Joy was etched on Acheron's face. I could tell he wanted to embrace Styxx, but after Father's reception was hesitant.
Styxx looked less than enthusiastic. He stared at Acheron as if he were a bad dream made real.
"Guards!" Father shouted.
"What are you doing?" I asked, unable to comprehend why my father would summon guards for his own son.
"I'm sending him back where he belongs."
Acheron's jaw went slack as he turned toward me with terrified eyes.
My heart thumped wildly in fear of his being taken back to Atlantis. "You can't do that."
Father turned on me with a glare so hateful it actually made me take a step back in fear. "Have you lost your mind, woman? Why would you coddle such a monster?"
"Father, please," Acheron begged, falling down on his knees before him. He wrapped his arms around Father's ankle in the most obsequious pose I'd seen since we left Atlantis. "Please don't send me back. I'll do anything you ask. I swear it. I'll be good. I won't look at anyone. I won't hurt anyone." Acheron kissed his feet reverently.
"I am not your father, maggot," Father said cruelly as he kicked Acheron away. He glared at me with venom. "I told you, he doesn't belong with this family. Why would you defy me so?"
"He's your son," I said through my own tears of anger and frustration. "How can you deny him? It's your face he has. Styxx's face. How can you love one and not the other?"
Father reached down and gripped Acheron's jaw tightly in his hand. I could tell his fingers bit into Acheron's cheeks as he pulled him roughly to his feet so that Acheron could face me. "Those are not my eyes. Those are not the eyes of a human!"
"Styxx," I said, knowing if I could win him to my cause, he could sway Father's opinion of Acheron. "He's your brother. Look at him."
Styxx shook his head. "I have no brother."
Father shoved Acheron back.
Acheron stood there quietly, his eyes dazed by the reality of the moment. By his face I could tell he was reliving every nightmare he'd experienced in Atlantis. Every degradation.
I watched as he wilted right before my eyes.
Gone was the boy who'd finally, after months of tender coercion, learned to smile and to trust, and in his place was the defeated, hopeless shell I'd found.
His eyes were hollow now, empty. I'd lied to him and he knew it. He'd trusted in me and now that fragile bond was severed.
Acheron hung his head down and wrapped his arms around himself as if that could protect him from the brutality of a world that despised him.
When the guards entered the orchard and my father told them to take him back to Atlantis, Acheron followed them without a word or a fight. He was once again unassuming and opinionless. He no longer had a will of his own or even a voice. He was what he'd been.
With a few harsh words, Father had undone all my months of careful nurturing.
I glared at my father, hating him for what he was doing. "Estes abuses him, Father. Constantly. He sells Acheron to-"
My father slapped me for those words. "That is my brother you speak of. How dare you!"
My face stung, but I didn't care. I couldn't stand by quietly and let them shatter the soul of an innocent boy who should be coddled, not thrown away like he was nothing. "And that is my brother you cast off. How dare you!"
I didn't wait to see what else he would say. I ran after Acheron who'd already been ushered away by the guards.
He was waiting at the front entranceway of the palace for horses to be brought to them. His head was bent so low that he reminded me of a turtle who only wanted to crawl back into its shell so that no one could see him. His grip on his arms was so tight that his knuckles were white.
He stood like a statue.
"Acheron?"
He refused to look at me.