Chapter 139 -The Anatomy of Aki

Lilyth

‘I should have known Aki would end up in the craziest relationship possible,’ Bergia laughed sadly. ‘It runs in her family, you know. At least in her case, it seems genuine enough. The others well… her grandmother and that demon, her moth…:

She caught herself.

Her mother?

That confirmed a certain theory I developed when going through the village register.

I looked at Aki. She seemed fast asleep, but she couldn't fool my hearing. She was awake and listening.

My clever girl.

‘That would certainly explain why the best I can tell he wasn't anyone from the village.’

Bergia paled.

‘I beg you,’ she said weakly. ‘Do not speak of such things.’

‘I mean… her father could be any member of the Viscount's entourage. The problem is…’

Aki

The nap definitely made me feel better. I’ve never had a headache that bad. While I still felt as if someone hit the side of my head with a plank, previously, it was as if I got smashed with a morningstar. Being woken up by Lilyth's admission of love also helped. Now though…

‘Silence!’ Bergia screamed in a shrill tone.

‘The problem is what?’ I demanded in a hoarse voice.

‘The problem is,’ Lilyth continued, ‘only four people were in that party. The old Viscount, two guards and their twelve-year-old son. One of the guards was a dwarf. That leaves two. And judging by your reaction…’

‘I am the old Viscount's daughter, aren’t I?’ I asked, which sent a stab of pain through my head, causing me to wince.

‘An illegitimate one, yes,’ Lilyth confirmed.

Bergia made a move as if to leap at Lilyth but then slumped down in defeat.

Perhaps me being bedridden was a blessing, as I wanted to scream at her for keeping it away from me. For lying to me my entire life. But my anger only made the headache worse, causing me to groan.

There will be time for that.

‘How did you figure it out?’ Bergia asked in a sad and weak whisper.

It looked as if she had aged twenty years in those few short moments.

‘While going through the village books, I started to trace the lives of all the villagers to try to find out what happened to them. At first, I wanted to see how many of them actually disappeared in the Murdergrove. Then I found some… anomalies in the data that piqued my curiosity. I am still organising the data, but my findings are… not relevant right now. While doing that, I remembered the story Aki told me about her father walking out on her and her mom, so I figured I might as well check who that was so that I can go visit him, cut off his balls and shove them down his throat.’

That made me smile.

My knight in a slimy armour.

‘So you checked Aki’s record in the register,’ Bergia sighed.

I remembered looking it up myself, only to discover that this part of the page had a wine stain on it. I asked Matis about it, but he told me those records were filled out by his father.

‘Yes,’ Lilyth confirmed. ‘The shockingly convenient stain that miraculously didn’t damage any other pages.’

Bergia frowned at that, but more in worry than anger.

‘From there, I went to Veenaya’s records and saw no mention of her ever getting married.’

I also checked that. People living together without marriage was common enough.

‘That made me very curious. In isolation, the three facts are unremarkable. Altogether… now… that was a proper mystery. So my next step was to check the death and departures around Aki’s birth.’

‘Which would only be the Aunt Traeminah,’ Bergia added.

Lilyth nodded.

‘I am sorry for your loss, I guess.’

Bergia muttered her thanks absentmindedly.

‘I was mostly looking for the records of departure, since if Aki’s dad died, Veenaya wouldn't be lying about it. That left me with two options - that person was still living in the village or it was some traveller. Since, I assumed, tracing the latter was impossible, I focused on the former. And that's where the really interesting things began to come up. Or rather… interesting thing didn't come up. Both Matis and his father mentioned Aki’s birth in their journals and the village chronicle, but none of the sources said anything about Veenaya being abandoned. Or mentioned a man being there at all, for that matter. They mostly focused on Aki herself, which is fair enough, but well… At that point, I was getting really suspicious because whenever the journals addressed birth, they would mention both parents. My next idea was to go through the tax records since those tend to be fairly thorough, and to my pleasant surprise… Those also feature census data.’

‘And there is no mention of Veenaya ever living with anyone,’ Bergia nodded along. ‘So you hit the journals and the chronicles for events that happened around the time Aki would have been conceived?’

‘It was a long shot, but imagine my complete lack of surprise when I discovered that the books were missing some pages around the time the Viscount visited. Still… It wasn't enough. There was a very strong circumstantial case there, but I didn't have the stain on the blue dress.’

‘So… if I didn't say anything…’

‘I wouldn’t have anything concrete. At least not enough to make any definitive statements.’

‘Why?’ I asked after a few moments of pregnant silence. ‘Why keep it from me, mom?’

‘It wasn’t easy, child of my heart,’ Bergia answered, quietly weeping. ‘We thought you deserved to know… but we also wanted to protect you. This is very dangerous knowledge. If someone thought you were a danger to the Viscountcy… they would have killed you.’

I realised then how much my attitude towards life had changed since I had to run away. The old me would have rejected that explanation. Now… after what happened to Lilyth… after the mess we’ve made on the Dwynveia… I realised I understood her. Some secrets were too dangerous to reveal to others. A part of me screamed that it wasn't fair, but it dawned on me that in Bergia's place, I would have done the same. Lilyth probably wouldn't say anything without absolute certainty, either.

‘H-ow…’ I asked.

‘Your mother was working at Jirrin’s then, though the inn still belonged to his father Wylf at that time. Viscount Kirelyn stopped there for a night. We never learned what exactly happened that night, just that she was asked to attend to him and Wylf heard… you know. Nine months later, you were born.’

‘Could someone else have been the father?’ Lilyth asked. ‘I mean… just the fact what happened happened that night… doesn't mean he was the father.’

That is a good point.

‘Veenaya never named anyone else. Before Aki was born, she was quite a hellion, but I’ve never seen her show much interest in romance. She was, in fact, somewhat infamous for turning away every man who showed interest in her.’

That would explain why I’ve never seen my mom with anyone.

In a way, that was a relief, as I had always blamed myself for it. After all, who would want to date the mother of a monster?

‘So without a paternity test, that's likely all we’ll ever have…’ Lilyth sighed.

‘A paternity test?’ Bergia asked, confused.

‘A secret for a secret, I guess,’ Lilyth chuckled and turned into a kitsune. ‘Since the jig is up anyway.’

She then told Bergia about her Terran origin, how exactly she ended up on Dwynveia and why we kept it a secret.

The idea of being able to tell someone’s lineage by looking into the composition of their body is marvellous.

I remembered Lilyth and Savri discussing this dee-en-ei thing after we got here, but it was nice to hear about some more practical uses for it. Lilyth's explanation also made me forget my headache for a while.

‘Unfortunately, I am not sure whether this method would be viable in the case of Aki,’ Lilyth continued, ‘since I am not sure how much magic affected her genetic code due to her demonborn heritage. You see, genetics, as I understand them, focus on “physical” characteristics - body shape, susceptibility to health issues, brain function, and cosmetic things like eye colour. Magic does not factor into them. At least not on Earth.’

‘This is why children tend to have the same eye colour as one of their parents?’ Bergia asked to confirm.

‘Correct. Which makes Aki a baffling case. Children inherit half of each parent’s genes. Those mix so you sometimes get “weird” results. For example, both the mother and father may carry one gene responsible for a certain disease. They are perfectly fine because that malady requires two genes to manifest. So if their kid is unlucky…’

‘They will get both?’

‘Yes. One such disease is something called “hemochromatosis” - blood iron overload. Basically, the body doesn't process food correctly, causing a buildup of iron in the body. It causes massive health issues and can show as skin discoloration - gray or bronze.’

‘I’ve seen a person like this,’ I croaked. ‘A merchant that passed through Dan-Hem.’

Lilyth nodded and continued.

‘This why Aki strikes me as an anomaly. She is showing the phenotypic traits of a full demon - fully-developed horns, a tail and pointy ears. I was told by a reputable source that this is very uncommon, and usually, the only inherited traits would be what I’d expect to happen back home and previously mentioned- eye and hair colour and some physical characteristics. We’ve seen this with Zaiven and Milla. On Earth, I have heard about cases of skin colour skipping a generation, and I was told a similar thing happened in the case of Aki's magical capabilities. The thing is, even with my limited understanding of genetics, I don’t think there is a reason for her to have horns or a tail. She only got a quarter of her grandfather’s genes, and it is an imperfect copy of the genes that Veenaya had.’

‘So if my mom looked human, I shouldn't look like this?’ I asked, finally understanding something about myself.

Lilyth nodded.

‘So… the way I see it, two options are possible. The old Viscount had some demon blood inside of him, and you got it, OR those traits were already there and were just dormant. Something activated them while your mom was pregnant with you, and the only thing that comes to mind is magic. This raises a question: how exactly is “magic” passed down the bloodline? Are there, once again, specific genes for it, or is there some supernatural factor to it? Could it be a mix of both? How does it affect the rest of the gene code?

So… in less “otherworldbullshit” terms as Caei would put it - I have no idea whether Terran genetic tests would be able to tell that Aki and the Viscount are actually related, because well… magic.’

‘Huh,’ Bergia mused. ‘So there is a reason why nobles keep to their own as far as breeding goes.’

‘It is some instinctive understanding of the concept, but in this case it is bullshit. There is nothing in the blood that dictates who should rule and, in general, nobles having a small pool of potential spouses is quite harmful, in fact, as there is a much greater chance of health issues present in the group to manifest.’

‘Fascinating,’ Bergia nodded her thanks.

As we were digesting this, something weirdly funny struck me.

‘Wait… if the Viscount is my brother, does this mean I am Savri’s aunt now?’

Lilyth also smiled at that.

‘Step aunt, yes. And so technically Caei and I are, given the three of us are married now.’

‘I’d ask you to leave the knowledge of that fact limited to the three of us,’ Bergia pleaded.

‘That probably would involve lobotomy, given how Caei and Ren have been eavesdropping at the door since you shouted at me to be quiet.’

I have never heard Bergia unleash such a litany of curses before.