No Secret Lasts Forever
The moment Bariya confirmed that the three Caliphs had left the mansion, she shifted into her leopard cat form and went after them.
Even Sabrina and Shirca, who wielded Physical Enhancement, never sensed her. She buried her presence and kept her distance, and so she followed them all the way there unnoticed. Arriving safely, at least, had gone well enough.
"Bariya Mariner is my own daughter."
That damned father of hers had dragged into the open the secret he had kept buried.
And he was not finished.
"My daughter is remarkable indeed. To think she could deceive the Caliph beastkin so completely—Lady Caliph herself, who possesses an Authority."
"…What?"
"My daughter happens to have a trifling little talent for forcibly stirring others' affection."
The Authority Claire had falsely reported in order to protect Bariya—Darius had given even that away, and Bariya's heart turned to ice.
That was not her true power.
…But it isn't a lie, either.
Bariya's true Authority was Pheromone Manipulation. She could forcibly control not only her own pheromones, but those of other beastkin as well, which meant that raising someone's affection lay well within her reach. She could not bring herself to cry out that he was lying.
She hesitated for a long while before she finally dared to look at the three Caliphs' faces.
…Ah.
Shock had locked all three of them rigid.
I'm finished.
Bariya squeezed her eyes shut.
There had been chances enough to explain that she was a Divine Beast's daughter, and to speak of her Authority, yet she had dodged every one of them behind one excuse or another. I simply hadn't wanted to see those faces. Once she told them, the fact that Mariner blood ran in her would come to light sooner or later. The Caliphs hated the Mariners, and that was the one thing she could not bear to have discovered. She had never imagined it would come out like this, in the worst way possible. She ought to have said it with her own mouth. She had realized far too late that no secret lasts forever.
"I shall return at this hour tomorrow. Should my daughter Bariya not be here, I will take it that the Caliphs have imprisoned her or killed her, and I will proclaim the fact throughout beastkin society."
Darius had issued his declaration of war.
"You really think Bariya wants to look at that miserable face of yours?"
Baden ground his teeth, but Darius only snorted.
"Whether you become the Caliphs who chanced upon my daughter and took her under your protection, or the frauds who staged a play to steal her from me—that rests entirely in your hands."
"Darius Mariner!"
"Then let us meet again tomorrow, each of us wearing a pleasant face."
Darius offered an exaggerated bow, burst into booming laughter, and climbed into the carriage. Gaudy to the point of vulgarity, it rolled away with a bright, cheerful clatter, leaving the frozen figures behind.
…I should go back.
Bariya looked at the rigid Caliphs, then turned and ran for the mansion. A single tear—the first she had shed since she was seven, the year she lost her mother—fell and struck the ground.
"I can't believe this."
After Darius had gone, Sabrina—who never noticed that the little leopard cat had overheard them and slipped away—raked a rough hand through her hair.
"I imagined every situation I could think of, but this is a shock."
Baden could not even answer. A low sound caught in his throat as he nodded.
Bariya Bell. To think the Bariya who had so clearly introduced herself by that name was Darius Mariner's own daughter.
"He went so far as to invoke Butten's name, so it can't be a lie."
"It isn't."
"Ha! Mariner blood? The little one?"
A hollow laugh broke from Sabrina. The child didn't resemble them in the slightest; the thought had never once crossed her mind. Bariya was far too lovely to be set beside those crude, greedy, half-mad Mariners.
Yes—Bariya was lovely. Even after learning she carried the bloodline they hated, what they felt for the child had not changed in the least. It was not as if Bariya had chosen her parents. And they were supposed to hate the child as well, simply because her father was the enemy? The Caliphs were not that far gone.
"She must take after the mother who bore her. Of that I'm certain."
Shirca nodded, wholly in agreement, then went on in a darker tone.
"Sadly, it seems she is no longer with us."
If the mother were alive, she would have come with Darius, or he would at least have mentioned that she too was searching for the child. But he had not spoken a single word about her, and Bariya was just as sparing with hers.
"Her mother must be a Divine Beast."
Baden murmured it almost to himself. The Mariners had no Authority. Bariya did. Which meant her birth mother was a feline Divine Beast.
"A Divine Beast, whose life stretches so far beyond a beastkin's, passing from the world while her daughter is still in the midst of growing."
Nothing but tragedy came to mind, and Shirca let out a heavy sigh.
"What those greedy wretches must have done to mother and child."
Sabrina pressed a hand to her brow. Bariya's hatred of hyenas was no less fierce than the Caliphs' own. What in the world had been done to that child—their own daughter—that she hated hyenas so bitterly?
"How much must she have suffered alone all this time. We should have given her more reason to trust us."
The Caliphs had already been helped by the child twice, and still they had failed to become a shelter easy enough that she could pour out her heart.
"For now, it would be best not to let on until the little one tells us herself, wouldn't it?"
"Of course. Blood doesn't matter anyway."
By the time they woke tomorrow, they would have forgotten that Bariya was a Mariner's daughter. What mattered lay elsewhere.
"A talent for forcibly stirring someone's affection. That is an Authority, isn't it?"
At Sabrina's words, Baden and Shirca nodded as one.
"But no matter how I turn it over, that doesn't seem right."
Of course, it could be an ability of that sort. Not only Shirca, but Baden—and even Sabrina, who did not give her heart easily—had opened themselves to Bariya with little resistance.
"But a mere talent like that couldn't purge poison, or cure my Madness."
There was only one possibility.
"Darius—no, the Mariners—don't truly know what the little one's Authority is."
To Sabrina's eye, Bariya's Authority was formidable. If the Mariners had known, they would not have settled for sending Darius to give them a moderate fright. They would already have declared war on the Caliphs and demanded Bariya be handed over. No—they would never have left her enough room to escape the Mariners in the first place.
"We have to protect the little one."
If Bariya were dragged back to the Mariners this time, she would never again step into the light. So they had to protect her.
"Even if we have to roll in the mud, we cannot send the little one to the Mariners."
At Sabrina's resolve, Baden drew an arm around her shoulders.
"We're already in the mud."
From the moment the two of them lost their first child, the Caliphs had already sunk into it. Why would they be afraid of something like that now?
"You're right."
Sabrina caught Baden's hand and held it tight. She could hardly bear how badly she wanted to thrash those hyena bastards then and there.
"The truth is, I'd been hoping Mother and Father would adopt the little one and make her my younger sister. I suppose that wish will have to wait."
At Shirca's sigh, the couple whipped around to stare at their son.
What had he just said?
"Adopt her? Your younger sister?"
"Yes. Wouldn't that be far better than merely an honored guest, or a patron?"
"…We never even thought of it."
The couple's faces grew grave, and no wonder. The shock and the wound of losing their first son had been too great. And now—adoption?
"…You're right. That was a way, too."
"Why are you only saying this now?"
Sabrina burst out.
"Father was looking into the little one's family. I meant to suggest it if he couldn't find any trace of them. But she's a Mariner's daughter, so it's impossible now."
"Ha. So it is."
Those Mariner brats were useless, as always.
"Then all we can do is everything in our power to keep them from taking the little one."
The Caliphs had already been helped by Bariya more than once. Now it was their turn to protect the child—until she grew strong enough to tear into the hyenas with her own strength.
That, after all, was what the Caliphs did best.