Ecdysis

The entire Divine intervention came and went while I was still trying to process the situation. I wasn’t even sure if I should feel happy that the looming issue had resolved itself so quickly or indignant that I was, once again, treated like a curious commodity rather than someone with free will.

In the end, I decided to accept it as something to be expected. I did extensively rely on the wermage selective blindness about murk slaves for a while — there was no point in scoffing at their gods, which they tried to mimic so much, having similar issues.

I couldn’t see past the veil of their goddess, but I did see the glowing shape of her eyes and mouth as well as the quick glimpse of her skin when she touched Anaise. I also had a very good look at the twin guards that loomed over us all. Huge, long-tailed, and blue-skinned humanoids with an unusual number of horns on their heads. One in the middle and two at the temples.

The three horns that all of Emanai swore by.

Their eyes didn’t glow as hers did but they were rather bright as well.

Just on that alone, I had a very good reason to think that, despite her heavy clothing and veiled face, Catriona Emanai looked quite similar to them. Aikerim had confirmed my hypothesis as well: the word ‘god’ or ‘goddess’ in the local language didn’t mean a title or a position. It meant their specific race. With distinct ranks within their system. Lesser ‘gods’ were known to act as Divine forces while Heurisks like Catriona Emanai Aethil stood above them all. And gave names to entire countries to boot.

It was a volatile mix of many different concepts that I hadn’t even imagined going together. Wermages saw them both as something similar to them yet something beyond their capabilities. They weren’t seen as all-powerful, simply powerful enough for us not to bother resisting. They also weren’t seen as all-knowing, they only knew what mattered to them. And the only way to avoid their scrutiny was to not matter.

Those were the words of Aikerim herself — she relied heavily on this strategy until The Divine Castle showed up in the sky.

The three horns and blue skin weren’t the only parts that I’d noticed affecting wermage culture. The ‘lesser gods’ had tentacles on their chins. There was some variability between them and the sample size was minuscule but both had a distinct pair of tentacles that originated around their ears and descended to their chests. And each was covered in jewellery and gems.

Just like wermages braided their hair.

And these were the obvious examples. Who knew how many other things were caused directly or indirectly by them? The sand playgrounds, for example, that every wermage was obsessing over. I didn’t see much of their tail movements, but I could see them literally drawing runes in the sand for the easily impressed audience.

Or possibly more than impressed. Sophia Chasya’s ‘divine’ tail made a little bit more sense to me now as well — I wouldn’t be surprised if there were gods of Emanai somewhere in Shebet’s ancestry. She certainly inherited the arrogance worthy of gods themselves.

Still, Heurisks… An unusual word for their language. Yet it was familiar to my ears. And the ears of Virnan Shah after I’d met him — the old guy had heart attacks anytime I tried to mention heuristics during the lectures.

But these types of curiosities wouldn’t be answered for quite some time. I had nowhere near enough influence and leverage to even dream about asking questions from gods. Moreover, the castle simply vanished a few days after Anaise’s interrogation. Gone to pursue its divine tasks somewhere else without even bothering to wait until the end of the Divine Ritual celebrations.

All that only highlighted the growing tumour of a problem that I was completely unprepared for.

I was trying to avoid Amanzhan wrenching me from Aikerim. With the help of Aikerim and Albin, I tried to ensure that The Divine Will would look the other way and won’t demand me or my family as sacrificial servants for their castle, never to be seen again by the people of the land.

I was completely blindsided by Anaise getting famous in the process.

Her previous status was high among wermage strata, but she had been somewhat of a nobody among the Emanai elite. Her House was the weakest of the seven Pillars. Her Manor’s influence over Emanai was almost non-existent — Aikerim heavily relied on her financial shrewdness and the general wealth of her House to stay afloat in the turbulent waters of inter-Manoral relations.

Her Manor was ‘young money’ among the established whales of power. A rash upstart that dared to dream herself as an equal. Obviously, nothing of that sort was said out loud. As per a Divine Decree — there was no strife among the Pillars. And other Pillars did rely on Kiymetl’s wealth from time to time. But the distaste lingered.

I didn’t care about it much; those were Aikerim’s problems, not mine. I ended up using it to further my plans to some extent without even realising: eager to show herself as an equal, Aikerim was extremely receptive to my inventions. My soaps, dyes, and glass turned her trading Manor, which was ‘stealing’ the wealth of others by the means of ‘speculation’, into a manufacturing one that worked hard to bring the life of luxury to those that mattered most.

It was impossible to know how my life would’ve turned out if I ended up at some other Manor.

Now, however, Anaise wasn’t just the firstborn daughter of a trading Manor. She was a wermage that was touched by Goddess herself. Heads and ears turned across the city of Samat once the whispers of the event spread like wildfire. The rumour mill was whipped into a frenzy by the potential ramifications of recent actions.

Now every Pillar Manor knew that something was brewing in the House of Kiymetl. Something that had drawn Divine attention to them. The benevolent kind. Most didn’t have any idea what was going on but many knew the name by now.

Anaise Kiymetl Hilal.

On the second day after her Feast, the streets were absolutely sure that The Divine Heurisk fancied the little fox and even gave her some new magic as a token of affection. Something that could turn an entire mountain into a pile of pebbles.

Aikerim was inundated by guests once again. Most were nothing to worry about. Small gifts and trinkets as a show of ‘friendship’ and hasty assurances to punish a nonexistent slave that ‘lost his way’ or ‘forgot’ to deliver the before-mentioned gift during Anaise’s Feast. That was expected.

But a few were troubling. Ones who set their eyes further than a mere friendship between Manors.

XXX

“Ah, young Erf! Please join us!” Aidar Kiymetl Daniar clapped his hands, ordering a servant nearby to bring wine over to me.

“I admit,” I let my cup get filled as I cautiously leaned on the couch provided to me, “your invitation was not something I had expected to receive today.”

“That is exactly why I am here.” Aidar glanced at his younger half-brother sulking on the third couch. “I wish to be a mediator of sorts.”

I silently raised my eyebrow.

“Amalric?”

The younger brother harrumphed and looked away, “My actions have been rash in the previous days. I acted with the safety of my family in mind without knowing the whole picture.”

“Well, there you have it.” Aidar smiled. “You have shown yourself to be of good character and wisdom; I trust that you can let bygones be bygones.”

“Believe me, you didn’t need to go this far. My allegiance is to Aikerim herself, I can’t judge her for the actions of others.” Honestly, I already managed to forget about Amalric by now. The problems that I had to deal with on a daily basis at this moment made his previously insignificant attempts entirely forgettable.

Aidar chuckled. “My mother is wise but you shouldn’t forget that we are males in her Manor. It is important to maintain a truce among ourselves. You might enjoy her benevolence now, but you shouldn’t ignore the possibility that her love for you might wane in the future. You need to have the support of those that do not seek to lay with you for the sake of possible children.”

I spat my wine. “Children!? I didn’t have sex with your mother!”

“You did not!?” Aidar’s surprise was palpable. “But I’ve assumed you were close enough? My mother simply forbade you to speak about it in the open.”

That was not an assumption I would have ever expected from him. Surprisingly, the wine wasn’t poisoned. At least non-magically.

“The closest I’ve been with your mother was our trips to the baths. And I can speak upon the Orb of Truth that nothing else happened.”

“Huh!? You aren’t lying…” Aidar looked at me amused rather than indignant. “Well, it pleases me to know that your allegiance to our Domina is such a strong one. Forgive me, but I’ve seen many males that try to worm their way above their status through the means of their children. I tend to question the honesty of such unions.”

“Due to potential children? I would’ve expected most to seek sex rather than procreation.”

“You can find pleasure in the embrace of another male without worrying about getting anyone pregnant.” He shrugged his shoulders, “Wouldn’t such love be purer? It is only about the union itself.”

I sipped my wine in contemplation. “Wouldn’t children represent the future of that union? Mind you — I don’t care what others do in their bedroom, my wives share a bed on occasion as I couldn’t possibly attend to their every need at all times. But I see children as the next step of such unions.”

“As you should. It is a male way to think about it. Our children solidify our marriages. Just as Tarhunna is now known as the father of Anaise. But don’t assume that the other side thinks just as you do — for some of them, the birth of a child is the final result of a union.” Aidar picked up his cup and threw wine into his mouth. “Keep that in mind.”

XXX

I left that meal with a weird feeling that Aidar was subtly hitting on me. The Navigator in me didn’t care, the ideas of gender and sexuality were rather… malleable among our kind. Converting my body in female one was actually rather easy since I had both X and Y chromosomes. I could duplicate one and remove the other at any time if I wanted to. And that was what mattered the most. The Navigator didn’t care, but Erf did.

I carried more than his genetic code. I carried his memories and his imprints within me. His phenotype. And there was more than basic wiring inside my brain that told me what types of curves to like and how to see myself as. I wasn’t just a male, I was a male murk by origin.

And murks, both male and female, had rather dim views about wermage affection, male in particular. For many, it wasn’t the issue of pleasure or willingness. It was a matter of survival.

I wasn’t sure precisely how much my fears of the past had affected my current thinking, but I was rather sure that I didn’t have an irresistible desire for Aidar’s dick, just as I wasn’t interested in Tarhunna. But his words were prophetic — as the now official husband of Anaise, I started to receive many offers from both genders. And I saw the same thing in their eyes.

Greed.

Most tried to appease me in one way or another, just to get closer to the Divinely touched werfox. Some were rather blunt about it, others simply underestimated my ability to think. Aidar’s approach was subtle, but it did exacerbate my general annoyance.

Was I possessive about my wives? Greedy? Perhaps, perhaps not. Our union was biased in my favour, or theirs, depending on how one chose to estimate worth. And that was what mattered in the end: our sadaq wasn’t some zero-sum union where one party benefited from the loss of another. All four of us benefited in some way, and while I had found sadaq-at to be ‘outdated’ by my worldview, I ended up growing used to having one.

Any way I looked at it — they were mine as I was theirs. And I wouldn’t allow any greedy interlopers to lay claim on something that we were building together.

They all were greedy, and so was I.

“It doesn’t matter to me, Aikerim Adal, whether they are some opportunistic vagrants or children of Matriarchs themselves. We need to do something about it.”

Aikerim sighed. “And we are doing something. You aren’t the only one who is refusing offers every day. But some of them will benefit my daughter greatly. That young lad from Kamshad Manor would be a lucrative catch, especially after Kishava spent so much to secure him for themselves.”

I rolled my eyes, “Aikerim, think for a moment. What would happen within my sadaq once someone like that joined? I already have to dance around the nosy snake in my estate, and Shahin is merely undergoing her Servitude and actually willing to defer to me!”

“Then Anaise would need to learn how to control her secondary husbands; it is a good skill to have.”

“I was under the impression that this sadaq was final and complete. There would be only one wermage and it would be your daughter.”

“And I’ve warned you multiple times that there will be offers in the future. Offers to join your sadaq, not just have your children!”

“And that is exactly what this sadaq was formed against! To resist such offers. I am sorry Aikerim, but I am not willing to offer my wives just to score another political ally. They aren’t tools to me.”

Her tail slapped the couch. “Watch your tongue. Do you think that it is my wish? They aren’t demanding — they are offering! And not just some runt of the pack but the prized pup of the Kamshad Matriarch! Can you even imagine the scale of this? Manors spend decades building up enough goodwill for something like that to occur! They plan and plot as soon as a gifted child is born just to ensure they will end up claiming the future husband. Do you have enough people and power to scoff in their face at such an offer?”

“That is why I was buttering up your House, Aikerim. Was I not?”

“You were. And you already enjoy the influence of my Manor. You do not have the force of my entire House behind you. Or have you forgotten my mother’s offer that you already scoffed at? She might change her mind but you know the price that she would ask.”

Domina drummed her fingers and looked away. “This is the House of Offence that we are talking about. The spear of Emanai. They aren’t usually this brazen, nor are they hurting for money like the third House of War. I would have been incredulous, but the Censor herself has been acting on their behalf as well. So I know it is a trap one way or another, but they are moving in a way that I have no easy counter to without appearing extremely ungrateful. It is not an enemy that even my House would dare to make.”

I sighed. “Great, the Censor is, once again, meddling in my life. It is a pity that Albin couldn’t contain his sister for a lot longer.”

I idly wondered if this was how Shahin felt whenever I gave her another offer she could not refuse. And the only price she could pay was her pride and dignity.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” Domina glared at me and I quickly bowed my head, “I mean not about the offers but the fact that there could be some that none of us is able to refuse?”

“I was busy, Erf.” She looked at me, unimpressed. “I was busy making sure that you and your family would stay alive and safe within my Manor, rather than dead or gone. That was my priority. I didn’t have time to worry about whether you would like the next addition to your sadaq or not. Your influence is growing, and so is the influence of my daughter. Faster than my most brazen expectations: I expected you to establish your status within my House, yet you managed to cast ripples across all Seven. Unfortunately, it isn’t growing fast enough for you to easily imply that offers like this are below you.”

“You have my unending gratitude for your actions. And my promise to keep bringing prosperity to your Manor… So, what you are saying is I need to grow even faster?”

“Do you have a tool to slow down time? Oh, my ever-growing Alchemist?”

“Not on me, no.”

“…I shouldn’t have asked that. Well, you have surprised me in the past, no matter how prepared I saw myself for your revelations, so you might pull it off somehow. But you have very little time — I can’t keep one of the Pillar Matriarchs waiting with her hand extended like this. A few days, maybe a tenday at most. Any further silence will be seen as a refusal.

“Talk to your wives and my daughter and come see me tomorrow. Know that I hope to hear good news from you but I would like to avoid any potential bad will between my House and theirs.”

I sighed and palmed my face. “You know, I am not sure what is worse: to wait for the inevitable, knowing that you’ve done everything in your power with the rest being beyond your control, or having to choose between two equally unpleasant options while desperately searching for the third.”

“Welcome to the politics between Pillar Houses, Erf. Expect to make similar choices in the future. Just like the Goddess said herself — this is the consequence of our actions. They might be unpleasant for you, but you have to realise that many would kill to be in your shoes right now. To be the first husband of a Divinely-touched wermage, to consider one of the prominent young bachelors of Emanai not worthy of your sadaq.

“Every Pillar House is watching you now. Watching Anaise. There is no room for mistakes anymore. Tread carefully or grow strong enough that none would dare to point at them. And, if you can’t do either, let my daughter grow so that she could protect your sadaq in turn.”

Aidar Kiymetl Daniar

“Why in ten hells did I have to bend my back to that murk!” His brother whined.

“Because that murk has the attention of the Goddess herself. She met Anaise because of him. If you worry about our Manor as you tend to proclaim, you need to shut up and acknowledge your losses before it is too late.” Aidar shook his head. “I spent my last few years in the Forest. And I’ve seen enough idiots who not only lost their lives but doomed their fists just because they were too proud to step back.”

“But you heard him yourself — he had no intention to bring this up ever again.”

“That is what he said, yes. Just be thankful that I did it for you. Trust me, if Anaise or even our mother would’ve seen it necessary, they wouldn’t have been satisfied with your pathetic attempt at an excuse.”

“Yes, yes, dear brother. You are so wise and smart! Now tell me the real reason for this charade. What did that wermage tell you that you were cooing around him like a cock?”

“It is irrelevant now. The rumours are wrong.”

“What rumour? About our sister and the mountain?”

Aidar scratched his chin in thought. “No, there is a rumour among the Kiymetl right now that Daimon’s seed improves magic. Don’t make a face like that Amalric, you aren’t a child. Anyway, that rumour is wrong.”

“Not that I really wish to know, but…”

“It’s our mother,” Aidar murmured as he looked out the window, deep in thought. “The daimon didn't lay with her and I believe him. Yet our mother’s growth is as surprising as the growth of Anaise…

“I hear that the Divine numbers came from him as well… Perhaps I should see if he is looking for a student rather than a lover.”

XXX

“She should leave,” Shahin murmured while nursing her bribe.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Mnh… A begging Erf is an unusual but welcome sight.” She sniffed at her cup of coffee and shuddered in delight. “I do not know who supplies you with beans but I am very eager to meet them. The answer to your problem is simple — Anaise should make herself unavailable so that it is physically impossible to make her choose. They can insist, but this would change the nature of their gesture, giving you the ability to ‘politely’ decline. Throw some gifts to shut them up afterwards and you have nothing to worry about.

“They could also wait, but you will have some time to come up with another solution. Or you could just stop whining and accept the second husband into your sadaq — what do you have to fear?” She thought for a second, “Well, your lack of Spark is an issue. But you seem to have enough influence over Anaise that you can bar him from visiting her bedrooms. Keep it up long enough and he would leave sadaq under his own will.”

“It erodes the meaning of sadaq for me. Since I’ve managed to accept such a social construct, I will keep it as I want it to be and not a political tool to forge alliances and hoist tag-alongs to the rising stars.”

“A murk daimon with a naive streak a thousand paces wide. Truly there are things I would have never imagined seeing in my life. An exile it is, then — she is welcome to enjoy Yusuf, you could even come along and see my land in its glory. Perhaps you will like our glass blowers enough to stay.”

I shook my head in silence and stuck my nose into my cup. Shahin Esca didn’t bother to hide her ambitions, but her suggestion was sound. At worst, it would be one of the leads that I would discuss with my sadaq. Yusuf was out of the question, however. It didn’t matter how much rapport I’d built up with Shahin, I was nowhere close enough to trust her with the well-being of my sadaq. Or trust the other lamias that came to free her.

But where else could we go? I wasn’t dealing with some tiny Manor that couldn't project its force beyond nearby fields. Kamshad was present throughout Emanai. Should we head for the Mountain clans and enjoy ‘Shahin adventure number two: the glass is steel’? Or some other country I barely knew about? Pretend to be hermits and head for the mountains? Anaise would divorce me after two days of living in a cave and she would be absolutely right. Besides, that would probably piss off the Pillar House anyway.

I needed a way out that Kamshad would respect. A way to avoid unnecessary marriage…

I scoffed at myself as my mind brought to my attention the specific sash patterns on someone I was pretty familiar with. It wasn’t the ideal option but it was better than any alternative so far.

“You thought of something.” Shahin also noticed my sudden change.

“Perhaps. I will still need to discuss it with my sadaq first.” I rose and stretched myself. “Thank you, Shahin. Your ideas gave me something to think about. You can keep the rest of the coffee beans for yourself.”

She nodded at me in silent gratitude and I returned the gesture before quickly turning away and heading for my rooms.

There were many things that we needed to consider. Things that would affect us for years to come.