Chapter Text
Floor 110 never changes. The storms at best become cloudy days with spots of sunlight, things he's meant to watch with the same indifference as everything else. It all smashes together like dirty snow, ticking boxes in his head and flowing into the predictable, unworthy lines of behavior.
What else is there, he thinks? What else is there in this broken box where people fall through the cracks?
The Khun family is the same, unchanging, uninteresting. All the wives do is lash out and kill the people who they should work with. All the children do is what their mothers tell them blindly. All father does is watch from his throne or from his bed as his little ecosystem flourishes. Even the times where he leaves to cull the herd or grab more fools, he is content knowing they'll do it to themselves.
Aguero will be fifteen in under six months' time. Nothing will change other than the colors of the leaves, the bite of the chill in the air, and perhaps the dresses his sister wears. They're always sleeved. Some hold weapons better than others but it's the same goal. She uses cutlery and kitchen weapons to kill and incapacitate people. It's very effective.
Nothing matters when you know that. Even the fear and dismay of being discarded should phase him more. But if it doesn't happen to them, it'll happen to someone else.
The first thing Aguero had learned at his mother's side, watching her go through a heat with no relief, is that no one wins, not really.
It's the same for everyone. His presentation is slow but that just means it will take more out of him later. Mother worries. She worries about a lot of things, but being a 'beta' would be fine. Unlikely, nearly impossible, but fine. It meant he could disappear.
Move on with his life.
Today was not supposed to be a special day. He'd gotten up and done the same routine he always had. Eaten the same food, watched his sister dance alone like an elegant sculpture.
(As always, he imagines that look in her eyes, that feeling other than expectation and duty. She'd buried that love long ago.)
He skips class. Aguero always does. His mother doesn't care so long as he wins when the challenge is put in front of him. She always patches him up then. It's very rare he's had to lick his own wounds. (And those are the times she's been protecting him. To be protected by an omega is the highest affront after all, no matter who they are.
But when she's protected him, she's always smiled.)
Aguero picks a different spot to fish from today. One of the princess candidates keeps finding him and bugging him. He's not sure what for, unless the pleasure of his company was just that poorly documented.
At least, he thinks. I have multiple spots out here.
It was one of the few good things about where his mother's castle floated and how to get around it. She rarely moved it and as such the water currents below remained consistent. It was great to fish from.
This time, when he climbs down the vines to the nearest settlement town, prepared to lose himself in a sea of blue heads, he hears voices.
Aguero flattens himself against the rock face as someone passes by. They have their heads bent together and clearly think they're whispering. Idiots. On a second glance, one idiot and one longsuffering.
He thinks it's the youngest Valor on the right, the poor branch sod with a traditional name dooming him if he doesn't become an alpha. They always make such a fuss about their alphas, for having Father's shoulders despite the direct line being as diluted as skim milk in their veins.
It's the little queen on the left, Aguero knows, Elizabeth, the last hope of the off shoot of Maschenny's great-aunt. He can see the silver bracelet of an omega marked to be sold on her upper arm. If she didn't sell well, Lady Maschenny would just fry them and simper about how sad it was to play the game of thrones and lose.
Granted, she might do that anyway but every wife knew an omega was precious and not to kill them. So she'd wait until Liza was gone.
She's barely eleven. Valor is almost sixteen and unpresented. Even Aguero's fangs have come in by now. If Valor thinks their families will let them wed, with his hair the color of dishwater and hers the brilliant of the ocean, he's absolutely off his gourd.
It'd be pitiful if it wasn't so pathetic and disgusting.
Their Father allows most of anything but their mothers never will. Also she has her hands gripping tight into her dress folds, one eye darting around as if most people would bother to save her. Someone should, mind. A deflowered omega lost bidders.
Aguero knows his sister would only let Valor get close enough to throw him to his death. Camilla had no patience for seduction.
But little Liza is not his sister, and if they linger too long that fucking alien might find him and try to make him go to the assembly fights. Why was she so stupid? He didn't need to know if he could crush every single alpha man in his fighting group. If a single one of them learned tactics it'd be interesting but they never did. Why waste his time?
Aguero slinks down and touches down on the ground without making a sound. Not even the leaves of the nearby bushes rustle. Despite that, Elizabeth's wandering eyes catches sight of him at once. She doesn't relax, nostrils flaring a little, but she looks a bit relieved all the same. Valor and his hate an audience. Her mouth twitches. Aguero sets down his fishing supplies with the same deliberation. His feet make no sound on the concrete.
The town areas, the fake civilization this far out had nothing but faded opulence, overgrown greenery, chipped stone and pillars. It was never so obvious, an imperfection here or there. Not enough to point fingers, but he's sure he'll see another fresh-faced gardener or landscaper soon enough, watch them get sucked into another's web and make about three or four bastards or in-laws.
You couldn't keep things too in the family after all.
Aguero taps his shoulder before Valor even notices. The boy squawks and pinwheels backwards, nearly into little Liza. The clever girl gasps and jumps to the side right on cue, making sure not to catch him when he stumbles, lest his pride shatter.
"Agnis," Valor spits once he's standing upright, like he hasn't just embarrassed himself. Aguero half-expects him to start peeing like an idiot. "What're you doin' out here?"
Oh is he really dealing with this? "You're batting higher than your station," Aguero intones without inflection. Then, deliberately, he turns to Eliza and dips his head. "Lady Elizabeth, will you walk with me?"
For a second, he considers that she may take her chances with Valor. She is one of Kiseia's playmates. Who knows what that brat tells people? Then, she picks up her skirts and curtsies, just the right amount of respect for a fellow direct line elite. "It would be a pleasure to join you, Agnis heir."
Valor sputters. What a fucking knob head. A knot wouldn't save him. "Liza, you can't be serious? We have to go to the Grand Hall."
Oh? Aguero keeps his best blank face on as the girl nods. "We do but I can't be seen with you, Val. I'm sorry. You know what mother would say."
Ben Valor's (expression twists with hurt. Truly a branch son. "Who cares what your mother thinks?"
For a child, a pup yet to grow into the strength beneath an omega's skin, Elizabeth's eyes could turn cold and unforgiving like the summer river. Valor, understandably, takes a step back. Aguero doesn't.
"I care," she says. "It will be a pleasure, Agnis heir."
Aguero dips his head as Valor shouts expletives and rage filled insults about his heritage, the signs of a person who has no recourse other than age. He resigns himself to sneaking back for his supplies later. It's his cheap set, so if Valor steals it it will be easy to replace and easier to steal back.
Valor opens his mouth to say something else as Aguero sighs. Ice dances in his palms, clumsy and uncoordinated. As Valor takes one step forward, his feet halt and slide awkwardly in boots that perfectly fit, with limbs that fight to win, not to end. He couldn't win if he tried despite a head of height on Aguero himself. He's too uncoordinated.
Aguero lets him trip and fall and gently cinches his fingers with Elizabeth's. Her brow wrinkles as she turns away. "You're a teasing fellow, aren't you, Aguero-nim?"
She's smiling like a little lady even though it doesn't touch her eyes. That's fine. It doesn't touch his either. "Am I?" He asks, trying not to smile too wide in return. Most omegas take a show of fangs as a threat after all. "I'll take that as a compliment."
"Maybe it should be a warning to your future mate."
At this Aguero laughs, a short, quick amused bark. Future mate, right? If he's lucky to get out of here there will be no way to have one of those. At best, his mother will arrange one for him.
"It wouldn't be you, for certain." He pauses, allowing her a moment to check her skirts. "Preferably not Valor either, I presume."
Little Liza laughs. It's cute, harmless, a sound of warning. He remembers her in her hoodie and camouflage only last year, armed with nothing but a pile of rags, alcohol, matches and a beautiful knife.
The sheer amount of bombs she made in the arena had to be a record. Valor would choke on fire before he could touch her.
"She wants a Yeon," Liza says, matter of factly. "There's one a couple years younger than me, who is making rounds she says. Alpha girl I think."
That's the peak of aiming past your station but Aguero won't say anything about it. Liza has probably given up hope on avoiding it. "Ambition makes younglings of us all."
She has the courtesy not to look at him when she rolls her eyes. "Did you hear what this meeting is about?"
"Not in the slightest," Aguero admits because he'd woken up to a quiet house where only his cousin was playing with her knives and watching to see if he took from the poison laced cutlery so she could make fun of him. It failed. He ight have been sick if she'd not been looking at the set the entire time. Subtlety, thy name was not Kiseia.
Liza, who has nothing but older brothers and sisters who tried to ignore her as anything but a gem, merely raises a delicate blue eyebrow. "It was last minute," she admits, instead of commenting on how clumsy it would be of an Agnis to be so uninformed. "Father is returning today."
A familiar chill runs down his spine. The unspoken rules of the matriarchs on this floor could be spoken when Father wasn't around. The games the wives played he mostly ignored, even with the in-laws making a fuss about it. But there were things he did not explicitly allow, and many of them were happening right now. Of course, it wasn't likely that they'd stop but still. They'd go subtle for a while at least. Quieter, focus their intent on the alpha men and selling the omegas off. Probably.
Let the princesses roam. And by that, he assumes his mother will gallivant about and let his sister figuratively let her hair down.
"I'd assumed we had another six months." The next qualifying round was then after all, and he reluctantly appeared for the last few. Khun sighs. "Mother is probably amused." The plans his mother makes are always more flexible than his own, even though they were less thorough. That was fine. Her focus was on all of them. He focused on his sister's success and all around her.
"My mother is unhappy." Liza's little fingers are clammy. The family ice manifested internally in her and in the most frustrating of ways. He can't help but feel sorry for her a little. "She showed me out and buried herself deep in papers."
"No response from the Twins then."
Liza laughs. "They'll respond when it's all over I'm sure. But after winter is my assumption."
She's always sounded so old for such a little thing. She's smaller than Kiseia, who is wiry and lean and holds the iconic build of alphas before they present. Puberty will need to hit her well, if she's going to survive it.
If she wants to.
"Do we know what brings him back so soon?" Considering he was off siring more bastards, maybe his dick was tired and his knot broken. It was such a lovely image. Aguero would fantasize about it more if it wasn't imagining his old man naked.
Liza hums and doesn't flinch when he pulls her gently up the gap. Omegas never flinch like the alphas do. "Well, between you and me, I've seen them cleaning and staffing the one abandoned castle to the east. The small favored one with the gold and silver that gets upgrades every fifty years or so."
Aguero frowns. "Oh, the Echoes estate. I thought he'd brought it down by now."
The name of the old castle, the original first throne that no one was ever brought to. Rumors had it that there was a shortcut to the Treasury there but he hasn't looked. He ought to next time. For fun.
Not a single wife had been let in there, and the security there made it annoying to try. It was horny teenagers who made the effort with it.
"He did," Liza says, face warming up at the thought of knowing something Aguero didn't. "But I was passing by for class and saw it being cleaned and the suspendium was cracking, so it was being replaced. There was a furniture airship as well." She sighs. "Mother was displeased."
"Auntie would be displeased if it rained on someone else's birthday."
Liza laughs, unable to be offended by the truth. "Mother is very sensitive, you know. It comes with age."
"I thought that was wisdom." Ahead, the other family branches are trailing in. He can't see his mother, but he knows it's because she's shorter than most.
All Elizabeth does is smile, close-mouthed. "I'm afraid I don't know."
"Wisdom must be for the young," Aguero says, scanning for his cousin in one of the corners. "Because few of the adults admit they know nothing."
"Will that include you?" Her voice is teasing, but with jagged edges.
Aguero only smiles, another close-lipped, patient smile. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Finally, he spots his sister, who stands with everyone giving her a healthy distance. A bit stupid, considering her power doesn't care about distance, but whatever.
Aguero offers Elizabeth a small bow before turning away. She does the same, disappearing into the crowd of young ones who hadn't hit presentation.
The Khun wives have been pulling ranking gangs since wife number fifteen came into the fold. Maschenny's mother hadn't been intimidated by it, and still wasn't from her place on high. They let the unpresented and unwon children fight it out in the front and the rest who have earned their place stay on high with a better, clearer view. He sidles past people, ignoring glares and coughs as he passes. Scents twist and sour as he walks by.
By the time he reaches his sister's shoulder, Camilla is turning to greet him. Her purple eyes meet his eyes as a wry smirk crosses her face. She's dressed covered from shoulders on down, soft blue blouse and black skirt hemmed in gold. Unlike many of the girls around her, she wears flat shoes.
A princess must always be beautiful and poised. They must always be strong and undaunted.
Camilla ignores every eye on her, humming under her breath. He doesn't even glance over, knowing she's fiddled with every single one of their shoes in some way. Or their dresses. Or their chairs.
Mother, based on the flicker of amusement in her steel eyes, knows it too. She tilts her head and Aguero dutifully steps into place at Camilla's side and sits down. Kiseia, he notices at a glance, is on Mother's left. She's looking straight ahead and ignoring him. No surprise there. She'd merge with Mother if she could figure out how.
"A new wife?" Aguero murmurs.
"Presumably." Camilla sighs. "He must have come into a new fund. Maybe something FUG related."
"Reckless of him if he gets caught." Not that the kingdom would do much. They'd never address their own hypocrisy. Aguero smooths his hair flat by habit. His neck itches.
Camilla smooths her skirt and sits down. "He wouldn't have us children be summoned for a wife normally."
"Elizabeth saw them cleaning the once fallen castle." Aguero says this just so his siblings can hear. Their fellows were nosy, and no one was really an ally. Still people murmur all the louder as the hall remains empty of their 'esteemed' Head.
Mother nods. She's barely twitched. Aguero calculates. There are five pairs of eyes in the seats above. They're not harmless but their aim is terrible. A knife throw could remove them out of the equation. Unfortunately for everyone in this room, the Grand Hall forbade physical violence. Emotional abuse was fair game, of course, because what was parading others around otherwise?
Aguero risks a glance to the throne. It's plush in comfort and ease of sex. He assumes. Some arduous idiot tries to break in with their lover (or their prostitute) to try it every now and again, but it has some sort of spell on it that sends the unworthy off screaming in pain and bleeding from their genital areas every time they try. Someone joked it was only meant for the true heir to everything Eduan owned. Someone said it was cursed by a lover Eduan had had an affair with. Supposedly, after their name and knowledge was forgotten, they'd killed themselves in anger and hurt, their blood painting the arms and back of it red. It forbade Eduan to marry properly, accepted by the administrator and all that remained from it.
The latter thought makes him laugh sometimes. There were much worthier women in this room even, better than a coward who could have cut off Eduan's balls before giving up their heart.
Unless they'd tried and failed and died there, in which case, what a waste. If only they'd stayed alive to mentor the rest of them, keep away the infighting of sheeps.
Really, how was this any different?
Aguero bites back a sigh and wishes he had grabbed his fishing equipment after all. At least then he could do something useful, like check inventory on his bait or check if his hooks were still any good.
"Your admirer is watching you," Camilla murmurs. "Lower left, her father's holding her hands down."
Aguero doesn't dare look. "If she's an admirer, Valor is an alpha." She's an alien is what she is. Like a Messiah's birth mother, thinking she's different because her weakness is on purpose.
Camilla hums. "She's certainly interested."
"She's interested in a lot of things. It's not my job to cultivate it."
"I suppose."
Aguero risks a glance at his sister. In public, with so many eyes and cameras and wolves thinking they have a sheep pelt on well enough, she will never show it, but her gaze seems more wan, less gleaming in the sun. But she's still sharp, too much so. "What, do you think she'll work with you?"
"Of course not." Camilla's smile never touches her eyes here. It barely does these days. "No one would work with me now."
"Ripping off an alpha's dick and making them eat it can cause alienation." Not that she shouldn't have done it.
Camilla puts a hand to her mouth to smother a snort. "It's not my fault he forgot how to swallow."
Aguero almost rolls his eyes. Almost.
Then, the entrance door opens. A chill runs up Aguero's spine. For multiple reasons.
Khun Eduan radiates power. It's not consciously, because it would strangle all of them where they stood if he actually decided to exert power and authority directly. But he is still powerful and no one would dare forget it. Not unless they had a hope in defeating him.
But, and more politically concerning as he looked around, every single major wife was in attendance.
The Bloodmadder line had the most children, despite a push to prevent it. All the propaganda was not enough if you simply didn't know. Still. The Khun family filled the most stadiums, had the most branches, the most in-laws. Most of the floor was made up of branches upon branches as Eduan picked up and discarded wives like misshapen hats. But in this room? Right now? None of the branches were present.
It was just direct descendants, acknowledged direct descendants at that, and it was full.
Eduan had so many wives and children, he'd had to make a system somehow. Even with that system, this room could burst and still not be enough. And yet, there's not a single indirect line here.
Something wasn't right.
The doors open fully. The room falls quiet. Despite himself, Aguero straightens.
There's no need for Father to announce his name. His shinsu crackles with force, a song of chirping lightning and frost around his skin. His footsteps echo on the marble and he walks alone.
The whispering starts. From the back and the top. Aguero doesn't dare turn his head like an errant child, but he does see Elizabeth with her mother. Her eyes are round and she's covering her mouth. Her mother isn't scolding her, not even when Eduan passes. In fact, she doesn't look much better.
Mother sees first, based on the turn of her chair. Her light skin pales and there's a flush like nausea. Aguero doesn't want to look. He doesn't want to turn his head, to acknowledge his father as anything worse than he already is.
It doesn't matter. Father passes him anyway. He's carrying something in his arms. Aguero glimpses a bit of messy brown hair. His stomach lurches despite himself as Father walks, indifferent to the ways masks shatter and protest rises up around him in silence.
Eventually, he reaches the throne and takes the two steps up. Then he kneels to set down what he's carrying. Still, his father hasn't made a sound. It's like he too is holding his breath.
Aguero glimpses thin, underfed legs, bare feet. Then, the stranger, a child?, takes a cautious step. Then another. Then another. They walk steadily, without looking back, until they reach the throne.
No, Aguero thinks, bile rising in his throat. No, Father, don't do this.
And yet, the stranger, short as Kiseia, long hair reaching their feet, goes up the steps on cautious feet. Their hands, too small, pat the cushion. They pause. The room holds its breath. Then, with a small grunt (high, young, fragile), they push themself onto the cushion of the throne and sit down in it.
Nothing happens. There's no explosion of pain, no bleeding. Nothing. They just sit there, round eyes obscured mostly by their bangs. From here, Aguero glimpses gold, gold like the abandoned castle trappings. Gold like the lines of all of Eduan's treasures.
Khun Eduan laughs.
It echoes louder than his footsteps, brighter than the rain in the summer time. A pleasure the man has found nowhere else.
"Good work," he says and to Aguero's horror, he thinks his father means it. He gestures with his hand and the stranger - the child, they can't be older than him, they're likely barely older than Kiseia - pushes themselves off of the throne that Aguero has seen kill many and moves back to Eduan. Those eyes are empty, lost, and Eduan is their beacon. He lifts them up once more and really, it's just that Eduan is a big man and the person is small, but too young, definitely not even sixteen, not even fourteen - and it looks and is so much worse.
When the stranger is leaned on his arm, Eduan turns to them all. His blue-violet eyes are alive in a way they aren't supposed to be. Their Head is empty, he is vapid, he is soulless. He is not this. He is not grinning like a child with a sweet, holding another like he means the nonsense he tells them all.
And yet.
"This is Bam," the man says, sure and hungry and wrong. "He will be my last omega, and the Echoes Estate, along with all that comes with it, will become his."
Aguero's skin crawls.
Then Bam opens their mouth and says, in halting Macsethian. "It is nice to meet you all. I will endure. I hope we can become friends."
The ice that Aguero has let himself drift underneath cracks.