Inland deals
Orion
Dinner on the night of the assignment was strange. The huge, dark, gothic-themed dining hall my father insisted we use was barely lit, save for the stone lighting chandelier hanging just about 20 ft above my head. Sometimes I wonder if the thing would fall one day and crash down onto the obsidian stone table.
And then there was the table. I looked down towards the black stone. It was needlessly long, but according to my father, the 30-foot-long piece of furniture was needed to keep up with appearances, that we would need it to win when the guests started to come. I was barely around when he liked to host his parties, and he did host them quite often, but even with that, I found eating here to be quite excessive.
There was a private dining room just two doors down the hallway once you stepped outside, but my father decided it was this one we would eat in every night, the same one he entertained his guests in. Usually, when he entertained his guests, there was more lighting, more fanfare, more attention, but this time it was cold. There was no warmth; it was just dark, bleak, and so fucking cold.
Still, Father liked it, and then there was the fact that it was mostly soundless, with every single sound made by the clinking of silverware against bowls made louder by the echoing sound. But Father didn’t seem much perturbed by it, if anything, he seemed proud.
I looked away from him to Mother, who stared at her plate for a little too long. She liked to do that recently, for whatever reason known to her, but she had her secrets, and it was rude, as Father would often say, to pry into a lady’s secrets. She raised her eyes, the same color as mine, to my father and then to me before she looked away and continued staring down at her plate. Maybe she, too, could see how cold it was and simply had lost her appetite.
Father cleared his throat, smacked his lips together, and cleared his throat again. I rolled my eyes and slowly turned my face to his. He smiled.
“Tell me,” he said. “I heard you have been grouped into a cohort. Who are those you are paired with?” He smiled. “Eisengard, perhaps? Or is it the Gordons? I think the daughter is in your class.”
I shook my head. “Neither,” I said. “The first paired me with people I don’t know. But I think it’s better for me.”
He cleared his throat, looking down at his plate while pressing his lips together. “People you don’t know?” he said, echoing my words. “Isn’t that bad? Don’t you need people in your cohort who you can trust? Wouldn’t it have been better if your friends were with you? I think the Gordon daughter is quite a good pair, she is quite powerful in using her attribute of ice, and pairing that up with yours…”
Father leaned forward. He trailed off, staring at me for a good minute before continuing. “Then again, I think your magic would work best with anyone, the only thing being your antithesis.”
The room suddenly grew colder.
“One of them is a necromancer,” I said with a chuckle, choosing not to dwell on his message, his message that my magic was more of a curse than a blessing.
Those who could control more than one magical attribute were seen as children of faith. Those who could control three were seen as children with great luck, for it meant you were gifted by the gods, and five just meant that you were probably possessed by a devil.
In this case, I had five. It wasn’t luck; it wasn’t a grand disposition. Perhaps I just drew the bad hand of fate, and according to my father, I should keep it silent.
Father mumbled something under his breath, continuing his dinner in silence.
“Come see me,” he said once he was done.
I looked toward Mother, who had still not touched her food. I rolled my eyes.
“You're just going on a hunger strike, you know.”
“I’m, ” she mumbled. “Father isn’t going to take notice if you continue with that, especially when you give him the good stuff every night.”
Her eyes widened. Her eyes reminded me of someone with a milder wide depth and huge eyes, similar to what I’d call round. But at the same time it was nearly feline; perhaps it was just her personality, but Mother was strange. Pouting her lips, she turned away from me.
“I will get your father to listen to me at some point, even if it means I become the size of that candlestick,” she said, pointing to the one in the corner, the one that was probably never used at one of those parties that I never attended. “You can’t believe what your father did to me at the last gathering. He sidelined me for his sister.” She smacked her hand down on the table.
“I’ve been planning to confront him until I was done with dinner,” she continued, “and it’s all going to be fine if she simply speaks to him about it.”
I found my father in his study not long after. He sat in front of the fireplace on the floor with manuscripts spread out in front of him, but on closer inspection I found out they were maps.
“What are you doing?” I crouched next to him.
“The council couldn’t discuss this part in front of everyone,” he said, which is why it’s going to be tabled in front of the Thirteen separately, he added without turning to me. “But there’s a problem,” he continued. “It appears that a lycan alpha has taken a human mate. Although it is not yet certified, it seems to be causing some stir in the west.”
He pointed to the western part of the continent. The territory was mostly just green landmass without many buildings on it; after all, we had been told werewolves lived very close to a nature lifestyle, barely civilized, yet I knew differently. It was all just propaganda to make everyone think they were primitive.
“Damon, you mean?” I said. “Alpha demon?”
My father slowly raised his eyes. “Keep your ears open,” he said. “Good. That is where you go. Your task is to find out why. Damon is mustering his troops. In fact, he recently attacked a core member of the Council of Alphas, Adrian, the blind one.”
Father continued to speak until finally he reached his obvious conclusion. “Damon’s actions go against my interests,” he said. “My interest is the interest of the Thirteen. Whether your cohort is capable of doing it is not important, but you have your task. And your task is to kill the human.”