Serving Lant Agriche

Chapter 3 - Traits of the Agriche Nobility

This time, Dion met Lant Agriche in the gardens. His father was watching two blond children in dirt-stained clothes digging for potion ingredients. The girl was especially pretty. Her blood-red eyes were the exact same shape and colour as the eyes of Lant Agriche.

"Look for the yellow flowers with soft grass-spikes along its stem, Miss," an instructor said reprovingly. "Snakeweed is a plenty here. I don't understand why you and Master Asil are picking at useless weeds."

"You mean these aren't poisonous plants?"Asil held up a yellow daffodil in one hand. "Well, at least they're pretty. What do you think, Sana?" He gave his little sister a serene smile, looking as pure and innocent as a white-winged angel. His pearly teeth flashed as he tucked the flower behind his sister's ear.

The girl brushed away the flower. "Concentrate, Asil." Her face was grim and serious for a nine-year-old. In her red garden boots and matching day dress, she rushed to a different patch of yellow flowers and deposited some in her wicker basket. Her body naturally leaned as far as it could from her instructor, as if she knew the lesson he was teaching her was disturbing and ludicrous.

To an outsider, Lant Agriche looked like a handsome father serenely watching his children, but Dion had noticed how forced his father's smile was.

He is looking at them like that because they are weak, Dion thought.

Asil and Roxana were seen as the runts among his siblings. Their test scores under the Agriche curriculum from close combat to anatomy using live human subjects were always abysmal. Worse than being bottom-ranked among their siblings, the two actually seemed to detest torture and corruption. Their subconscious seemed to naturally go against Agriche values.

Dion assumed that his two half-siblings had inherited their mother's frailty. Sierra had a meek temperament. She was a useless woman that was only alive because she had a pretty face. Lant Agriche was still giving his Fourth Wife's children a chance to prove their worth to him.

He would not wait much longer. Asil would turn thirteen in the next year. It would be Asil's last chance to redeem himself.

Lant Agriche turned to Dion and gave him a pleasant smile.

"How are you faring, lad?" he asked.

Dion took note of his father's relaxed pose and did not salute him this time. Instead, he held his arms against his body and bent his knees slightly.

"I have recovered, Sir," Dion said.

"Anything interest you lately?"

Lant Agriche began to explain his reasoning patiently. "I am asking because your conversational skills are lacking. I don't really care if you lie to me, boy, as long as you can keep me in a good mood."

You're already not in a good mood, Dion thought.

Dion did not know how to respond. He had no interests and did not have a talent for lying. Saying "nothing interests me, Sir," was not the answer his father wanted to hear.

Lant Agriche had nailed Dion's weakness. Dion could fell beasts four times his size, endure physical torture, and kill grown men and women without blinking an eye, but his tongue was almost a useless piece of flesh.

Dion had always been reticent. His mother had used to beat him to make him talk to her, but had long since grown bored of his personality.

"You will accompany me to see a colleague of mine," Lant Agriche said. "Seeing people outside family may draw you out of your shell. He has a nephew some years older than you visiting him. You will look to that young man as an example."

"Yes, Sir," Dion said.

"This will be the first time I present you in public. Do not disgrace me."

Dion's empty red eyes looked at his father. "Yes, Sir."