Daughter of Zeus ✔

9.5

"Yes, I appreciate the information. My assistant re-directed her to have dinner here at the main house. I'm not sure how she had the other address."

Brontes's phone conversation began to bore Chancelin. Her husband was always talking to someone, and it was always important. Being ignored was a side effect of being married to a powerful man. Her mother, married to a state ambassador, had taught her that.

Chancelin left her husband's study to find her children. Darcy and Phennell were in the game room. Cheers and ringing from multiple wall panels carried into the hallway. The children laughed. When Chancelin entered the game room, they were diving in different directions in an effort to divert a holographic tennis ball.

"Get it!" Darcy squealed.

Phennell tapped the pixilated sphere dashing toward him. The ball flew past, and a mock crowd cheered. His brows came together.

"What? How'd you do that? Nobody could make that shot." He rapped his knuckles on the panel. "This thing's glitching again."

Darcy smiled and bowed. "Nothing glitched, stepbrother."

"Then why were the panels flickering, stepsister?" he mocked.

"Quite finished?" Chancelin's frosty remark failed in deterring Phennell's spirit, but it visibly dampened Darcy's mood.

"We're done," she said, dropping her faux tennis racquet to the floor. The composite image shattered, its energy absorbed back into the walls.

Phennell changed the subject. "Good thing you got her those lessons, Mom. Otherwise, little Darcy wouldn't be moving on to the 11th grade."

Darcy scoffed. "Why should tennis class dictate if I pass in school anyway? I have an A in English and Biomechanics, not that anybody cares."

"Sports come first in education. That's the way things have always been." Chancelin repeated the doctrine told to her since she was a girl.

"Nah-uh. My English teacher said electives like her class used to be core classes. Even math and history were core classes." Darcy wrinkled her nose.

"You'll believe anything, dork. Just listen to the interface screens, not your teachers." Phennell gave her a playful shove.

She laughed and ran after him. "Mom, tell him to stop!"

"Young lady, it's you who should stop."

Darcy's smile slipped. "Why?"

"Because you need to act appropriately."

She pointed after her brother, who slipped out of the room to escape the brewing argument. "He shoved me, and you didn't say anything."

"Boys are allowed to roughhouse."

"Why?"

Chancelin knew the reasoning to be sound. During Prominent party meetings, members informed her as such. Boys were playful and girls demure. That's just the way things were. Trying to explain such a  concept to her daughter at this age would take too long.

So all she said was, "Because." In a darker tone, she added, "Also, cheating is beneath you. Don't let it happen again."

"I didn't cheat! Phennell's just a sore loser!"

Her daughter seemed to be telling the truth, which meant Chancelin had a far bigger problem with her than cheating. Phennell was right: no one could've made that shot, not unless they were special.

"The panels aren't toys. You're not allowed in here until next school term, when you know how to handle yourself." She gently pushed a protesting Darcy out of the room. "Get dressed for dinner. And Phennell, put on a damn tie for once," she called after him.

"Of course, Mother!" His yell echoed down the stairs.

To the panels recreating a cheering crowd behind her, Chancelin ordered, "Simulation end."

"Shutting down."

All four panels went dark.

~*~