Ch. Fifteen

15

            Acai sat nervously as Anber and Vice eyed him expectantly, dissecting him, waiting.

            He'd come back only once to update his mentor on his doings, which was many years before. It was when Anber and him had joined with Tristian's group, and she'd been too bothered by the whole thing to admit to her mentor (and to herself, even) that they'd joined mercenaries. But it was required that they do, so Acai had taken the task.

            The meeting had gone as he expected. She screamed at him, slapped him, threatened to revoke both his and Anber's titles. She howled about the "waste" this was, a word she used over and over again in that meeting. She wouldn't stand for it. She would not have it. "This is a joke, a damn, wasteful joke" she'd cried, and then slapped him again.

            In the end, though, she couldn't do anything, and Acai left that day not feeling disgruntled or upset, but proud and strong, excited for the life awaiting his sister and him in the new world of mercenaries.

            Of course, he never returned for any of the updates she posted them for, and even when he was forced to come back to the Academy for the yearly festival of the Magi, he simply did what he must and shifted away, avoiding Vice's angry, disappointed eyes as best he could.

            Now, though, he was trapped. He didn't necessarily remember his promise to Anber, but he felt it, just like Anber had when he went and signed them up with Tristian. It was something with them being twins. Their devotion toward one another, despite their differences, was one without questions. It simply was, and there was no going against it.

            "Well sweet-cheeks, have you?"

            Vice said this, smug and cold. She sat on her desk, stretched out, legs crossed over one another and the tip of her fingernail clenched between her teeth. Despite how everyone gushed over, Acai never had once thought that she was pretty.

            She was mean to the root. Cold and apathetic. Selfish in the most sincere of manners.

            Evil, he thought.

            "No, I haven't," he said, bringing his eyes to hers but not being able to hold them there. They fell back to his shoes automatically.

            "You're sure, brother?" Anber stood at the end of the desk, her shoulder nearly tapping Vice's. "Not even Katdja said anything of the sort?"

            He shook his head. "I don't know what this is all about, but there aren't any secrets. You know that, Anber!"

            She nodded, but only to show she heard, not listened.

            "Perhaps we started on the wrong tone," Vice interjected, moving herself upright atop the desk. "I'm not accusing you, nor is your sister. But you understand that this is not just some task you and your lot have been performing, right? Surely you see the oddity, the frailty, of a Counselor hiring a bunch of apathetics like yourselves?

            "The truth is that I'm not really looking for a 'secret' in your group, because I know what it is. As does your sister."

            Again Anber nodded, but this time she brought her eyes far away from Acai's.

            "A person. That's what I'm asking you, Acai. Have you, or your group, seen any persons? Have you avoided them or helped them?" Vice paused, studying him before finishing. "Harbored them?"

            "No, I haven't." Anger fleshed itself through his body, an anger channeled from the sudden betrayal of his sister. How long had she been keeping secrets? "And if any one of us had found a person, we would have brought them out of there and back to Lamberdine. It would be the first thing reported also."

            Suddenly, Vice's demeanor fell, the sharpness of her piercing gaze collapsing behind the mechanics of a quickly risen thought. Whatever he'd said had shook her, or at least made her stumble during this stampede of hers.

            Strangely, she laughs, muffling her giggles. "Oh my," she says, short breaths in her voice. "I've really twisted you twins up. I forgot how little that you know!"

            That was it. Acai stands, his chair collapsing behind him, fists clenched. Anber looks at him, eyes wet, mouth paused in mid-space, a sentence, an apology, trapped somewhere inside.

            "I expect to hear everything later, Anber. Everything!"

            She stays quiet, and Acai leaves, slamming the Counselor's door behind him.