# God Seed
## Chapter 12 – The Banquet of Wolves
The Ice Phoenix cut through the open sky like a moving glacier.
Below us, the landscape rolled past in long, sweeping stretches — forests, rivers, smaller cities that looked like scattered stones from this height. The wind was cold and steady up here, the kind of cold that clears the head of everything unnecessary.
I sat behind Romaniastar on the Phoenix's back, one arm loosely around her waist to keep balance during the turns.
And I found myself thinking about the last two days.
It had started the first morning.
I had been standing in the corridor outside my room, still half-unfamiliar with the layout of the palace, when Romaniastar had appeared, looked at me once, and said with complete calm: *"You need a bath. Come."*
Before I had fully processed the sentence, she had already turned and was walking.
What followed was perhaps the most deeply uncomfortable forty minutes of either of my lives. She had not asked. She had simply directed the attendants, checked the water temperature herself, and then — when I had made the mistake of saying I could manage — had rolled up her sleeves and proceeded to scrub my back with the thorough efficiency of someone washing a particularly stubborn piece of equipment.
*"You have a scar here,"* she had said, somewhere around my left shoulder blade. Her voice had been clinical, but her hands had paused for just a fraction of a second.
*"Old,"* I had said.
*"Mm,"* she had replied, and continued.
I stared at the clouds ahead of us now and resisted the urge to close my eyes at the memory.
Then there was the sleeping arrangement.
On the second night, I had returned to my room to find Romaniastar already there, sitting cross-legged on the far side of the bed, reading documents by lamplight. She had looked up at me with complete composure and said: *"I used to sleep in this room when I visited as a child. Old habit."*
She had then turned back to her documents.
I had stood in the doorway for a solid ten seconds.
Then I had walked in, sat on the near side of the bed, and stared at the ceiling until sleep eventually arrived — while my elder sister continued reading beside me with the serene confidence of someone who saw absolutely nothing unusual about the situation.
I had not said a word. Partly because I had no idea what to say. And partly because — and this was the part I kept returning to in the back of my mind — it hadn't felt wrong. It had felt strangely, inexplicably settled. Like something that had always been the natural arrangement and I had simply forgotten it.
Which, given the circumstances, was probably literally true.
And then this morning.
I had come downstairs to find Romaniastar standing in the main hall holding two garment boxes, her expression carrying the specific energy of someone who has made a decision and is not entertaining discussion.
*"We're wearing matching sets,"* she had said.
*"I —"*
*"I had them made yesterday. The tailor worked through the night."* She had held out one of the boxes. *"Put it on."*
The result was currently on my body — a set of outer robes in deep midnight blue with silver detailing, cut in a formal style that managed to be both restrained and visually striking. Romaniastar's was identical. The only difference was that hers had longer sleeves and a higher collar.
Half black, half white hair. Matching midnight robes. On the back of a Nine-Star Ice Phoenix.
I had the distinct feeling we were going to make an entrance whether I wanted to or not.
The Phoenix banked slightly, and through the break in the clouds ahead, I saw it.
---
Romankas Star City.
Eight-Star.
If Romaniastar City had been impressive, this was something else entirely.
The city was older — you could feel it even from altitude. The architecture was heavier, more layered, built over centuries in a style that prioritized permanence over elegance. The walls were twice the thickness of Romaniastar's, dark stone that had weathered generations of weather and warfare alike. Military installations lined every major road approaching the city — not as a display, but as a simple fact of how this place had always operated.
At the center, the main palace rose in a series of ascending tiers, each one slightly set back from the one below. The uppermost tier was white stone — pale against the morning sky, unmistakable for miles in any direction.
Even from here, I could see the activity. Dozens of aircraft — some mechanical, some beast-drawn — circling in designated arrival patterns above the palace complex. Banners in colors I didn't recognize hung from every major tower, indicating the families who had already arrived.
The Phoenix began its descent.
As we dropped through the lower clouds, the scale of what was assembled below became clear. This was not a gathering. This was a convergence. Families from across the entire planet, their escorts and guards and beast riders, all concentrated in one place.
All of them, apparently, because of me.
I tightened my arm slightly around Romaniastar's waist as the Phoenix leveled out for its final approach.
She glanced back at me. "Nervous?"
"No," I said honestly.
She turned forward again. "Good. Don't show anything you don't choose to show. They'll read every expression."
"You mentioned that."
"I'm mentioning it again."
---
The Phoenix landed in the primary arrival courtyard of the palace complex to an effect that was clearly calculated.
Every other arrival I could see had been by vehicle or escort formation. We arrived on a Nine-Star beast the size of a small building, its frost aura dropping the temperature of the entire courtyard by fifteen degrees the moment it touched down.
Every head in the courtyard turned.
I stepped down after Romaniastar, adjusted my outer robe once, and looked around.
The courtyard was enormous and already crowded with representatives from families I couldn't name yet. Their expressions ranged from impressed to carefully neutral to — in a few cases — poorly concealed calculation.
I felt the weight of their attention like something physical.
Then footsteps approached from the main entrance, and I looked up to see my father crossing the courtyard toward us with three senior attendants at his back.
Romankas looked exactly as he had at the breakfast table — composed, authoritative, moving with the unhurried certainty of a man on his own ground. His eyes found me first, then moved to Romaniastar, then back to me.
He opened his mouth —
Romaniastar stepped forward, took my hand in hers, and without a single word to our father, began walking toward the main entrance of the palace.
I went with her.
Behind us, I heard Romankas exhale through his nose — a sound I was beginning to recognize as his version of restraint.
"Romaniastar —" he began.
"He'll see you inside, Father," she said over her shoulder, pleasantly, without slowing down.
A few people in the courtyard who had been watching — and most of them had been watching — looked very carefully at their shoes.
---
The main banquet hall was extraordinary.
It occupied the entire central floor of the palace's uppermost tier — a space large enough to hold several hundred people comfortably, with ceilings so high that the upper portions were lost in decorative shadow. Long tables arranged in a horseshoe configuration were already populated with representatives from dozens of families. At the far end, an elevated platform held the primary table — Romankas's seat, currently empty, flanked by ceremonial banners.
The moment we entered, the hall shifted.
It was subtle — a slight change in the direction of attention, conversations that paused a half-beat, eyes that moved and then were quickly redirected. But I felt it clearly.
Romaniastar kept hold of my hand and moved us toward our designated seats with the confidence of someone who owned the room by right rather than invitation.
We had barely sat down when the first family representative appeared at my elbow.
He was a heavyset man in expensive formal robes — the kind of clothing that costs enough to announce wealth without appearing to try. He bowed to Romaniastar first, correctly, then turned to me with an expression that he clearly believed was warm.
"Young Master Rohan. What an honor. I am the second elder of the Brightstone Family — we control the northern Three-Star City. Our eldest daughter, Miraya, is seated at table seven. She is twenty-two, a Two-Star beast master, and our family's physicians have certified her in excellent health in all relevant —"
"Thank you," Romaniastar said pleasantly. "We'll keep it in mind."
The man hesitated, then bowed again and withdrew.
He was replaced within thirty seconds by another representative.
Then another.
Then two at once, who briefly talked over each other before realizing what they were doing and stepping back with identical expressions of dignity poorly salvaged.
I sat through all of it with a perfectly neutral face. Romaniastar handled most of the responses — smooth, non-committal, precisely calibrated. Not dismissive enough to offend. Not encouraging enough to commit.
At the fourth representative, I leaned slightly toward her and said quietly, "You've done this before."
"Father holds these events periodically," she murmured back. "Usually for his own purposes. This is the first time you've been the purpose." A brief pause. "I've been practicing being pleasant to people I find irritating for approximately fifteen years."
"It shows," I said.
The corner of her mouth moved. Almost a smile.
---
Then the hall's ambient noise shifted — a slight reorganization of attention toward the main entrance — and a new figure appeared.
She was tall, with red-gold hair that fell to her shoulders and the kind of physical presence that filled space without effort. Her outer robes were deep crimson — clearly deliberate, clearly a statement — and her beast mark, visible at the side of her neck, showed nine stars.
Nine-Star.
Twenty-five years old or younger.
*Fire Phoenix.*
*Selina.*
She moved through the hall without hesitation, greeting people with brief nods and the confidence of someone who had decided long ago that she didn't need anyone's approval and had simply never reconsidered. She reached the seating area near ours and looked at Romaniastar first.
Something passed between them — not hostile, not warm. Respectful, in the specific way of two people who have tested each other thoroughly and arrived at a mutual understanding.
"Romaniastar," Selina said.
"Selina," Romaniastar replied.
Then Selina looked at me.
She studied me for approximately four seconds — unhurried, direct, making no effort to disguise that she was assessing me as thoroughly as I was assessing her.
"So this is Rohan," she said. Not a question.
"Apparently," I replied.
Something in her expression shifted — a slight recalibration, like she had expected something and received something adjacent but different.
"You're quieter than I expected," she said.
"You're louder than I expected," I replied, "and you haven't said anything yet."
Romaniastar made a small sound that might have been a cough.
Selina looked at me for another moment. Then she said, with complete directness: "I'll be your first wife."
The nearby conversations went noticeably quieter.
"That's a confident position for someone who hasn't been asked," I said.
"I don't wait to be asked," she said. "I state what is accurate and let reality confirm it." She tilted her head slightly. "Your father's arrangement gives my family a seat at the table. But I'm not here because of the arrangement. I'm here because I've decided." A pause. "There's a difference."
Before I could respond, the representative from the Brightstone Family — who had clearly been listening — stepped forward again and said loudly, "If the Young Master is considering the first wife position, the Brightstone Family is prepared to offer —"
"Six Nine-Star beasts," said a voice from the other side. "The Gairen Family."
"The Gairen Family's military contract expires in —"
"The Westmoore Family offers full trade rights to —"
Within approximately ninety seconds, the area around our table had become a controlled disaster. At least seven family representatives were speaking simultaneously. Selina watched the chaos with the expression of someone who had expected this and found it mildly entertaining. Romaniastar had the specific look of a person exerting considerable effort to remain pleasant.
I looked at all of it.
From across the hall, through the noise and the competing offers and the careful social maneuvering, I caught my father's eye. He was seated at the elevated platform now, watching the scene below with an expression that was — and this was the remarkable part — satisfied.
He had set this up precisely. Every family in this room had been told enough to come hungry, and he was sitting at the top of the room watching them compete.
Trading me.
Not cruelly — I could see he didn't think of it that way. He thought of it as management. Strategy. The correct and reasonable use of a valuable family asset.
I held his gaze for a moment.
Then I looked away.
---
An hour into the banquet, the food arrived — elaborate, excessive, clearly designed to impress — and the formal proceedings settled into a slightly more organized version of the same maneuvering that had been happening since we arrived.
Family representatives cycled through in a loose queue that Romaniastar managed with impressive patience. Some tried to speak to me directly. Most, upon encountering my two-word responses, redirected to her.
Selina had taken a seat two positions down and was eating with the unconcerned appetite of someone who had said what she came to say and was now simply present.
A man from the Delvaris Family had been speaking to my father for twenty minutes — I had been tracking the conversation from across the hall in fragments — about dowry terms. A woman from the Orrane Family had approached Romaniastar three times with escalating offers.
The entire hall was a negotiation.
I was the subject.
I ate my food, said very little, and watched everything.
And then the floor shook.
Not violently — not at first. A single, deep tremor that moved through the stone beneath us like a slow pulse. Glasses trembled on the tables. The elaborate ceiling decorations swayed.
The hall went quiet in the space of one breath.
Then a second tremor hit — stronger.
Then a third.
The main doors burst open.
A security officer — armor half-fastened, breathing hard from running — stumbled into the hall and looked around wildly until his eyes found the senior commanders near the entrance.
"Everyone stay inside!" he shouted, his voice cracking slightly. "Do not go outside — do not open the outer gates —"
"What is it?" Romankas's voice cut across the hall from the elevated platform, sharp and absolute.
The officer looked up at him.
"My Lord —" he swallowed once. "The sky."
He tried to find the words.
"Five of them," he finally said. "Coming down from above the cloud line. We've never — there's no classification — they're *Legendary* beasts. Five of them. Circling. Descending toward the city."
The hall erupted.
Not in panic — these were powerful families, with powerful people, who had trained for crises. But the controlled noise of two hundred people recalibrating their assessment of the evening simultaneously was considerable.
I set down my cup and looked at the ceiling, as if I could see through the stone above us to the sky beyond.
*Five Legendary beasts.*
*Circling.*
*Descending.*
I felt the God Seed pulse once — slow, deep, curious.
Beside me, Romaniastar had gone very still.
I glanced at her.
Her expression was controlled — perfectly, professionally controlled. But her eyes were doing something I hadn't seen them do before.
She was afraid.
Not of the beasts.
Of what their arrival meant.
---