of them did this over chairs or whatever, I would start looking forward to this.
“Oh, sit down,” Master Stin'ul ordered as he flapped his wrinkly hand.
I frowned at Stin'ul and slumped down in my seat as Phyn clamped his mouth shut and sat down so hard that it was audible. Master Stin'ul tried to pretend he commanded the Masters, and I'd never much cared for him. He invariably caused my skin to itch when I got near to him.
Master Akai didn't like him, either. While I lived with Master Akai, I'd overheard quite a few mumbled rants about how Stin'ul needed to trip into the soul soup. Apparently, Stin'ul had launched several attacks hoping to steal Master Akai's position after he'd earned the First Master title. Stin'ul was always on the hunt for something to wield against Akai, and he had repeatedly used me as his ammo. Needless to say, I wasn't Stin'ul's biggest fan.
Of course, Master Stin'ul chose that moment to swing in my direction. With a false cheerfulness, he waved a hand towards me and glanced at Master Akai before asking, “Well, our newest member is here. Are you not going to introduce her, Akai?”
I snickered at the informal way Stin'ul talked to Master Akai but quickly bit my lip as I, too, looked to my adoptive father.
He didn't seem to notice my slip because he peered coolly at Stin'ul and responded, “Can you not recognize my daughter, Stin? She's attended before, and I'm confident I acknowledged her addition at a previous meeting. In fact, if someone would like to pull up the notes, you contended that we should inflict punishment because she did not attend.”
The two old Reapers stared at one another, both locked into some odd contest until Master Flenrue stuttered, “Yes, yes. It's right here. At minute ten, Master Akai made the announcement in response to an inquiry. For the following thirty, I have that Master Stin'ul voiced objections and suggestions. Then Master Stin'ul raised the issue with King Lorian, who denied punishment.”
Both Akai and Stin'ul turned to Flenrue at the same time. While Stin'ul appeared to try to set Flenrue ablaze with his glare, Master Akai only murmured a word of thanks.
I simply relaxed in my chair and watched the spectacle. I'd seen such similar interactions on so many occasions before that none of it shocked me, though I preferred a physical fight over the bickering nonsense. Still, it had provided an interesting tidbit.
I'd assumed that the King asked after my numbers, and Master Akai placated him, but to discover that he'd denied punishing me for not attending confused me. Perhaps the King had been angry with Stin'ul for some reason and merely refused out of spite. I let it go, allowing the questions of why I had to attend and why I hadn't gotten in trouble for my absence to float in the back of my mind.
Nothing else exciting happened at the meeting. It appeared they'd gotten all of their snippiness out of the way at the beginning, though I felt sure that I would have seen more if I'd showed up on time. I nodded off more than once, catching myself when my head drooped.
After Master Ralkin finished describing some new tech his team had worked on and expounded on its benefits, the group turned to me. I sat straighter in my chair as all of their eyes fixated on my face. The attention unnerved me slightly, and Shadow patted my cheek before settling back down. As sweet as that was, it did little to alleviate the urge to squirm like a child standing before an irate teacher.
“How is the OMIEB doing thus far?” Master Akai asked in a flat tone.
My mouth suddenly seemed dry, but I pressed on, ignoring how my tongue tried to stick to the roof of it. “We collected the data from each sector over the last two binals. As of then, we reaped just under a million human souls and six hundred higher-level animal souls.”
Stin'ul scoffed, and my gaze found him. He may have produced a sound of distaste, but the way his eyes gleamed, he knew we wouldn't reach the quota by our deadline. We were so far under our goal that even I couldn't pretty those numbers up, but he could have better concealed his enjoyment.
“Do you have something to add, Stin?” I asked, using the highly improper version of his name.
His face flushed grey, and his jaw flexed at the butchering of his name,