Chapter 64

Chapter 64

Roxana stared out the window for quite some time. The winter sun had already set and left only the dark expanse in its wake. She had decided to come pay a visit to the Agrece masters’ office. It was a space that had up until the day before served as Lante Agrece’s sole place of solace. As it had pretty much been his private sanctum, there remained trace odors of the amphetamines he occasionally took.

Roxana turned away from the window and reached for a wine glass that sat atop the expensive, hand-carved mahogany desk. Inside the glass was a very delicately fragrant red wine. Sitting in Lante’s old office while sipping on a lovely wine was indeed a special feeling. She had already dropped by to check on her father in the judgment room that day, before successfully disposing of some revolting pests herself. All in all, Roxana found the day to already be quite satisfying.

A remnant streak of blood spread across her fair cheeks. It was the only evidence of the havoc she had wreaked during her visit to the training room. She had made sure to take her revenge in there before her other siblings had come and taken all the fun. As she slowly lifted the wineglass to her lips, she spoke in the direction of the door as it opened soundlessly.

“I don’t recall giving you permission to enter.” By then, however, she knew that Deon could not be deterred so easily.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he walked swiftly into the office as if he hadn’t even heard his half-sister’s melodic voice.

“Oh, fine... If you insist. I’m feeling particularly magnanimous today.” Her words served as acknowledgement that any effort to delay Deon would be pointless. As she sat even further back in the armchair, she raised her wineglass toward him. “Care for one?”

It was a rare gesture of kindness she was extending to her older brother and served as further proof that she was truly in a good mood.

“Don’t bother.” His response was curt and cold.

“No? Too bad. You’ll never get another offer from me again.”

From the moment he entered the office, Deon’s gaze had been fixed on one thing. Although the room was almost entirely cast in shadow, save for the sliver of light sneaking in from the window, the darkness had zero effect on Deon’s ability to see.

Roxana immediately recognized what he was fixated on. She set down her wineglass and addressed him with a hint of amusement in her voice.

“So you recognize this?” She had yet to change out of her traveling clothes from the previous day and draped over them was a cloak that had undoubtedly not belonged to her originally.

“A gift from Cassis Pedelian.”

The large cloak definitely couldn’t be missed as it covered the entirety of her dress. As she tightened the knot securing it around her shoulders, her willowy figure seemed to almost disappear inside the fabric.

“I’ve taken a liking to wearing it.” She smiled innocently as she watched Deon’s dark expression before continuing. “What’s wrong? Does seeing me wear this piss you off?”

He offered no response, but the frosty look in his eyes offered all the explanation she could need. In that moment, both Agrece siblings were thinking about the same person—Cassis Pedelian who they had encountered at Yggdrasil castle.

“I continue to find myself perplexed whenever I see your face. You seem to be perpetually angry at me.” Her words dripped languidly from her lips as she reached for her wineglass once again.

After glaring at his sister for what felt like hours, Deon finally decided to speak.

“I...” He hesitated for a moment before continuing. “I do not regret killing Achille.”

Roxana’s hand stopped while holding the wineglass less than an inch from her lips. Her smile had been all but extinguished, though it was not the only thing that had faded away after hearing Deon’s words.

“And if I were made to relive that day, I would kill him again,” he continued.

Roxana received Deon’s admission with an expression as dry as the desert. It was as if she had already been drained of the last of her emotions long ago.

“The only difference is that I would have you watch as I severed his head from his body this time.” Deon’s calm and fairly simple declaration reverberated throughout the otherwise silent office. “I would do so because I know you’re weak. So weak that you couldn’t even slay a hallucinatory image.”

Roxana made neither sound nor movement.

“I was always curious what might have happened if you had witnessed Achille’s death.” By then, Deon almost appeared to be speaking to himself.

Meanwhile, Roxana continued to gaze upon him dispassionately without a hint of her regular burning rage or acute hatred. As was to be expected, the atmosphere in the room was exceptionally chilly. However, unlike most times when the two would maintain an almost arctic-like demeanor toward one another, they did not seem as cold in that moment as the words Deon spoke.

“When I think about that, I almost regret that he’s already dead.” As he continued, it became apparent that Deon had not brought up Achille for the sake of petty revenge against Roxana. “But that’s neither here nor there. After all, he’s already dead and gone. Which is why I’ve started thinking about possibly killing your mother in front of you instead.”

It was clear that he wasn’t saying these things to threaten her either.

“But it seems that you sensed how I felt and assigned my mother to serve as her guardian angel,” he said.

Roxana understood what he was trying to say. As much as she hated to admit, she and Deon did in fact understand each other better than any other two Agreces in their entire clan.

“Remember that day when you claimed to know what I was after?”

As he spoke, Deon forced Roxana to recall her own words from that fateful night three years prior. That had been the very moment that kickstarted their hapless journey which led them to the trap they had found themselves in at present.

“Don’t you find it funny that you could know something about me that I myself do not?”

In truth, no one could have foretold then what the future would hold for the two. Even Roxana had never imagined a turn of events that would manifest in the current scene of her and her half-brother conversing in the now deposed Lante Agrece’s office. There was no doubt Deon had never imagined such a thing either.

As stillness set in upon them, a commotion suddenly sounded in the background. Had it been an emergency, someone would have burst into the office in search of Roxana, but as nothing of the sort had occurred, she assumed Jeremy must be in the process of dealing with the things she had tasked him with. Instead, she slowly lowered her gaze.

“Perhaps... you and I are alike in some ways.” Her long eyelashes caught a ray of the silver moonlight streaming in from the window as she stared at the rose-colored liquid in her wine glass. “You know, up until recently, I’ve done everything I can to survive this sewer of a place without ever worrying if there was any grand purpose to what I was doing.”

It was indeed a strange night. Or rather, it was more apt to describe it as a special night. There was no denying that it had been the most fulfilling day of Roxana’s life, and as it was still fairly early in the evening, the night should have been a long continuation of her euphoria.

“In truth, my only goal had been not to die the way Achille had at first. So as I said, simply wanting to survive seemed like a purpose to live in itself.”

As the night proved to be one unlike any other, it was safe to say that such a moment in time would never repeat again. Perhaps it was for that reason that the two who would usually stare daggers at one another were able to converse so honestly in that darkness.

“But now I don’t think survival was ever my end goal,” she said.

Like Deon, Roxana also seemed to be talking more to herself than to him. At some point their roles as listener and speaker had switched, but there was still no awkwardness in the air. The two had never before engaged with one another in such a calm fashion.

“I’m sure I’ve clung to life as fiercely as I have for some specific reason beyond my own survival. Do you know what that might be?” Roxana asked her brother softly in apparent earnest.

Deon looked at her calmly for a moment, then answered.

“I do.”

A hesitant smile stretched across Roxana’s face. “Well... I must admit that even now I’m a bit confused.”

They had come to the realization that they were alike in that way. Both siblings were masters at perceiving the motives and desires of others, yet terrible when it came to recognizing such things within themselves. The noise outside the office had grown louder during their exchange. The sound suggested that an exceptionally large crowd of people was rushing about all at once.

“If I give you what you desire...” Deon’s voice cut through the near total darkness, “...does that mean you’re willing to give me what I want?”

Roxana stared at him without saying a word. After a moment, Deon left the office just as silently as he had come in. Left alone once again, Roxana returned her gaze to the window and peered outside. The landscape had been swallowed by the darkness of the night. She was well aware of what lay waiting in the distance.

Flutter, flutter.

One of her poison butterflies appeared and hovered over her wine glass.

“So it’s time?”

Her brief celebration was over. She rose from the armchair and walked to the office door Deon had left through only moments before her, then opened the door. Outside the cold, empty, and stubbornly dark office, a flurry of snow came down from the heavens above.