Chapter 1932: Embarrassed Girl

The tree that had shaded half the grounds by winter was gone. In its place stood a trunk wider than the main house, silver-green bark rising out of the garden without a single branch for what looked like a mile, and a canopy above that was weather.

The green cast that had ridden the daylight while she drank was already fading, and under a crown standing miles above the roofline, ordinary warm sunlight came down on the garden as it always had.

On the terrace the maids stood in a line with their faces turned up, each of them still holding whatever she had been carrying when the light came.

At the trunk, five of the household’s elves were moving around frantically, awed but concerned, checking if their little lady was still as healthy as before she decided to grow a few miles in height.

"Jasmine is waiting for you!" Rosie’s voice came again, though the little lady herself was nowhere to be seen.

...

Jasmine Argentis had asked for the Bloodfather ribbon yesterday, and she had asked him to conquer the continent for her by the time she awoke.

She wanted their nation to finally have a name, which she knew he’d only give once all four races were his, so she decided to go unconscious until he did so.

He had grinned at his woman’s audacity, and he had seen straight through it.

The bravery was a facade. She did not want him sitting on his thumbs watching her, afraid she would take far longer than the other girls, because she still thought herself the weakest of them.

Knowing all of it, he had bled for her as he had bled for his other women on the moss before.

The ribbon had struck her sternum, and she had gone down on the boards with her ponytail still in its working knot. Since then the restructuring had held her under, carving the mark through her one line at a time.

As tasked, he had left her in it with his girls staying by her side.

He stepped into a room that housed all his women, sitting or standing around the bed in which Jasmine lay.

But before he could take a proper look, a timid little voice sounded.

"...Papa."

The voice was hers, but smaller than he had ever heard it.

Blossom sat on the floor by the bed, and behind the dogkin, mostly hidden, a girl was peeking out at him with one eye.

"Rosie has nothing to fear!!" Blossom decreed.

"B-but Blossom Mommy...!" Rosie whined. "Rosie is different now... She changed..."

"Let me see," Quinlan asked.

The big eyes aimed at him widened and blinked. Then, after a deep breath, the little lady steeled her heart.

She came out one careful step at a time, fingers knotted in the hem of her dress.

This morning his daughter had ridden on shoulders, a small green thing with tiny legs and a voice too big for her.

The girl standing there was eight years old, long-legged, the baby roundness gone from her face and a princess left in it, her skin deepened from spring green to the green of a leaf in full summer.

"Rosie grew," she told the floor. "Rosie isn’t little and cute anymore. Is Papa... mad?"

Quinlan crossed the room and picked his daughter up the same as he always had, and she had weight now, real weight, legs wrapping his ribs instead of his arm.

"Mad?" He looked her over once, slow, so she could see him do it. "My daughter conquered the sky before my very eyes. I have never been prouder in my life."

"...Really?"

"And you’re still the cutest thing on this continent."

"!!" Rosie’s face went through three expressions and landed on radiant.

"Rosie can still call Papa Daddy?"

"Even if you grow into a woman ten times my size, you’ll still be my adorable little princess," Quinlan announced.

"Daddy!!!!!!!!!!" Rosie squealed and buried her face in his neck. The arms that squeezed him were long now, and strong.

Then the room turned to the bed.

"It started before dawn! It’s been so slow, like a scribe copying..."

Gina Argentis spoke, a small woman with her daughter’s blue eyes.

Jasmine lay on top of the covers in a thin shift with her hair down around her, damp at the temples, her lips parted.

Below her navel, where the shift lay flat, dark crimson script moved under her skin like ink poured into still water, line writing over line, sigil folding into sigil, faster than an eye could follow.

Seraphiel sat on the edge of the bed with one hand on the governor’s brow, radiating irritation.

"Nothing to heal..." the healer said, before he could ask. "Rather, if I heal her, she’ll fail."

"Hmm... she’s taking her time, but it’s not like she’s been in a coma for days," Quinlan reasoned, seeing the worry in so many gazes aimed at him.

Then, as if Jasmine herself heard her family’s worry, Quinlan felt it arrive abruptly.

Under his own skin the crimson lattice of the Bloodfather class had lit along his left arm and shoulder, pulsing toward the bed, the same visible pull it gave whenever one of his bonded drew on him.

"Speak of the devil. Here she comes," Quinlan smiled and gave as much as she needed.

"Jasmine, you can do it!" The cheerleading began, by none other than Vex. "Suck Hubby dry, I give you full permission. He’s all yours today!"

"Fight, daughter!!" Gina joined, ignoring the Hexwitch’s crude language. "Suck your man dry! He can take it!"

Or not.

"Go, Jas, go!" Serika joined, tanned muscles flexing in excitement.

"The Tyrant of Commerce is about to collect her dues..." Aurora grinned.

"Quin, brace yourself," Ayame purred. "She might present herself humble and innocent, but this girl might just be the greediest of us all~"

The pull on the lattice climbed until his whole forearm glowed through the sleeve, and Quinlan stood there and let his newest bonded take everything she reached for.

Then the drawing eased, gentle as a hand letting go, and the room hushed on its own.

The script under Jasmine’s skin ran to the end of itself.

It stopped. The moving lines fixed all at once into a single sigil, crimson and clean, a coin’s-edge circle full of interlocking script, and lay on her womb like a seal pressed into wax.

Jasmine opened her eyes.

They were blue. Then, for one blink, they were the bright unnatural gold of freshly minted coins, and then blue again, looking at her mother.