Chapter 1933: First Kneel

"...How long," the governor said. Her voice was hoarse.

"About sixteen hours, sweetheart." Gina’s hand was on her cheek.

"Where’s Quin?" She looked around, frantic. Then her eyes found the love of her life, and her worries eased. A brilliant, radiant expression welcomed his eyes.

"I did it!"

"You did," Quinlan spoke softly, and caressed her cheeks tenderly. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah!" She grinned. Then her eyes narrowed. "What about your homework?"

"You may grade it."

"!!" Jasmine’s eyes softened. "I will... but, for now..." Her arms opened toward him, expectant. "Just hug me!"

He did. Tightly, lovingly, for a good minute.

Then he spoke what was on all their minds. "Tell us."

Jasmine’s hand went to the mark, softly caressing her womb.

Her eyes went unfocused for the length of a breath while the window opened in front of her.

"Bloodfather’s mark, confirmed." She stopped, then went on, flat, the voice she kept for cargo manifests. "Class augmentation. Within the Bloodfather’s domain, the realm’s roads, records, and borders answer to your seal."

Nobody in the room said anything.

"That’s it?" Kitsara asked. "That’s the whole line?"

"That’s the whole line," Jasmine agreed. Then the window scrolled under her eyes, and the governor’s eyebrows climbed. "Oh. There’s a second page~"

She read the second page in the same voice, and it thinned halfway through.

"The realm is the steward’s labyrinth. The wealth and prosperity of the nation feed its steward. As the realm grows..." Her thumb stopped on the seal. "...so do I. I can enhance my summons, their variety, their numbers..."

Nobody said anything to that either.

"So you need to govern well and you’re going to be bombarded with rewards..." Aurora mused at last. "You can grow strong at your desk."

"Guess so!" Jasmine beamed. "This ability fits me perfectly. I love it."

Then she went still, and this time it was not a window she was reading.

"...There are a couple heavy men on my road," she said slowly. "On the pass road, coming toward us."

Quinlan’s mouth twitched. "The beastkin lords. I invited them over to Miri Town."

"You invited apex predators to my town," Jasmine said, "without informing me."

"You were asleep."

"That is not an excuse, my love."

She was reading it again, and her hand had found her mother’s on the coverlet and closed around it without her noticing.

"I can feel the roads. The granaries. The whole realm, laid out like a page." Her mouth thinned. "The toll house on the Greenvale east road is skimming its own count."

Her focus came back, and it came back gold.

"Somebody find my seal," said the Tyrant of Commerce, from her sickbed, with her hair down. "I’ll make an example out of those sons of bitches. No one gets away with robbing my family."

The silence that followed had a different quality than the one before it.

"...Damn. This girl is a badass," Lucille giggled.

"You’re not a mere governor anymore," Vex whispered, thrilled.

"She became a magic landlord," Iris said flatly, from the wall.

"A tyrannical magic landlord~" Ayame corrected with a purr.

Serika’s laugh came first and loudest. Lucille crossed to the bed and gathered the governor into her arms, and Jasmine let herself be gathered.

Over the Bloodmonger’s shoulder she caught Quinlan’s eye and mouthed "I love you."

Quinlan watched her for a good moment, full of affection.

Then he looked at them.

All of them. Every woman he had ever chosen, in one room, the last of them awake at last and already threatening a toll house.

Vex bouncing on her heels. Ayame at the bedpost with her chin up, eyes shining, and no intention of admitting it.

Kaelira was wedged in the doorway behind Serika with her sleeves still rolled from the forge.

Blossom sat on the floor by the bed with Rosie back in her lap and her tail going, Aurora leaned on the far bedpost with her result confirmed, and Lucille had her cheek on Jasmine’s hair.

Iris had the wall.

They were all so happy.

The room was full to the walls with it.

And it was in this moment that Quinlan decided.

’Father... Mothers... It’s time. Grant your son strength not to fumble his next words.’

"You’ve all knelt before me a lot," Quinlan began.

Everyone stopped.

Every woman in the room turned to look at him wearing the same expression, and Kitsara’s tails, which had been waving, went entirely rigid.

"...Quinnie, what are you saying?" the foxkin shook her head, gravely disappointed. "Jas’s mother is in the room."

"Don’t mind little old me," said Gina Argentis, without looking up from her daughter’s hand.

Quinlan’s eyes never left his women. "You’ve all knelt before me a lot. But now, it’s my turn."

The Primordial Villain stepped back from the bed, unhurried, until every woman who had chosen him stood in front of him at once. Then, before all of them, he went down on one knee.

The wry looks died.

"Wait," Serika said. "Wait, wait, wait-"

Vex’s hands flew to her mouth. Sera grabbed Kaelira’s arm without looking, and got grabbed right back. On the floor, Rosie went completely still, both eyes enormous.

Jasmine sat up off her pillows, hair down, lips parted, the freshly woken governor suddenly wide awake.

"In the world I came from," Quinlan said, "a man kneels once in his life, and only to the woman he means to keep forever."

He let that sit exactly one breath.

"I’ve knelt to no one in this world. I was saving it."

Somewhere by the pillow, someone made a sound like a kettle taken off the fire.

"I have thought of every one of you as my wife since the day you chose me."

"We are your wives, you dummy," Lucille said, laughing and wet-eyed in the same breath.

"No."

Ayame’s voice came out level, and the room turned to her. The second-in-command stood parade-even to the last word. "We’re not. We’ve only been his girlfriends."

"That’s right," Quinlan smiled, remembering his samurai’s words from long ago. Until he asked for her hand properly, she would not consider herself his wife.

It was time to correct what was wrong in this world.

"You’re my partners for life. Our bond goes far beyond that of a traditional husband and his wives. But we’re still making it official. The world’s most precious existences deserve a ceremony."

He looked from face to face, taking his time with each of them, and when he spoke again, the grin was gone and what was under it had no armor at all.

"So I’m asking you properly." His eyes found Jasmine’s, then Ayame’s, then all of them.

"Will you become my empresses?"