that which no one should touch. If the sarcophagus had opened — we would all have faced a threat beyond the petty ambitions of a single man.”
A whisper ran through the hall like a cold wave. Lacroix felt laughter rising in him — bitter, soundless.
And then she spoke.
The Prince. He's never met her before, not personally. She's the one who ruled over Las Vegas, filled with Sabbath followers and Anarchs. At first her voice seemed foreign to him, but then he caught a familiar note — the confidence of someone who knows how to keep a room on a hook. She did not plead or beg. She stated.
“Strauss is right on the facts,” she said, and the hall fell silent again. “Lacroix made mistakes. He took risks. He was broken. But the question is not whether he is guilty — the question is what will bring us the greater benefit.”
She spoke not imploringly, not defending him as an act of blind mercy, but presenting a calculation, and with each phrase she rearranged the pieces in the minds of those listening.
“Madam Solange, are you opposing the sentence?”
“I propose we think,” she replied softly. “Lacroix is guilty. His failure is obvious. But will his death make us stronger? Or will we simply show all our enemies that the Camarilla discards princes like old furniture? A living Lacroix is a symbol. A symbol that even a prince can fall, but the Camarilla knows how to control its own. His defeat is a lesson. His life is a reminder.”
A lesson?
he almost sneered inwardly.
You want to make me a living admonition? Wonderful. A prince cast in the role of a scarecrow.
Strauss cut in sharply: “And yet he is a threat. Leave him alive, and one day he will raise his head again. Men like him never quench their thirst for power.”
“And men like you,” Solange returned without a smile, “have an insatiable thirst for control. But allow me to note: he will have no chance to rise if I take him under my supervision.”
Strauss frowned. His reply was brusque:
“And you propose to take responsibility? You propose that the Camarilla set a precedent by sparing a prince? What guarantees do you offer, madam? How can we be sure he will not try again? That he will not return to his intentions, to diablerie, if the chance appears?”
Solange smiled — and that smile was neither warm nor friendly; it was a tool.
“I will take him to Vegas. There — my territory, my conditions. He will be under my oversight; if he breaks them — I will be the first to present the evidence and the first to deal with him. If he dares to seek diablerie or contact enemies, I will not ask the Camarilla’s permission; I will act. I vouch for him as one of Ventrue.”
Strauss scanned the hall, read the Primogens’ movements — nods, strained faces, worried elders whose fear of the Sabbat and of internal collapse outweighed the desire for bloody vengeance. He looked at Lacroix. In his eyes Lacroix saw not mercy but calculation.
“Let it be so,” Strauss said; his voice trembled only slightly; “we hand him over to the Prince's supervision. His title is annulled. His rights are restricted. And let it be recorded: any violation — and the stone will fall first upon the one who granted such mercy.”
When the verdict was pronounced, Lacroix felt half his world drop away. He was alive — but his life now contained disgrace, conditions, and a new reason to serve not so much the Camarilla as another’s ambition.
The Prince approached him one last time, and he noted in her gaze not pity, not triumph, but interest — hungry, scrutinizing. He understood the price of her gesture: she had saved him, but not for free. She had bought his mind, his past mistakes, his promise to be silent and to serve. And in that “serve” he could already hear the clink of new chains.
He took a step aside — not a bow, not solidarity. Just a step. In his soul, at that same instant, a decision was born: as long as he lived, he would play. She made a move — and he would answer, but on his own terms, slowly and coldly, as only a fallen king, forced to learn to be a pawn again, could.
Sebastian strides out of the chamber, his head held high, his eyes distant. Into the uncertain future. Into Solange's keeping. Ready to play this twisted game. Ready to outwit, to outmaneuver, to reclaim. No matter how long it takes. No matter the cost.
And though he can feel the weight of the verdict, the shackles of his new reality, there is still a spark of defiance in him. A core of steel that refuses to be extinguished. He is Lacroix. The fallen prince of Los Angeles. And he will rise again. In his own time. On his own terms.
You want a lesson, Princess? I'll give you one.
He felt Solange's gaze on him, assessing, appraising. Her eyes were as hard and bright as the glittering lights surrounding them, and he could feel their weight, their significance. She was sizing him up, no doubt trying to determine just how broken he was, how much of the old Lacroix remained. Little did she know, the old Lacroix was still very much alive, if battered and bruised.
“You look as though life has lost all savor for you, Prince,” she said flatly — yet that “Prince” carried the edge of mockery. The title was stripped from him tonight. There was no reason to call him so anymore.
Sebastian doesn't reply. He clenches his jaw and looks away into the night.
“Ah, apologies. It's ex-Prince now,” she added as if she had forgotten about it. “Do not worry. Vegas will be to your liking. I will do my best to make it feel less like exile and more like home.”
Lacroix knew all too well the double-edged nature of Solange's offer. To be under her hospitality was to be under her thumb, her control. But he would not be her puppet, not entirely. He would find a way to navigate this new landscape, to carve out a space for himself. It would take time, patience, and no small amount of cunning.
“You're too kind, your Grace” he says, tortured by desire to snap her neck then and there.
Lacroix met Solange's gaze. Her eyes were piercing, assessing, missing nothing. He felt stripped bare by that look, laid open for her scrutiny. It was unsettling, this new vulnerability. He had grown accustomed to being the one doing the appraising, the one holding power. Now he was the subject, the object of another's designs.
She smiled broadly, clearly content with his compliance.
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