Abaddon's Gift

Chapter Forty

Nillon looked up as the dining hall went quiet. He watched as Naena walked into the dining hall. Everyone watched her as she walked to the food and began helping herself. He felt a little tingle of fear as Graydon walked into the dining hall and saw the look of the Pan heir glowering at Naena, then looked across the dining hall.

When their eyes met, Nillon felt the fear flair in his chest. It gripped his heart, threatening to stop it from beating.

And then Graydon snarled and marched after Naena.

The pair had quiet, annoyed words over food, which caused Graydon to stand there staring after Naena as the pissed off woman turned and marched off.

Nillon had seen that look before from his mother when she decided his father was too drunk to be polite. When she had decided enough was enough, that night she had taken a frying pan to his father's head.

He glanced around the table as the others from Hellfire stared at Naena as if she were the devil Herself.

Himself?

The gender was up for debate and always had been.

"Just murders one of us and then comes in as if she didn't do anything?" someone whispered.

Nillon swallowed his fear as he watched Naena select a table that had boys sitting at it. The boys immediately got up and bussed their plates rather than sit with her. She didn't appear affected by the motion.

Graydon walked up to the Hellfire table.

"Where is Maeno?" he demanded.

"No idea," one of them snarled.

Graydon frowned at the one who snarled, then turned his attention to Nillon.

"Where is Maeno?" Graydon Pan, heir to the Pan family and probably next in line to be Lord of Seven, asked him.

A Hellfire member who hoped to one day survive Theon's test to become a war mage and not die like the twenty others Ren had sent Theon.

"He didn't show to any class," Nillon said. "Given his pledge to your family, I assumed you had a handle on him."

"AfPan?"

"Which... one?" someone asked slowly.

"The student here from the families sitting in place of Pan while I attend," Graydon said.

"Haven't seen him either," Nillon said. "Thought maybe he was with AfLugh, you know, because..."

"Because one of you murdered one of your fellow students and is currently blaming Naena, if the reaction is any indication," Graydon said. "Naena is being trained as a shield, anyone who kills her answers to me."

"Does... does everything else go?"

Graydon scowled at the one who spoke.

"You do you," he said. "I am not her daddy, I don't make the decisions for her."

"You seem confused about your position on this," someone giggled.

Nillon really regretted the decision to have lunch with the lesser, lower Hellfire members. He couldn't put names to faces or figure out whose family to blame for the stupid sent to Amos.

"Nillon, you have alcohol," Graydon said.

"I absolutely do not have alcohol."

"Distilled from starlight, if I recall."

"Absolutely do not have alcohol distilled from starlight, that's illegal and against the Amos rules," Nillon said.

"Throw a party, she will come and drink. No one will try to kill her."