Undorn: The Beginning

Part Thirty

Orgon Aldrich, the Fort

Location: The Hospital

He felt strange, sitting there opposite his mother, clearly inferior to her. She had a grand wooden desk that looked like it could have belonged to a president of the former United States. Somehow, she sat taller than him, more proud. Maybe it was the short wooden chair Orgon was forced to take opposite her. Or maybe this was her version of a slap in the face, reminding him that he no longer had anything that resembled power.

Either way, he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Is there a reason you need my council?"

His mother had called him in after breakfast. Any other day Orgon would have dragged himself down the hallway away from his daily morning routine with Maxin which consisted of eating porridge and talking to the stupid deserter enforcers who were very slowly, yet very surely growing on Orgon.

But ever since Maxin kissed him, the boy had practically disappeared into himself. Again, he was this bumbling, awkward, blushing servant boy who couldn't look Orgon in the eyes for more than three seconds at a time. Orgon had no idea what could have changed; in fact, he thought the night would have been transformative. He thought he would wake up the next morning with a kiss on the cheek from the boy, and it would be the start of the life Orgon had been yearning for the past few months.

But no kiss was planted on Orgon's cheek. Not in the morning, not even the next night. Or the next. And then the pillow blockade Maxin had since given up on was appearing at bedtime again. In a matter of days the two had gone from the closest of confidants to barely exchanging more than pleasantries. Frustrated and feeling useless, Orgon had stopped coming to meals with Maxin. He spent his time reading in his mother's library or teaching Biondi how to fight (why he agreed to it, he didn't know. Maxin probably had something to do with it.)

Things were deteriorating and Orgon didn't know how to fix them. He couldn't force Maxin to talk to him. The boy was delicate and innocent and everything Orgon wasn't. He couldn't just take his face and kiss the hell out of him like Orgon would have wanted someone to do to him. Maxin probably would have spontaneously combusted.

Orgon was starting to get frustrated. Maxin was the reason he was here in the first place. Maxin was the only thing physically tying him to the musty basements of the underfunded national hospital.

Of course, Orgon despised his father, the Patriarch, and everything the two stood for. But he was never going to run away and join the resistance on his own accord. He had too many responsibilities. Too much power. And too much good inside him. He was the only of his brothers who wasn't a kiss-ass narcissist or who took pleasure in the cold-blooded murder of women and children. If he was being honest, he was the only hope for the Patriarch to change. His brother Dorian (occasionally) listened to him. If Dorian was to be the next Warden, Orgon could make things better for Undorn with his influence. That is where he should be, in the Fort. That was what was realistic. This, the Hospital, his mother, the resistance... this was all bullshit.

"Not council, no," she folded her hands, placing them on the glass slab that protected the ancient rotting wood of her president's desk. Leaning forward, she continued. "I need to be honest with you."

Orgon raised his eyebrows. "Honest? Is that not what we have been?"

Catherine stared at him, unblinking. And then finally: "We're going to kill your father."

Orgon felt his mouth go dry.

She continued, hands still folded cordially, formally, like this was a discussion about anything but the assassination of one of the most important men in the modern world. "We're going to kill your father, and I need you to know that before you do anything to help us. Before you commit to this, I need you to know the end game."