Phantom Hunters | The Obsidian League

3 | Punishment

III | PUNISHMENT

Daylight poured through the windows, illuminating just how dusty the lounging room came to be during the hustling week of the test. Kly felt a pang of pity for his brother, who had been tasked with cleaning the room as punishment for sneaking out of his room and almost getting himself killed.

Kael was muttering to himself, no doubtedly cursing at how unfair it was that he was stuck cleaning and running errands while his peers celebrated success in the festivities of the week. Kly would have asked for the punishment to be postponed, or at least alleviated to only a few hours, but he knew it wouldn't look good for him or Kael if it was obvious he was favouring his brother. Besides, it would teach Kael a lesson. Kly didn't ever want to go through the whirlwind of fear when he found out exactly what had happened the night Constable Gordres found the boy's battered body.

His clutch on his book tightened. When he found the Swindler, he vowed he would break every bone in his body for nearly taking the only thing left of his family from him.

"Hey, kid, you think you can go grab me a drink?" Nox, one of the Silver Wolf mentors, asked as he snuggled down on his chair. "A bottle of Sizzles will do just fine, and bring me the bottle cap."

Kly held in a snort. Nox's useless collection of bottle caps always somehow ended in the sharp tin pieces wounding up in the strangest of places—most notoriously in Lupus Harrowthorn's shoe when they were still students. The Noble Monarch mentor and Nox had a long history of unfriendly rivalry and secret competitions to irk the other without getting caught.

The bottle cap had been enough proof that Nox had placed it there, but even as a child, he had been cunning, making sure to voice his suspicion that Lupus had raided his collection long before dropping one in the boot that sent unpleasant pain through his enemy's heel. He had gotten away with it, all while letting everyone know exactly what he had done, and there was nothing Lupus or his dormitory mentors could do about it.

The words blurred together, and Kly struggled to reread the paragraph for the tenth time. None of the information flowed to his brain, jumbling into an incoherent string of meaningless syllables. He contemplated putting down the book, but he didn't want to drown in the ominous mysteries that plagued his thoughts since his father's disappearance—at least not until he could calm down from nearly losing his brother.

"I'll take a good ol' beer," Darron added from the other side of the mentor lounge. He was polishing his rifle, one of the many firearms he wielded. Thus far, Darron was the only one in the academy's history to use so many vessels. The older generation had not appreciated his numerous weapons, claiming that he was going against tradition. So many had tried to convince him to stick to two at most, but Darron had gone out of his way to defy them, and he became a legend among the younger years when he graduated.

Kael snorted, and Kly could feel the boy's heated glare skimming the mentors. "Right away," he said through his teeth. A wave of affection washed over Kly. He took a look at his brother without raising his head from the pages of the book. Kael was scowling, so innocent and young. Still just a boy who knew nothing of what he had chosen to get into, following his dream without truly knowing what being a phantom hunter would require him to do. So many times, he had wanted to send Kael back into the farm that kept him safe all these years. Even now, as he tried not to think of how Kael almost lost his life, he struggled to accept that Kael had chosen his own path and that it wouldn't be fair for Kly to stand in the way.

"Kael, dear. Would you mind grabbing me some water while you're at it?" Maya's gentle, sweet voice requested. She sat on a large couch, sinking into the worn out cushions and nearly disappearing beyond the cloth that had loosened over the years. She knitted a sweater with a dimpled smile that hid the deadly skill she honed with her sniper.