Read Online Outlier: Rebellion by Daryl Banner - Free Book Online Page A

thanks for the tasty breakfast. Seriously, best I’ve ever had.”
    The server finally breaks a smile and responds, “Thanks, but I only brought it out. I didn’t cook it … That’s what you have your, uh, chef for.”
    “Oh.” Athan chuckles soundlessly, scratching at his arm and watching the server’s expression carefully. He has a nice smile. Does he have a nice name? “Well, everyone has their talent,” he says instead. He shouldn’t ask for a name; all of this directness is already likely to get him in trouble, should mother find out. “The chef has his talents and you have yours, I’m sure.”
    “You mean a Legacy?”
    “Um … yes, one of those.”
    The server appears a bit braver, gripping the coin in his fist. He looks up, meets Athan’s eyes for the first time. “Can I ask what your Legacy is? I’m—I’m only curious.”
    Athan shrugs. This clearly confuses the server, his brow furrowing, so Athan explains. “I don’t know what it is. Most people born here don’t focus so much on that. I don’t see the big deal in knowing what mine is unless I want to be King, and I don’t.” Athan laughs heartily, which seems to make the server uneasy, not humored. “And really, who wants to be King when King Greymyn Netheris is doing such a nice job?”
    The server’s eyes are downcast again, anxiously turning the coin over and over in his hand like he doesn’t know what to do with it.
    “I was hoping,” Athan murmurs, leaning in closer to the server and putting on his sweetest voice, “you might tell me what life is like down there? … in the city below?”
    He can feel the burning warmth off the server’s arm, so close to his own. Of all the servants and help that have come and left the Broadmore Manor, this one is the only one who’s given him a chance … Please, he’s begging, his face nearly pressed at the shoulder of the server. Please tell me what life can be like …
    Of course, he wasn’t really expecting an answer, and an answer is exactly what he does not get, even with the smiling gift of gold. Instead, two staccato beeps cut through the room from the intercom, startling the pair of them. Without a word, the server rushes off for the call. The opportunity is gone, the cold of the kitchen rushing in to clench Athan in a most unwanted hug.
    He spends his day in the warm sunlight of the terrace overlooking the pool that glistens in the afternoon sun like a vast, faceless mirror. It’s a Saturday, so there’s no tutoring. He takes off his shirt and his pants, folding them neatly by the pool, and lies right by the water, his body swallowed in hot, healing light.
    It’s when the sun’s setting that his mother finds him in the atrium and explains that the server was fired.
    “Why?” asks Athan, exasperated.
    “He was a thief,” she explains simply. “We found a gold coin in his possession when he was making to go for the day. Pity.”
    “B-But I gave him that coin! It was mine!” Athan is nearly in tears, his stomach twisted by either sadness or guilt, he can’t tell. What did I do??
    His bone-thin mother puts a leathery hand on his shoulder. It feels not unlike the paw of a cat, claws too. “I commend you for your heart, Athan, and must reproach you for it just as well. The servants, even some of the chefs, they are not your friends.” Her eyes are the clouded ochre of lion’s skin. “They are from the city below. People there are hungry, and not for food, child. They are lazy, they are stealers, they are drug-abusers … They are of feeble Legacies and cannot be trusted. It is not being unkind to say so, Athan, it is simple fact. And I will be damned to the King if my son is ever befooled by one of them.”
    Athan’s lip is tightened, his hands clenching and unclenching. He wishes she had seen the server’s eyes … Really, if she were there, she’d see the kindness too. “I just wanted to thank him.”
    “And so you did, but he must find other means to make his