Take Me as Your Youngest Daughter
"I-I'm not a tiger, you know?"
Strange. Lately she had been stammering far more than she used to.
"We know."
Sabrina answered lightly, as if the matter were of no consequence at all.
"People mostly marry within their own kind, yes, but that isn't the law. The same holds for a chieftain's house. There's nothing to stop us from adopting you."
That much was true. Wolf beastkin married cheetah beastkin, and lion beastkin married jaguar beastkin. Chieftain houses were no exception. A child took after only one parent's species in any case, so succession simply passed to whichever heir carried the chieftain's blood more strongly.
"I'm perfectly content remaining an honored guest, just as I am!"
But there was a problem. Bariya was of hyena blood—the tigers' enemy. What if the vassal houses learned the truth and turned against her? The conflict with Mariner was only going to deepen as it was. The last thing she wanted was to fracture the family from within on her account.
"No. It isn't enough."
Sabrina shook her head, resolute.
"If Mariner demands we hand you over, and we have no formal tie to you, it will be difficult for us to protect you."
Bariya could not deny it.
"And there's one thing you ought to know, little one."
Baden drew out a document and laid it on the table.
"Mariner never entered you into the official family register. Legally, you have no family at all, which means there's nothing to prevent us from adopting you."
He explained it with the greatest care, afraid that learning Mariner had never even acknowledged her might wound her. It didn't.
"I know. Mother never married that bastard. Honestly—what a relief I never ended up on the Mariner register."
Bariya swept a broad hand across her chest. What a disaster it would have been, saddled with a name as rotten as Bariya Mariner.
"Oh. You already knew?"
"Yes. What was it he said? That if word got out he'd married a Divine Beast, it would inconvenience Mother, so they ought to keep quiet about it within the family? He ran his mouth to that effect."
It had been a night when sleep refused to come. She had grumbled that she would sooner die than call Darius Father, and her mother, Claire, had told her then: they had never married, so she didn't have to call him Father at all. How dare he treat Mother that way without even marrying her. That was the first time Bariya had sworn revenge upon the wretch.
"Trash..."
Sabrina murmured it under her breath. Something fouler seemed to follow, but unfortunately Bariya couldn't quite make it out.
"Then nothing stands in the way of our adopting you. There's nothing left to fret over."
Baden smiled softly. He smiled often enough, and yet Bariya had never seen a smile quite so radiant. It startled her.
"Let's enter our little one into the Caliph register this very moment."
While Bariya was still lost in that smile, Sabrina seized the adoption papers on the table and began filling them out at a rapid clip.
"Don't worry, little one. Nothing will change. We'll simply be able to protect you more surely. You need only go on living as comfortably as you do now."
Watching the blank lines fill in a blink, Bariya jolted back to herself.
"But if it gets out that I'm a hyena's daughter, the vassal houses will—"
"What? We're the chieftains. Why would the vassal houses oppose a decision we've already made?"
Sirka shot the question back, looking thoroughly baffled.
Huh...? Is that how it is?
In House Caliph, the chieftain's power was immense. The vassal houses were in no position to raise their voices about it.
"So don't think about any of it, little one. All you have to do is become my little sister—the youngest daughter of Caliph."
Sirka rose, dropped to one knee beside Bariya, and caught her hand in a firm grip.
"We'll do everything we can so you never spend a lifetime regretting that you became one of us."
"We'll make House Caliph something you can be proud of, no matter where you go."
It was not only Sirka. Baden and Sabrina took Bariya's hands as well and pleaded with her.
"So please, little one. Become our family. Give us leave to protect you properly."
Asking her to become family so that they might keep her safe. Where in the world did words like those exist?
I was right to come back.
Perhaps her mother in heaven had sent her back so she would not make some foolish choice.
Which means I really do have to tell them everything now.
If they were to be family, there could be nothing left hidden.
"I... there's something I need to tell you."
"Say whatever it is."
Bariya looked at the three Caliphs, every one of them fixed upon her, and at last gave voice to the truth she had never been able to speak.
"I'm not actually a cat beastkin."
All three of them opened their eyes wide.
"What?"
"I was afraid that telling the truth might expose me as a hyena's daughter, so I hid it all this time."
Bariya drew a long, deep breath.
"I am the daughter of a wildcat Divine Beast, and a wildcat beastkin myself. A true predator."
A wildcat. It was an identity none of them had ever considered, and the Caliphs were stunned.
"I knew it. I kept thinking there was something different about you from a cat."
Sirka let out a hollow laugh. She ought to have known the moment Bariya went wild for meat and confessed she liked water. And for a cat, her temper was a little too nasty besides.
"And you've been curious about my Authority, haven't you?"
The three of them had taken the matter of the wildcat with relative composure, but the instant Authority was mentioned, they went tense. What kind of power could it possibly be?
"My Authority is Pheromone Manipulation."
At an ability none of them had imagined, all three drew in a sharp breath.
"Pheromone... Manipulation?"
"Yes. I can control not only my own pheromones, but other people's as well. Even what Darius spoke of—drawing out someone's favor—is possible through pheromones."
Once she began, it spilled out so easily she wondered why she had ever hidden it. A sense of release washed through her, as if every knot bound up inside her were coming undone, and so she stopped trembling and went on, bright and steady.
"But I have never once manipulated anyone's affection. The only times I've used my Authority in Caliph were when I, um... put Tyreen and all of you to sleep."
Admitting she had put them under and slipped away in secret was a little embarrassing. Fortunately, Pheromone Manipulation itself was shock enough that the Caliphs paid that detail no mind at all.
"Ha. A truly rare and powerful ability."
Baden sighed and swept a hand back through his hair. He had met countless bearers of Authority, yet never once had he seen anyone who could manipulate another's pheromones.
"For the record, Mariner doesn't know. Mother lied. Darius believes my ability was so unimpressive that she concealed it."
"That is a true mercy. Had those people known, little one, you would never have left Mariner for the rest of your life."
Baden sighed and patted her hand. It had truly been Claire's foresight.
"And we don't think you used that power on us, so don't worry."
"And so what if you used it a little? It's a power meant for staying alive. Who would fault you for using it?"
Sabrina said it as if it were nothing, and Bariya was grateful for her tenderness. But there was still one thing she had not said.
"But even though I never used my ability, you felt fond of me from the very first moment you saw me, didn't you?"
From Sirka, to Baden, even to Sabrina, who did not give her heart away—they had opened to Bariya with astonishing speed, enough to call her little one the instant they laid eyes on her.
"That's because Divine Beast blood runs very thick in me."
"Well, you are a Divine Beast's daughter..."
"It isn't on that level."
Bariya laid a hand over her heart.
"Through Mother's Authority, Transfer, I received all the knowledge she possessed and all her power as a Divine Beast. In other words, I am a being as close to a Divine Beast as one can be."
She swept back her shortened hair.
"My changed eyes and this hair are the proof. They used to be the ordinary brown eyes and wheat-colored hair you knew, but after I received Mother's power, they took on colors like hers."
Shock after shock, peeled back without end, left the Caliphs' heads ringing. Beastkin held Divine Beasts in deep reverence and affection, so it was only natural that they had felt drawn to Bariya the moment they saw someone so near to one.
"How in the world did you hide a secret this large and live alone until now?"
Baden sighed and pressed a hand to his brow. If a child like this had been dragged back to Mariner, what would those people have done to her? It was too horrible even to imagine.
"This won't do, little one. You really must live with us."
Sabrina felt the same. She seized Bariya's hand at once.
"If you truly possess a power like that, we can send you to Mariner even less. We will protect you, without fail. If you wish, we can even write a pledge that we will never covet your ability."
"I'll have it notarized by Aldros as well."
Sirka pleaded beside her.
"So let's be a family, little one."
Even after hearing every secret, the three of them did not change their minds. If anything, they grew only more certain that they had to become a family. In the end Bariya burst into laughter. If she had let a bond this good slip through her own fingers, how bitterly she would have regretted it. So now she had to hold on by her own will, until their bond grew firm enough that it could never break again.
It was a request they had longed to hear: proud, and utterly charming.