Transmigrated Into A Women Dominated World

Whatever answer Athea had prepared went unspoken as she looked down at her Omni pad. "Viora is at the door," she informed.

And then the door to the chamber opened, and Viora walked in.

Her eyes went to her mother first, then to Calyra, and then to Sage.

"Mother. There are reports moving through the palace." She stopped there for a moment. "I want to know if they're true."

"They're true," Athea said.

"You're not bringing him here. Are you?" she asked.

"It's already done. He'll have to stand before the Council," Athea said. "The arrangements are already made."

Viora said nothing at all for a moment. Viora was surprised, and she was making no effort to hide it.

"You can't believe that I agreed to it?" Athea said. "There isn't anything to worry about. Not in the way you mean. Zaeryn was never going to stay a secret for long. A male wielding Vitae isn't a fact that keeps. It was always going to reach the Council eventually, and I'd rather it reach them now, while I'm the one presiding, than later on someone else's terms. All of this was inevitable. The only part I was ever able to choose was the timing."

"Still. It's too soon."

"It is," Athea said. "That changes nothing."

Viora held her mother's gaze for a while longer. When she spoke again, the edge had gone out of her voice, and what sat underneath it was easy for Sage to hear.

"When is he coming?"

"Tomorrow," Athea said. "He should be here in the Capital by late morning. Noon at the latest, depending on the transit."

★★★★

Back in Sector Seven.

The blue projection folded inward and vanished, leaving the atrium quiet around him once more.

Telling Genevieve and Ingrid had been easier than Zaeryn expected, although the reason had nothing to do with anything he had said. The two women had been together when he called. He had contacted Genevieve, and before she had finished greeting him, Ingrid had leaned into the projection beside her.

That had spared him from repeating the news. He had only needed to arrange his voice into something steady once, rather than enduring two separate conversations in which he pretended that leaving for the Capital tomorrow did not frighten him.

Ingrid had reacted with her usual immediacy, objecting to the change in schedule, demanding to know why she could not accompany him and eventually forcing him to promise that he would return. Genevieve had been calmer. She had asked when he was leaving. Once he answered, and she realised that for him this was a scary situation, she had assured him, with enough quiet certainty to make disagreement feel unnecessary, that he would be fine.

Between Genevieve's composure and Ingrid's refusal to treat the Imperial Council as something worthy of fear, they had left him with very little opportunity to retreat into his own dread. Zaeryn understood that this had been a mercy, although he had no intention of admitting it to either of them.

He lowered his wrist and rested his head against the back of the seat, looking through the glass ceiling at the night sky beyond it.

His thoughts eventually turned toward Sage.

She had been in the Capital for weeks now, devoting nearly every waking hour to the Aegis Division while he remained behind in Sector Seven. Zaeryn missed her, because they had been apart for so long.

Now, however, he was going to the Capital and he would meet her again.

The journey still carried the possibility of confinement, forced study or whatever other decision the Council might make concerning him, but it would also take him to Sage. Whatever happened inside that chamber, he would finally be in the same city as her again. He would see her face without a projection standing between them, hear her voice without the delay of a transmission and hold her after spending weeks unable to do any of those things.

The thought brought a smile to his face before he realised it was there.

"What is that smile for?"

Zaeryn turned toward the voice.

Marceline approached from the direction of the pool. She had drawn a loose robe around herself and carried a glass in one hand, although her hair remained damp at the ends and several strands rested against her neck.

"Nothing," Zaeryn answered. "I was thinking."

"That is not a nothing smile."

"It is a thinking smile."

Marceline studied him for another moment, but she did not press him for an explanation.

"Then you may keep your secret," she said. "It is still pleasant to find you smiling instead of sitting here alone and spiralling."

"I was working my way toward the spiralling. You interrupted me."

"Then I arrived at the correct time."

She placed her glass upon the low table beside him. Before Zaeryn could ask what she intended to do next, Marceline turned and lowered herself sideways into his lap, settling one arm across his shoulders while her legs rested over the side of the seat.

Zaeryn looked at her before deliberately shifting his attention toward the empty seats surrounding them.

"There are several other places you could have sat."

"I know."

"And yet you chose me."

Marceline's expression warmed. "I did."

His arm had already settled around her waist, undermining any attempt he might have made to present his objection as sincere.

Marceline noticed, although she had the kindness not to point it out. Her fingers moved into the hair at the back of his neck as she leaned closer.

Zaeryn glanced at her mouth. "You seem remarkably comfortable with the arrangement."

"I am."

She closed the distance and kissed him. Slow at first, then deeper, her tongue sliding against his like she had all the time in the world. One of her hands stayed in his hair; the other drifted down his chest, fingers spreading, pressing, feeling the way his breathing changed under her palm. Zaeryn's arm tightened around her waist and pulled her closer until there was no space left between them. The heat of her bare skin soaked through his clothes.

When Marceline finally drew back, she remained close enough that her breath still warmed his mouth. Her fingers continued moving gently through the back of his neck, while Zaeryn made no effort to loosen the arm around her waist.

"We should give you a proper send-off before you leave," she said.

Zaeryn glanced down at the position she had made for herself across his lap. "I thought that was what we were doing."

"No. That was merely me kissing you because I wanted to."

"I appreciate the clarification."

Marceline smiled, although something more thoughtful entered her expression as she studied him.

"No one knows when you will return from the Capital," she continued. "Perhaps Athea will meet you tomorrow, take one look at you and decide that Sector Seven has enjoyed your company for long enough."

"That is not going to happen."

His answer came with enough immediate certainty to make Marceline raise one eyebrow.

"No?"

"I am going to the Capital for an evaluation, and once it is finished, I will come back."

Zaeryn knew that the decision might not belong entirely to him, but he refused to speak as though his fate had been sealed already. Sector Seven was where his life existed. The Lyceum was there, his bondmates were there, and nearly every woman he considered family lived beneath this roof. Whatever the Imperial Council decided about his abilities, he had no intention of never coming back here.

Marceline watched his expression for another moment before leaning closer.

"I believe you," she murmured.

Her lips returned to his, although there was nothing gentle or restrained about the second kiss. Marceline kissed him more deeply this time, one hand tightening within his hair while the other rested against his chest. Zaeryn responded immediately, drawing her closer until there was no space remaining between their bodies.

When she eventually lifted her mouth from his, her breathing had lost some of its earlier composure.

"Even so," she said quietly, "a proper send-off is still in order."

Before Zaeryn could ask what she intended that send-off to involve, Marceline removed her arm from his shoulders and rose from his lap. His hand remained against her waist for a moment longer before she stepped beyond his reach.

She adjusted the robe around herself and retrieved her glass from the low table. The small smile upon her face made it clear that she knew precisely where his thoughts had gone.

"Come and find me after you have finished preparing for tomorrow," she said.

Marceline did not explain where he should look or what would happen once he found her. She did not need to. She turned and walked away from him with the same unhurried confidence with which she had approached, disappearing into the adjoining corridor without looking back.

Zaeryn remained seated for several seconds, watching the place where she had vanished.

"I suppose I had better start preparing now," he muttered.

The prospect of leaving for the Capital had not become any more appealing, but he now possessed considerably more motivation to finish the preparations quickly.

Zaeryn rose from the seat and made his way upstairs to his bedroom. Once inside, he retrieved a compact luggage unit from the lower compartment of his wardrobe. At his touch, its compressed frame expanded into a rigid rectangular container, which he placed upon the bed and opened.

Then he stood there, staring into the empty case while confronting a question nobody had thought to answer for him.

What exactly was he supposed to take to the Capital?

Clothes were the obvious beginning, but even that raised further questions. He had not been told how long the evaluation would take. He did not know whether he was preparing for a single night away from home or several days spent under observation.

Marceline's suggestion returned to him despite his effort to dismiss it.

Perhaps Athea would decide that he should remain there.

Zaeryn pushed the thought aside and opened the wardrobe. He was preparing for a visit, not quietly packing his life into a case. Whatever happened tomorrow, he would return to Sector Seven.

He selected enough clothing for several days, beginning with the simple shirts and fitted trousers he wore most often. After some consideration, he added one of his more formal outfits.

Once the clothing was arranged, he added the few personal items he would need and a second pair of boots. The process was ordinary enough that some of the tension inside him began to settle. Folding clothes and deciding what to carry gave his mind something practical to concentrate upon, making tomorrow feel more like an actual journey and less like an approaching sentence.

By the time the case was half full, Zaeryn glanced toward his bedroom door and remembered that Marceline was waiting for him. He finished the rest of the packing quickly, closing the case without bothering to arrange anything inside it properly, because whatever she had planned for the evening was going to be far more interesting than folding another shirt.

He made his way down the upper corridor at an unhurried pace, and when he reached Marceline's door it opened before he had the chance to announce himself, sliding aside smoothly and without any sound at all, as though she had been standing on the other side of it listening for him to arrive.

She was waiting a few paces inside the room, and she smiled the moment she saw him.

"You are here. I see you did not let the tedious chore of packing delay you for very long," she said.

Her green eyes moved over him without any hurry, and she made no attempt to disguise what the look meant. Marceline had decided a long time ago that he belonged to her, and she had never seen much reason to be subtle about it.

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