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Rhea, in possession of Mireia’s body, waited for our response with the same mild smile she had worn since she entered the room. Rod and I exchanged glances, but he showed confusion and displeasure rather than my anxious frown.
Her words were cause for alarm to my ears, but I realized that I had not explained the situation to Rod. From his point of view, his Mireia was claiming to be someone else and saying some very perplexing things. I needed to get him up to speed first.
But before I could do so, he asked, “Ti , what is that name she’s calling you?”
“Little Sen,” I replied. “It’s… well, it’s a pet name that the gods call me, Your Highness. Or more accurately, the pet name they called my first incarnation.”
“And she’s… not Mireia?” he cast a doubtful look toward the girl who was very visibly the young slave girl named Mireia. He could not be mistaken about his beloved. So he had gathered that much, it seemed.
Rhea was about to answer, but I held up my hand.
“Senior, allow me. I’m probably in a better position to explain to him.”
She gave a gracious bow of the head for a nod. “Certainly. But let me just note that her name is strictly a coincidence. We didn’t plan for this.”
It took me a couple heartbeats to figure out what she was talking about. I finally realized that in the old Northern language, ‘Mireia’ means ‘Dedicated to Rhea”.
I frowned. “Why does she have a Northern name? I thought she was from Suldor?”
“It seems her mother was of Northern ancestry,” she said with a little smile. “Her name is a delightful coincidence though, isn’t it?”
Names and words have a way of influencing the workings of the world and the flow of history. That’s why priests are so careful when they give advice on baby names. So Rhea knew quite well there could have been some influence backward in time through the Sea of Knowledge which had led to Mir’s name. She was probably saying this to calm some suspicion she was seeing take form in Rod’s mind.
I gave her a vague nod, not agreeing but not wanting to contradict a goddess, and turned to Rod.
“Your Highness, the being possessing Mireia is the goddess Rhea. The daughter of Oranos and Gaia.”
I saw the skepticism in his eyes for a moment, but he mended his expression once he thought about it.
He must have remembered that my eyes were difficult to fool, because he replied, “You said you were able to see that?”
“I do see it, Your Highness. Mireia most certainly has a guest at the moment. And don’t worry, because I’m confident it isn’t malicious. Although…”
I returned my eyes to her. “You aren’t planning on staying inside her and taking care of this for her, are you?”
Rhea still wore her mild, beneficent smile as she heard my question. “I might have considered it, but I have already explained the situation to her, and she has already agreed to help you.”
Frustration welled up inside me, which I fought down. But I allowed my dissatisfaction to come through in my voice. “I really wish you would have let me ask her. And even more, I wish you would have allowed Rod the opportunity to propose to her first.”
“Propose?” Mireia suddenly blurted out. I could tell it was Mireia, now; her manner changed so completely. Apparently Rhea had been honest that the owner of the body had simply been hiding out of embarrassment.
Rod clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction and I ducked my head slightly out of guilt. I shouldn’t have let the cat out of the bag like that.
“Mir,” Rod said, “Why don’t you join us here? It’s hard to do this with you kneeling way over there like that.”
She gave me an uncertain glance, but I nodded my agreement, so she stood, approached and kicked off her sandals to step up on the tatami platform.
“If you’ll excuse me…” she muttered as she knelt in seiza, taking the third spot around the imaginary square between Rod and me. She crossed her hand dutifully, like a Dorian maid would do while waiting against the wall for their master’s call.
I reached out and squeezed her hand. “Mir, relax.”
“But, My Lady, what you said…”
“Is something Rod should have said,” I stated, nodding. “But it’s something I want also.”
Her face grew more anxious, but I continued, “You’ve been having a conversation with a goddess, right?”
“Um… yes. I don’t understand how she’s doing it, but she’s somehow using my connection to you to speak to me, and to speak to you through me.”
“Rhea is an Immortal. Just like the goddess of your old world,” I explained, “And like me. Or rather, like I was, originally. The Elders were originally what you mortals call gods, although we who descended were very low-ranking ones, and that’s why your link to your old goddess and your bond as my Servant are actually the same thing. Your goddess may have copied our system, or perhaps those who designed my race copied her system.”
Her eyes were big, but it was worshipful attentiveness, not surprise. I sighed and said, “Rhea, make sure you aren’t interfering with the technique she uses to control our bond. She needs to have unclouded judgment.”
Mireia shook her head. “No, My Lady. I’m fully in control. I’m simply… beginning to understand better what you are. An actual goddess treats you like a friend, after all.”
“I’m just Tiana,” I stated, slightly irked now. Not at her, but at Rhea’s influence on her.
After pursing my lips in thought, I steered the conversation back on course. “Mir, I know that you’re in love with Rod.”
Her brow creased, but I held up my hand before she could deny it. “You fell in love with him. It doesn’t matter that you cast the spell that caused it. You didn’t choose to cast it, and you didn’t know you were casting it, so it isn’t your fault. Which makes your love for him no less legitimate than the love in any young maiden’s heart.”
She watched me with arched brow and anxious eyes, her head moving side to side slightly, trying to refute it.
“And, thanks to the same set of circumstances, Rod fell in love with you. And Mir, I’m okay with it. It was already my plan for Rod to make you his concubine, so he could be happy together with you.”
She just pressed her lips together, her brow bunching up once more. Rod looked a little uncomfortable, too.
I continued, “But I wanted him to do it without you knowing anything about the things that the goddess told you. I didn’t want you to misunderstand and think you had to help me in order to be with him. Because you don’t. But she already told you, right?”
Mireia hung her head slightly and whispered, “Yes.”
I almost felt like I had acquired a goddess’s ability to read mortal minds. “You’re feeling guilty because the idea makes you happy.”
Her lips pressed together harder, and her forehead wrinkled more.
I brushed her hair. “Relax, Mir. It’s a good thing, isn’t it? You’ll get to be together with the man you love from now on, and nobody can object. And you don’t need to worry about me, because I’m welcoming you.”
She looked up at me with a complicated look. She was trying to smile, but she didn’t trust that I was giving her my real feelings.
“Although it’s probably a little frightening, too.”
She suddenly turned puzzled. “Frightening?”
I realized I had just made an incorrect assumption. So much for my mind-reading ability. At her age, Mireia should have been a virgin nervously contemplating her first time, not a slave girl whose original master had already often taken liberties with her.
“Well, perhaps not,” I mumbled, then looked across to Rod. “Your Highness, I apologize for jumping ahead of you.”
Rod still had a dissatisfied look. “I’ll discuss it with her alone. I need to put together my thoughts first. I don’t even know how to talk about it.”
“Your Highness, can you not procrastinate?” Mireia… or rather Rhea asked. “As I already said, we no longer have time for mortal niceties.”
“What do you mean by that, anyway?” I demanded. “Gaia said that the amulet still had some time.”
“The amulet does, but your late mother does not,” she stated. “Her soul is showing signs of stress. It will fracture, the way yours did in the past, if we let this continue.”
“How could Gaia have missed that?” I demanded. “There’s no way…”
Rhea gave a patient smile, and I was able to read a lot into that.
Yeah, Gaia didn’t miss that. There was nothing we could do about it anyway, so she just omitted it when she spoke to us. She knew how little time there was, so practical mother goddess Gaia simply let it progress as is, trusting that the children would work it out when the time came.
That’s how she is, after all.
I looked down while pinching the bridge of my nose.
“How long?” I asked.
“It would be best to take care of it before tomorrow,” she stated simply.
Then, her face grew alarmed and she herself exclaimed, “Before tomorrow?”
Ah. That was of course Mireia speaking.
Rod looked like he was about to explode, but he was holding it in.
I stood and crossed behind Mireia, to kneel between her and Rod. I took her hand, then his, giving them both a squeeze.
“Rod, we don’t have to marry, or make the concubinage official, to get this done. I can get pregnant first.”
He scowled. “But…”
He didn’t continue. He simply stopped and frowned more.
“My Lady, are you… really okay with this?” Mireia worried.
“Mireia, I’m not just okay with it, I’m happy with it.”
“How can you be happy with another woman sleeping with your fiancé?!” she demanded.
“I need someone to do it,” I stated simply. “Because I can’t.”
“Because you… oh.”
Understanding finally lit up in her eyes. Well, she had enough clues in her prior experiences. Especially, with the strong sexual attraction she felt toward me when she wasn’t controlling her bond. Naturally, it had been something I was ready to reciprocate.
“You aren’t attracted to men?” she suggested.
“Not in the least,” I stated flatly. “My love for Rod is a sister’s love toward her brother. And just as devoid of romantic nature as such a love should be. I can appreciate a man’s good looks, but that’s just aesthetics.”
I squeezed her hand. “But I would like my proxy in His Highness’s bed to be someone I like. You are an excellent choice.”
“Am I not going to be having any part in this proposal?” Rod demanded.
I turned a smirk toward him and said, “This is my proposal. You can do yours later.”
His expression turned bewildered again and I giggled.
“After all, right now we’re doing my invitation to her, to share you with her. It’s a separate matter than yours, you know?”
“My Lady,” Mireia asked in a low voice, “Am I to… also be his proxy in your bed?”
A slight redness colored her cheeks. But she didn’t seem adverse to the idea. Just a bit shy. Of course, that was the Servant bond coloring her thoughts.
“Hm…” I mused over my answer for a bit, then stated, “That’s for you and Rod to decide later. It’s not a duty of concubinage. But I would welcome you.”
Her blush grew, and then I reddened as well. I’d managed to get this far without blushing, but this was an embarrassing topic.
Wanting out, I hit on a good way to end the conversation. “Your Highness, why don’t you bring Mireia somewhere private and decide together what you will do?”
If he read between the lines correctly, he should understand, Take her somewhere and propose to her.
Rod was quiet for a while, then asked, “What are you going to do if we don’t cooperate? Are the gods going to force us to do it?”
“We will not,” Rhea immediately replied. “We have an alternative ready, although it will cause some confusion among you mortals.”
“What alternative?” I demanded. This was the first time I was hearing it.
“Your fiancé hit on it, earlier,” she answered with a very un-Mireia-like chuckle. “We only need a man involved so that the paternity test spell will show a sensible answer when the temple conducts it. Otherwise, we must use this child and you, without a man. She has already agreed, after all. It’s only His Highness who hesitates.”
Noble births are automatically tested by the temple. It’s mandatory by Orestanian law, to prevent any questions of legitimacy. And if I understood correctly what she was saying, Gaia was prepared to omit the part where Rod sleeps with Mireia and skip on ahead to her and I sharing a bed for the night so that the goddess could do her work.
There’s no way to spoof that spell, in order to fake who the father is. It is a specialized form of divination, bypassing the gods and going straight to the Sea of Knowledge, which invariably reports the truth.
I began laughing a weary, defeated laugh, and it was the perfect end to this conversation.
“What’s funny?” Rod demanded.
“Maybe you didn’t understand her, Your Highness,” I answered. “So allow me to explain. You need to lay with your beloved and give her your seed, today.”
“T, Tiana?” he stammered.
I gave him a sweet smile and explained, “It’s the only way you can spare her the embarrassment of being revealed as the father of my babies.”
