CHAPTER 405: CHAPTER 405 - WHAT BURNS TO ASH IN THE DARK, IS HEALTHY FOR THE GROWING TREE

The unsealed dispatch crackled as Anper er Yecine crushed it in his fist. Two months since all the documents were put into place, years of meticulous planning on his own time, and now... now the bureaucratic machinery ground forward at a pace that served no one’s interests but the Goltbreds.

"Still no good word from the administrative review boards?"

An elderly voice questioning him carried the edge that had been creeping into all their conversations lately. The man shifted uncomfortably in his chair, fingers drumming against the polished wood of a large table around which other faction members wore similarly strained expressions.

The forged documents they’d so carefully inserted should have triggered an immediate sanction. Instead, officials seemed like they were more interested in the ’fun’ of cross-referencing transactions beyond the discrepancies they’d highlighted. Anper’s words dripped with barely controlled fury.

"They claim to be conducting a ’thorough investigation’. Which apparently requires examining every Guild ledger from the past fifteen years to look for more before they’ll move on our plentiful evidence."

"Perhaps they’re being more cautious because of the war."

"No one wants to destabilize command chains while-"

"While what? While my daughter makes herself into a continental hero?"

The angry interruption silenced the room. One elder who’d been reaching for his medicinal tea, froze mid-motion as the unproud father waved the dispatch that had just arrived.

"Official copy for Yecine eyes of the private ceremony already completed. The Void Defense Society has formally declared Qatrand er Yecine the Hero of our region."

His voice grew more bitter with each word. Every report of the success of their ’heir’ made their plot against the Goltbreds ever more politically toxic if it did not work soon. None of them had expected such momentum as had been reported in the early week of the war to resume with such an effect.

Not after the weeks of being quiet at the fort with Elua before the strikeforce was approved. And by that point, this new angle of ’attack’ on the family that the teenager was now the ’son-in-law’ of was already underway. Misappropriated and stored goods had been hidden in place. Reports from his insiders said that they had been found already... and still-

’Our ironclad proof is apparently going to take months to verify. Why?’

"This... complicates things."

At one of his co-conspirator’s pithy statement, a contorted face laughed with no humor to it. Weeks and weeks of what felt like failure had loosened his taciturn expressions in the worst way possible. In a strange twist of fate, both he and Elua were relearning to express themselves.

"You think? This has to be the ultimate reason they are taking their time. They can’t accuse someone connected to a new war hero by marriage. Not openly. If they do anything, it will probably be so quiet that the public won’t see it coming."

"But it will still happen. They will still need a steward and we knew that Qatrand would be busy after the war. We will still be able to funnel resources away from the holdings."

"What about Teovar? Any progress there?"

The question hit and the burst temper on Anper’s face drained. Not because this set of question made him less angry, but because the thought of the personal resources and favors he’d burned was like ice water in his veins. Trying to track down the merchant who’d vanished like Smoke had not yielded the result he would have preferred.

"Three sightings in the past month. All in different regions. He’s staying mobile and avoiding our affiliated Guild territories as if they were made of lava."

"And the boy?"

"The apprentice is worse. At least Teovar is well known and can get noticed when they’ve surfaced for supplies. The body double has apparently learned enough about staying hidden with his Cloak Astralism that our people can’t pin him down."

Anper stood and began tapping his foot behind his chair. The irony wasn’t lost on him - they’d trained the boy themselves to impersonate his daughter and to stay quiet and out of the way otherwise. Now those very techniques were being turned against them.

He’d hated the reminder of the deception, the mimicking of his blood’s looks, and most of all the reminder of being cowed by a witch child who saw through it at a glance. So he thought nothing of cutting loose the cultivator to their own life after the flesh sculptor further altered their looks.

’And because of that shortsightedness from all of us...’

"Last report had him three major cities south of our estate, asking questions about Memory Astralism practitioners. The fool might be trying to get his story verified through such a method."

He turned around and slammed his palm against the table, making the tea service rattle.

"Everything we worked for, everything we positioned ourselves to achieve, and it’s all falling apart because we used outside help for the key parts of it at every turn. That girl decided to be competent only after we stopped needing to keep an eye on her so she didn’t give it all away."

The bitter emphasis on ’girl’ wasn’t lost on his conspirators. Though even the most similar minded to his type of misogyny within the faction had been considering taking a step back - and holding their tongue on that for the foreseeable future. Their pawn had become a golden general... and was now more valuable in many ways than the knight they’d intended to discard.

Anper still thought he was down in a pit with a bunch of other vipers trying to get out. Little did he know, he’d only ever been a badger to them... and they were ready to slither through the cracks that he could not fit through any longer.

⟠ ⟠ ⟠

The sapling of the ’growing tree’ had risen remarkably in the months since its planting. Already, it now reached above Qatrand’s head with branches beginning to spread out with the confidence of a plant that knew it belonged in this soil. In her dark Yecine clothing and blonde hair tied up in a special ribbon, she stood beside it in the Goltbred estate’s garden.

Feeling through her questing tendrils the moment when Yatrel approached, with Onya balanced on her hip. Turning her face their way as the woman settled next to Ondua on the stone bench that they’d placed nearby the tree - for when they brought their youngest to visit and talk to her about it. Something they’d been unable to do during the Descent so far.

"You look serious. More serious than usual, even."

When the brunette man spoke, Yatrel let Onya slide down like she was absolutely fussing to do. Immediately, the girl toddled toward Qat with arms outstretched - a critical blow to the actual father who she had been inseparable from all night last night.

’Was that enough of me already? It’s just because she sees a new person she missed, right? ...Right?’

The swordswoman knelt and scooped up the child, who immediately began playing with her blonde hair, looking to pull out the ribbon with the kind of determination very small children possessed. As Onya called the pronunciation of her name and babbled other things at her that still didn’t quite make sense but were starting to... the Yecine straightened.

’I was afraid of losing this. Almost as much as I was afraid of losing my heirship.’

"There’s something I need to tell you both. Something I should have told you before the wedding, but... I didn’t. I know the reasons why I didn’t and truthfully I now understand that it was not me being my bravest."

"Well, you already had my attention the moment the letter asking me to be here within this period of days... what is it you need to tell us, dear?"

Yatrel normally would have been still confined at the fort with her small daughter and the little boy who had become her shadow. But an excuse to get out of that environment for a while was one she gladly took... and while she could have punished the servants by leaving the mischievous little ’river bend’ there while she went to see her husband alone, she chose to be a mother over a wife this time.

’Besides, she’s too young to understand the sounds... and her nursemaid is here to watch.’

"The marriage arrangement you settled with my father was for the firstborns. When Elua was born, I was already three. In the eyes of my father’s faction... this required a male heir from the Yecine family. So they decided that meant I needed to become one."

Hands of the reddish-blonde stilled where they’d been dotingly smoothing her husband’s clothes. Her mint gaze left her most important person and turned onto that of her daughter’s. Likewise, Ondua’s attention had sharpened greatly. So much that he began to notice just how impressive the spiritual sensing shapes latched onto them both were.

’He... he? Has become a Primalist, hasn’t... he.’

"The deception started that early - clothing, training, teaching, and expectations. All shaped around making me into what they needed me to not just appear to be at a single glance. For that, when I was six, they had what is known as a masking tool surgically implanted."

"A masking tool...?"

Yatrel repeated the term with a frown. She felt like she’d heard it before, but couldn’t entirely place it. Like it had something to do with a black market deal that she’d heard about... approximately fourteen years ago.

"An artifact that tricks those with spirits weaker than a Fifth Echelon Primalist, according to my wife. Through a kind of spiritual suggestion that - in this case - is designed to immediately make others not need to think twice that I am male."

"I see. Most cultivators never think to question what their spirit tells them. Even worse if they are actually a young spiritualist... as more than half of them grow to rely heavily on the sense. Can I see this device?"

"No, it’s... truly implanted beneath my lower back and in my spine. Integrated enough that removing it would be rather... they made sure I couldn’t easily undo what they’d done if I had a change of heart."

Qatrand’s jaw clinched at the memory and Onya - oblivious to the weight of the conversation - had moved on from the hair ribbon to trying to grab at Qatrand’s sword hilt. The swordswoman usually would gently redirect those small hands on principal... she didn’t want her sister-in-law to get hurt someday thinking weapons were toys. But this time she ignored it and let her do her thing while continuing what she needed to say.

’Stop saying it without saying it. Just say it.’

"I am and always have been female. Not your son-in-law, not a son of Anper er Yecine, and not... a husband, as my wife has been willing to go along with letting you believe. But I am still her spouse. I am still your daughter-in-law."