The Immortal Chronicles | | b o o k 2

21. under investigation

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IMMORTAL CHRONICLES : BOOK ONE : neox

. . .

One of the many things that irked Cirian beyond belief was constantly being ushered here and there, told what to do, and expected to follow them through. He didn't quite mind his work in Anjour, but it was expected of him to fulfill his duties. He was expected to be the son that his father could approve of—and in many cases, he was that son. He was the only son after all, but now that detail seemed to be false.

In meetings with his colleagues back at Anjour, his peers talked amongst one another, saying what Cirian should and shouldn't do—agree with this, disagree with that. With all the noise everyone created, Cirian was hardly capable of putting a word in for himself. If he had a stronger backbone, perhaps he could have convinced the Lord General to tell him who his real father was.

More often than not, he felt as though he was simply a piece on a chessboard, waiting for the player to make a move. And now, as he sat in one of Nicholas Arnott's floral-patterned chairs, his metaphorical piece was being pulled to and fro between Renée and Nicholas.

Renée's hands clasped the back of his chair, her nails digging into the fabric. He'd seen his wife angry plenty of times, but it was often on the playing field with Demarcus. For some odd reason, Renée without a sword seemed far more dangerous than Renée with one. Her tongue was as sharp as her blade, and Cirian felt himself dwindling under her wrath, even if it wasn't entirely aimed at him.

"How can you say she doesn't matter?" Renée demanded, pushing away from Cirian's chair to confront Nicholas, who hardly comprehended a reason for her anger.

A sliver of smoke drifted over his lips and past the scruff of his beard. "You wouldn't understand—men aren't raised by their mothers," he said. "At least not here."

Renée bristled, and her pale Eastvalian skin seemed to boil red. Her ears were certainly that hue now. "Decent men are," she retorted. "Being raised by a mother and a father makes children well balanced and healthy individuals."

Nicholas glanced over at Cirian, who stared rather blankly at the two of them. "Cirian isn't exactly a child, now is he?" he said, looking past the fury on Renée's face. "Besides, he seems fine to me. Whoever his mother is, I'm not sure if meeting her would change anything. It'd just give him another relative he won't ever talk to."

"It doesn't matter if he's a child anymore!" Renée yelled, her voice increasing in volume and size and seemed to hit Nicholas upside the head. The man coughed on his intake of smoke and stepped away from her. "Anyone at any age can benefit from the-"

"I see no benefit," Nicholas said. "I see a distraction, something that will prevent Cirian from doing is actual job—which he does a mighty fine job of if I do say so myself. He hasn't had a mother all his life, he's successful, and there's no need to argue any further. He didn't need a mother then and he doesn't need one now. And the way I see it, he doesn't need a father either, if this fact is true. Biology has nothing to do with it—a figure that represents a father is enough for a young man to grow up, which Cirian is no longer."

"The fathers here do nothing to raise their children!" The eruption caused Nicholas to fall silent, and had Cirian been talking, he would have done the same. Huffing, Renée looked at the two men, her ginger hair hardly maintaining its structure atop her head. Her eyes were mad with distress.

She pressed a hand to her forehead and exhaled a calming sigh. "I am sorry—I shouldn't have said that."

"No, you shouldn't have," Nicholas said. Cirian scoffed at him, shifting in his chair. "What?"