“Father.”

Kierra’s exasperated rebuke cuts through the tension around Orum like a knife through untrained flesh before it has a chance to spread to the rest of the room. And, like a dog whose leash has been pulled by an irate owner, Orum stiffens, his expression showing the battle going on inside of him.

“You promised.”

“Kii—”

She doesn’t look up from her food, but her voice hardens. “You. Promised.” She doesn’t need to say the part where if he breaks said promise, she won’t forgive him and might use those knives she’s carrying.

Aw. It’s kind of sweet. I think this is the first time I’ve seen my wife throw a tantrum. Not her usual violent and emotional badgering meant to push her target to a desired outcome. This is the real deal, a child coming at their parent with nothing but petulance. Being the doting father he is, Orum immediately folds, retaking his seat with a grumble. “A shapeshifter. That doesn’t use spells.”

“You were promised a showing after dinner. A dinner where we are meant to be sharing our lives, not our secrets.”

The mountain of a man lets out a deep breath and returns to his food. “Our lives. Then, I will give an account of myself. I am Orum, son of Riselda—”

“Those not of a notable bloodline are named after their mothers,” Morgene interjects. “Something many have called backward, but all too sensible. It would be scandalous if elves had to walk around calling themselves son of a nameless goblin or daughter of a wild warg, haha! The family registries of Twilight would read like a comedy!”

“You people sleep with goblins?” Remmings ask, his etiquette failing him as his disgust slips through.

“What’s a warg?” I ask with nothing but curiosity, already used to their proclivities. Saints, I’ve indulged Kierra’s.

“A warg is a goblinoid with canid ancestry,” Kierra answers. “How to explain? Hm. If a troll is a pig man, a warg is a dog man.”

“Some have a bit of saurian in them,” her mother adds. “The first matriarchs took a liking to the beasts for their noses. They can track like no other. It goes beyond their sense. Something about their very being is aligned with the act of tracking. There are records of their champions following their prey across seas.”

“You keep records of other species?” Every answer out of this woman’s mouth just generates a dozen new questions. What in glorious Paradise does it mean for a creature to align with an action? That has to be some superstitious nonsense…right?

It's Orum that answers my question. “Dusk, the land of the strong, keeps a master codex of every beast felled by its hunters so the aspiring know where to find their next challenge. Twilight, the land of the matriarchs, keeps records of bloodlines and the results of mixing them.”

“So that the next whorefiend knows which pole to straddle,” Morgene throws in, clearly amused. “They are family heirlooms and quite prized.”

“As well as irrelevant to my story,” her husband growls.

“Not so irrelevant. Those broad shoulders of yours are in those records, mountain blood.”

“So is your silver hair, cave witch.” He holds her gaze, daring her to interrupt again. When she turns her attention to her drink, he continues. “The physical affinity is prominent in my clan. Many generations became healers and I was trained to do the same, but I didn’t want to spend my life fixing great fighters. I wanted to be one. All knowledge has two sides. What can be used to heal can be used to hurt. I used my knowledge of fixing bodies to break them and became very good at it.”

“And cocky. So very cocky~”

Orum scowls at his wife. “Yes. My strength made me confident and my ability to recover from fatal wounds made me fearless. I issued a challenge to all the warriors of the provinces to face me in honorable combat. To use each other to sharpen ourselves.”

“Oh, I used you.”

“Mother, please,” Kierra groans with the same exasperation of every child forced to contemplate the sex lives of their parents.

“My challenge attracted many challengers, including a menace of a woman who follows the old ways. Our union gave birth to the best thing in my life, my daughter.” For the first time since we sat down, the large man smiles but it fades quickly. “After her…troubles, I traveled the world, searching for something more than strength. I saw many sights, many wonders…though nothing as astounding as shapeshifting without a spell.”

His spiel ends with a meaningful look in my direction. He delivered so now he wants his due. Not so fast. “Did you travel through the human continent?”

“Why would he waste his time in this sprawling pigsty?” Morgene scoffs.

Remmings frowns but holds his tongue.

“While I don’t share her scathing opinion, I didn’t. There is little challenge in these lands.”

Alana pauses inhaling her food to bark out a laugh, hastily covering her mouth as a bit of it falls from her mouth. Earl appears at her side with a napkin and she wipes her lips with a pink face. “I think you’ll feel differently if you go north. Far north.”

“Apparently, there’re dragons,” I add.

“What?!” the head interrogator exclaims, his eyes wide with understandable panic. Panic no one else at the table shares. I expected at least a raised eyebrow from Morgene if not salivating excitement, but she doesn’t react as she sips her wine. Huh. Is Kierra the more unhinged between the two? At least when it comes to fighting.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I wave off Remmings worry. “It’s nothing.” Another detail you’re not going to remember.

“Lady Tome, you need to explain—”

“More importantly, where did you learn Common, er, Orum?” It’s too early to call him Father, right? I don’t even know if I want to. “The same tutors as Kierra?”

“No, I learned it during my travels.”

“…wait.” That doesn’t make sense.

“Very arrogant of you to assume your little kingdom is the only human settlement,” Morgene says. “Or to assume that your Common is a human tongue.”

“It’s known as the Shrouded Sea Trade Tongue in many parts of the world.”

“Sea tongue, trade language, misty tongue, northy, civilized tongue, mompeiian.” Morgene waves a hand. “So on and so forth.”

“They’re an old people with much history.”

I stare at the elves with disbelief as they casually shatter a truth I’ve believed in with everything I have for all my life. Harvest is the only human kingdom in the world. That fact has been drilled into my head for as long as I could understand words. That fact defines this kingdom. Has motivated a lot of decisions and traditions. But the elves say different and they’re not liars.

Our history says our flight from the calamity of the Great War was a desperate bid for survival. Our ancestors came together and fought against a mountain of obstacles to secure a new home, united by the threat of extinction. If we weren’t the last? If there was a group that held out, resisted the draconids that devastated the world? A group that did so despite a large portion of humanity abandoning them?

We wouldn’t be survivors who persevered through impossible odds. We’d be cowards. An entire kingdom of cowards that fled with our tails between our legs and decided to rob this land from its inhabitants rather than defend our own homes.

I need a drink.

And as soon as I think as much, a glass and one of Howie’s special brews is placed in front of me. I pour as Orum continues, pushing aside the latest revelation. Now’s not the time to contemplate all the earth-shattering tidbits these elves are dropping like crap from the backend of a horse. Just smile and nod.

“My travels inspired new ways to use my abilities. I returned to…have a conversation with my partner about Kierra’s punishment. Instead, I find my daughter free, married, and far from home.” His tone tells me he’s holding a grudge.

“You forgot happy and healthy,” I add.

“You—”

Orum is interrupted by Remmings standing up from his chair and slamming his hands on the table. It’s a very dramatic gesture meant to garner attention and he gets it. All eyes find the head interrogator as he tries to stare me down, figuratively and literally.

“This, all of this, has gone well beyond the bounds of a personal gathering. I apologize for my rudeness, but this is ridiculous. You…people are discussing other pockets of humanity beyond our borders and dragons nesting within them! This conversation should be taking place in the throne room.”

“Teacher,” Talia warns.

He looks down at her and sighs before continuing. “But I will accept a promise from those present that these facts will be presented to the crown.” His gaze moves to me. “I want to believe that my daughter has chosen a…good partner. A sensible one. If you’re the person I hope you are, if you want to be better than the fools stagnating in their own importance that are so prevalent in our kingdom, then you will give me this guarantee.”

Guarantee, he says.

Slowly, the rest of the room turns to me, full of expectation. Really, what does he think he’s doing?

I down what’s in my glass and pour a refill. “Why are you asking my opinion? You’re here, hearing everything I am. You could take it to the king yourself.”

“I’ve seen the city. I don’t leave without your grace. My only recourse is to ask you to do the right thing.”

True. “Well, your only recourse has failed. This is family business. Nothing we know is some big secret the king couldn’t discover if he got up and did his job. It’s not my duty to wipe his a—”

“Your duty? Safeguarding Harvest is the duty of every citizen!”

“—and like everyone else in this kingdom, my first loyalty is to myself and my loved ones. Do what you need to but after we finish eating.”

“…I see. I can’t say I’m not disappointed.”

“Happens to everyone.”

“Including you. I apologize for this.” His eyes glow with channeled mana but nothing happens. Which is good for him. He would have died if he tried anything. Well. He would have been hurt, severely.

“Did you do something?”

His eyes lose their glow and his shoulders slump, expression tightening with what I assume is pain. Mana strain, huh? Must have worked a pretty big spell for it to be affecting him so obviously.

“I didn’t travel alone,” he says as he carefully lowers himself into his chair. “The head interrogator is too prestigious a position to move without an entourage and we have our enemies. I manage to keep my people discrete. I just sent a message to one of them, relaying the crucial information you seem in no hurry to share.”

“Oh~ Couldn’t have been easy sending a message to a specific mind at a distance.”

“There is a special position in the interrogators. Someone who carries an old artifact that makes a mind stand out from a sea of thousands.”

Talia looks over to him. “You never told me this.”

“And why are you telling me this?” I ask.

“It’s one of the secrets that comes with the title.” The look he gives her is heavy. “The interrogators still have plenty to offer you. Far more than that creature.” He shoots a venomous gaze at Geneva. “And I don’t want it digging through my mind for the answer.”

I chuckle. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“Hmph. Do whatever you want with me. I’ve done my duty.”

“Did you?” It’s mean to toy with him like this but I’m enjoying it so much. “Did you think I’d let you do whatever you want? That message didn’t reach anyone.”

“The spell wasn’t interrupted.”

“Explain it to him, pet. Make sure to use small words, the mana strain might make it hard to focus.”

Geneva steps away from the wall, smile switching from docile to predatory. “Why would I stop you from wasting a large amount of mana and making yourself more manageable? Much better to simply distort the spell. Put a few obstacles in its path so it is twisted and distorted into a garbled mess.”

“Impossible! You expect me to believe a mere thrall was able to—”

Geneva laughs, tail whipping in amusement. “It never gets old.”

Remmings stops talking, simply staring at her. “…you’re not a thrall.”

“No.”

“Nope,” I throw in, just in case he thinks she’s lying.

“…the Grimoire patriarch. That is how you overpowered his virtue. You contracted a don.”

I applaud by slapping my shoulder with one hand and drain my glass with the other. “You got it in one!”

“They don’t make contracts. They make deals that always screw over their summoners. They’re prideful beings that would never submit to the service of creatures they think are below them in every measure,” he says, voice growing more heated with every word.

I’m a little impressed. “You know a lot.” Suppose that makes sense as the Grimoires were the interrogators’ only competition for generations. “But you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do.”

“Succubi act for profit,” Geneva says, her smile a touch too large. “If it serves a greater purpose, there is nothing beyond us.”

“And you’re forgetting the more than human bit,” I say while shaking my glass at him. “They don’t look down on me.” They want to eat me, but each bite would be savored.

“You have a don under your control.” The head interrogator bows his head. It’s probably being weighed down by a hundred harsh realizations. Chief of which must be that the group he leads is completely without options in regard to me. “…what are you going to do with me?”

“Haven’t decided yet. The night’s still young.” And it’s already so exciting.