Bariya Bell Caliph
"To think a child this perfect will become our youngest daughter. It is a great honor for the Caliphs."
The moment the words she had been waiting for finally came, Sabrina, Baden, and Shirca reached out and pulled Bariya into a tight embrace. Thump, thump. The warmth of the people who would soon be her family, and the glad drum of her own heart, drew a smile from her before she even realized it.
"Krrk."
Blackie, the baby tiger who had been sitting on Bariya's lap only to be squashed into the middle of the hug, flattened himself as far as he could go. He let out a quiet protest, but no one was listening.
"Then all that's left is to settle the name. You want to keep your mother's surname, Bell, don't you, little one?"
At Shirca's question, Bariya nodded hard.
"Then how about Bariya Bell Caliph?"
"I love it."
There was no name more perfect.
"The paperwork is finished, so we'll go to Aldros before long. To enter your name fully into the Caliph lineage, we have to go there in person."
"Yes, Clan Head."
It was nothing difficult, and going somewhere new was always a pleasure, so Bariya nodded with enthusiasm. Aldros was a place she had always wanted to see at least once, and the thought of it filled her with anticipation.
Baden gathered up the completed adoption papers at once and smiled, thoroughly satisfied. The stress the Mariners had heaped on him of late washed away in a single stroke.
"Then this matter is settled."
"Mm. Now that it's over..."
"Shall we deal with the other problem?"
Sabrina, Baden, and Shirca turned their eyes on Bariya all at once—or, more precisely, on the mottled baby tiger sitting on the child's lap with a thoroughly sullen face.
"What in the world is that, hogging our little one's arms this whole time?"
"And there's so much soot in that fur it looks like it needs a proper wash."
Sabrina and Baden regarded Blackie with open disapproval. In truth, they had not liked the look of him from the moment they first saw Bariya with him in tow. A child who did not give her affection easily was clinging to him as if he were precious, so they had assumed she must like him and let it be—and there had also been the weight of the adoption itself hanging over them.
"I was told he was a tiger being sold at an illegal underground auction in Neshan."
At Shirca's explanation, Sabrina's and Baden's eyes flew wide at once.
"What? An illegal auction?"
"They dare sell a tiger on tiger land?"
"Yes. Once she heard, our little one couldn't leave him there, so she rescued the tiger. Lady Obli Glosa happened to learn of it and got word to me quickly, which is how I was able to go and help."
"Those—!"
Furious, Sabrina slammed a hand down on the armrest, and it shattered on the spot. Blackie, sullen the whole time, went round-eyed at that brute, senseless strength.
"And why was our little one at an illegal auction house?"
Bariya answered Baden's urgent question at once.
"The Mariners said they'd pay a hundred gold coins for a girl about ten, with honey-colored hair and brown eyes! Bastards with gold in their eyes dragged me off!"
Strictly speaking, she had shown herself on purpose in front of the people hunting her. But if you picked it apart, it wasn't exactly a lie!
"For the record, that one was the owner of the auction house!"
This time Baden shattered the armrest on the other side with a sharp crack.
"You're bringing all of them in, I trust?"
"Yes. I ordered every last auction-house employee seized and transported, no exceptions, so they should be on their way. And I saw Lioric Leotel there."
The heir of Leotel, the house that headed the lions. At the news that he had been at an auction selling tigers, Baden's and Sabrina's faces went cold and hard. Bariya poured oil on the fire.
"He said he'd come to buy a tiger. I heard it clear as day with my own two ears!"
The heir of a lion house, come to purchase a tiger being sold illegally on the land of the tiger beastkin.
"It seems I've neglected the governance of our domain for far too long."
Baden squeezed his eyes shut. Since the death of his first son, Rabin, he had been blinded by the hunger to take revenge on the hyenas, and he understood now that he had failed to protect what he ought to have protected, and failed to see what he ought to have seen. He had thought he was still tending to his duties all the while. It was nowhere near enough. As their head, he had no face left to show any tiger beastkin.
"We'll need to summon every vassal house. The Frosts as well. They have to hear about our little one's adoption."
"I'll carry the news to the Frosts myself."
Sabrina nodded. The Frosts were not a vassal house of the Caliphs. They respected the Caliphs as clan heads, but within their own territory they had built an independent power of their own. Until now the two houses had acknowledged each other and kept a measured distance, yet in this generation they had married for the first time and forged a solid alliance. A new family had come into being for the Frosts as well, so the news had to be carried to them.
"You've been through so much, little one. To think you did the work that should have been ours. Thank you, truly. And I swear nothing like this will ever happen again."
Baden sighed. There were an awful lot of reasons to sigh today. He had only just promised to be a Caliph Bariya would never have to be ashamed of, and already something shameful had come to light. He felt as if his face might burst. All the more reason he would never forgive the ones who had run that illegal auction.
"It was something I could do."
Bariya smiled, bright and unbowed.
"Then what do you want to do with that tiger? He doesn't look hurt, so after a light examination we could send him back to the wild."
"Ah. Actually, there's a bit of a problem with him."
Bariya lifted the two front paws of Blackie, seated on her lap, and waved them. Suddenly belly-up in front of everyone, Blackie threw a fit, but it did not work on Bariya in the slightest.
"He's not actually a tiger. He's a beastkin. The auction bastards couldn't get him to take human form, so they seem to have decided he was an ordinary animal."
"...What?"
Not an ordinary tiger, but a beastkin? Baden and Sabrina stared at Blackie in sheer disbelief. They stood at the very top among tiger beastkin. For them not to have recognized one of their own was absurd.
"No matter how I look at him, he seems like an ordinary tiger."
"But he has a pheromone. The kind an animal can't have—the kind only a beastkin can."
And not an ordinary pheromone, either.
"This one has a poison pheromone."
"Poison?!"
"You didn't say that!"
The two of them, who had been staring straight at Blackie, recoiled in horror. Sabrina in particular seized him by the flank at once and tried to yank him out of Bariya's arms.
"What are you doing, holding something poisonous!"
"KYAAAK!"
Caught by the ribs, Blackie began to thrash like something possessed. He looked so much like an animal mad with rabies that Sabrina's panic only sharpened. Before she could tear his side clean off, Bariya rushed to explain.
"It's fine if I'm holding him! I told you I have Pheromone Manipulation. Thanks to me, the poison pheromone isn't running wild."
"Ah. Ah, right. That's right."
It was an explanation they could accept, and fortunately the two of them calmed quickly. No wonder they had not sensed even a trace of pheromone, for all that he was supposed to be a beastkin. Bariya had been keeping it under control.
"I'll never be hurt by his poison, so please don't worry. But without me it's dangerous, so if that happens, warn everyone not to go near him."
"All right. If that's the case."
Shirca nodded, and found herself marveling all over again. To control a toxicity that dangerous as if it were nothing—it was truly astonishing. At the same time, she resolved to do everything she could to keep this ability from ever reaching the Mariners' ears.
"But how does a tiger beastkin have a poison pheromone?"
Baden's face grew grave. There had been countless tiger beastkin before now, and not a single one had ever possessed a poison pheromone. Tigers were not creatures that carried poison to begin with. So how in the world did this little tiger hold a poison dangerous enough to matter?
"And it isn't just any poison pheromone."
"Then what is it?"
"You remember, don't you? The day I was out shopping with Lady Sabrina and Shirca, and hyenas attacked us on the way back after we'd eaten something good."
Every face went stiff.
Surely not.
"It's the same as the poison of the hyena attackers who tried to kill us that day."