Page 26 of The Artist
“That’s nonsense. I’m not the best at everything. No one is.” Throwing a hand in the direction of the door, he scoffed. “I wouldn’t know how to hunt, for instance, and I’m not gifted at drawing like Belle. That doesn’t mean I have low self-esteem, which you would know if you weren’t so blinded by your arrogance. Just because your father rules a small corner of the world and your mother was a councilwoman once doesn’t mean that you’re special. You got lucky in a game of chess once and now you think you’re smarter than me, but no one is.”
“Ahh, but…” Freya tapped her cheekbone.
“But what?” Victor said with his brow lowered.
“But what is it to be smart?” She pulled out a chair. With her torso against the backrest, she rested her forearms on top. “I’ll bet you could spell every word correctly, but can you put the words together in a way that makes people cry or laugh?”
“I’m not an artist, my strength isn’t creativity.”
“So, what’s your contribution? Sounds to me that your smartness is that of a computer, but we’ve got that covered.” Freya tapped at her wristband.
“I’m a genius!”
“That might be, but until you do something with that genius it’s not worth much, is it?”
Every one of us in the room was following their conversation, seeing Victor’s anger simmer.
“Not worth much?” Victor raised his chin and looked down his nose at Freya. “I was thirteen when I cracked the code and found a way to expand the growth of radio-trophic fungi. As you might know it’s the biggest weapon in cleaning up areas with leftover radiation. For centuries our scientists tried to optimize the speed with which the fungi grows and performs radio-synthesis. Over the last eighteen years, I’ve managed to propel the growth rate by more than seven hundred percent. I also found a way to triple the effectiveness of the fungi. Because of me, we have cleaned more new land in the last ten years then we did in the almost four hundred years before that. How is that for being useful?”
Freya leaned back and watched him before she spoke. “That is something to be proud of.” Looking around, she asked. “Did you all know this?”
We Europeans nodded but the Motlanders shook their heads.
“Let’s give Victor a round of applause. What he did was nothing less than spectacular.” Freya clapped her hands together and the rest of us followed. I watched her face to see if she was mocking him, but she seemed genuinely impressed.
Victor arched a brow and crossed his arms. “Thank you.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell us this before?” Freya asked him.
“Because I don’t like to brag.”
“Says the man who uses the word ‘genius’ as frequently as ‘hello.’”
“Are you done insulting me?” Victor grumped.
“For now.” Freya put the chair back where she’d taken it and looked untroubled by their confrontation.
Sounds from the outside made me look out the window and see the hunting party return carrying a deer between them. “They’re back.”
When some of the Motlanders got up to watch, I held up my arm. “Maybe it’s better if you stay where you are.”
“Oh.” Holly sunk back in her seat. “They caught something?”
“Yeah. They did!”
CHAPTER 8
Privacy
Mason
I’d hoped that going hunting with the others would be enough distraction that I wouldn’t think about Belle. Instead, the silence in the woods had given my mind time to bring up old memories of her transformation over the years.
She and I had never spent much time together, but with Aubri’s talkative nature, a simple “How is Belle?” had been enough to keep me updated.
I knew Belle had been categorized as a Practical Citizen between our second and third summit. That year she’d written my sister that she was afraid her government would ban her from going to the summits now. After all, everyone knew she was in no role to ever be a leader of the French people. But with the replacement of Oscar and Sophie, Belle had been allowed to stay as part of the French delegation.
It annoyed me that Jones had proposed to her even though it shouldn’t. Jones was my friend and it wasn’t like I could ever marry Belle myself. Squatting down, I rested my weapon on my knee and listened for the others.
