Chapter 22
Dean Yanni at the Capital University had just finished shaking me down for a sizable donation, which was in addition to what I paid to have several of his professors on retainer for research.
Presently, they were tasked with finding information on any wars related to Abbadon.
At first, they fussed about not being allowed to say his name aloud, even when I wasn’t around, but then they remembered how much money I gave them and said, “Yes, sir.”
In the early days of planning Sanctuary South, I resolved to assemble all of the top scholarly minds in the world, making my city the pinnacle of knowledge in the material plane.
I intended to gut the Capital University by hiring away all of their key staff, but I eventually realized that was counterproductive.
The Capital was just as much my city as Sanctuary South.
The public didn’t know that, naturally, but functionally, the Capital University and all of the knowledge it contained belonged to me.
Uprooting all of the faculty and generating that much conflict just to say that they lived in my other city was counterproductive.
Acquiring knowledge was the goal. Optics only mattered in terms of the role they played in recruiting top talent.
So, I met with Dean Yanni and asked for his help.
I suggested he open an extension of the University in Sanctuary South in a space I built expressly for that purpose.
No cost to the University, of course. In fact, I offered a sizable donation for the trouble in addition to a war chest of funds for recruitment.
Since this project would make him quite busy, I also included a private apartment for the Dean and his wife in Sanctuary South.
In exchange, he would spearhead recruiting new faculty from all around the world.
I didn’t know who those people were or where to find them.
The upfront costs of bribing the Dean to acquire them for me would result in massive returns when all the newest and most important ideas of our time came out of my city.
The meeting was a success, but I despised the dance.
Whatever. It was over. I could move on with my day.
“Byron?!” a feminine voice called from across the street.
Esita, wearing a pair of tight shorts and a baggy croptop, smiled and waved. A few seconds later, she stood in front of me.
“What brings you to the Capital?” she asked, teasingly. “Another family dinner, perhaps?”
Laughing, I said, “No, thankfully not. I had a meeting at the University.”
“Oh? Hunting for coeds to pass the time?”
“Much less exciting. The Dean wanted me to make a donation.”
Esita frowned. “That is much less exciting. Where are you off to now?”
“To see a friend in Grubiit, actually, but I’m not in a hurry. Care for some tea?”
She needed a moment to understand. “I forgot that you can travel much more freely than the rest of us. Sounds very convenient, but yes. Tea sounds lovely.”
I led the way, taking us toward the neighborhood where our undercover boarding house was located. That was within a few blocks of the University, so in no time at all, Esita and I found a cafe. We sat on the patio to enjoy another temperate Capital day.
“I’m sorry about my parents,” Esita said as she poured honey into her tea. “They’re very set in their ways.”
“It’s fine.”
“It doesn’t bother you whatsoever that they don’t like you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to be the kind of person they like.”
“Appearances are everything to them,” Esita explained. “We can’t let ourselves be embarrassed in front of the other families. Ever. What people saw from the outside was always far more important than what was actually happening on the inside.”
“Invia has told me a little bit about it. The pressure they put on the two of you seemed extreme.”
“I became a priestess to get away from it. As soon as I turned 13, father started talking about who I should marry to secure this interest or that alliance. A priestess is allowed to marry, but they don’t run businesses or head up families.
That makes any sort of arranged marriage pointless.
At the time, I didn’t think about what that would do to Invia. ”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The pressure my parents spread across two children was all put on her.”
“That’s not your fault.”
“Maybe not technically, but I still played a part. We don’t need to dwell on my family, though. You’ve come a long way from fighting skeletons in the Borja dungeon.”
“I’ve done okay,” I replied.
Esita rolled her eyes. “Strongest adventurer in the world. Owns a kingdom. Women across the continent masturbate to him, which he also profits from. Surrounded by beautiful women who positively worship him. Yeah, you’ve done ‘okay.’”
“I haven’t figured out when I’m supposed to be humble and when I’m supposed to brag about myself.”
“Whatever you’re doing seems to be working just fine.”
I laughed. “Yeah, it is.”
“How did you cover so much ground?”
“This is not me being humble, but a lot of it was luck. The stuff that wasn’t were times when I bet big on myself despite the risks, but you could call that lucky too.”
“I have a thought.”
“What’s that?”
Esita paused as if debating whether or not to say what was on her mind. “You’re ruthless. You will do whatever it takes to get through. That’s why you’re successful.”
“You think so?”
“I saw that in our dungeon run together, and it stuck out to me then,” she said.
“You never stopped making choices, and every one of them was decisive. You never froze. I’ve since learned how important that decisiveness really can be.
No hesitations. No doubts. Fully committed to your next move. Normal people can’t do that.”
“I still think you’re giving me too much credit.”
“Byron, seriously? You tamed my sister. I love her, but I never thought she would find a man who could survive her claws.”
I tried to hide my smile behind a sip of tea. “Do you mean ‘claws’ figuratively or literally?”
“Come on. You know I mean both.”
We laughed.
“She was like that even when we were kids,” Esita continued. “She would get lost in these moments where she just raged and destroyed everything in her path. She beat the shit out of a few maids and some kids at school too.”
“And you?”
Esita shook her head. “We fought, but she never hurt me, thank the Goddess. I heard what she did to boys she liked and saw what she did to those who didn’t. I wouldn’t have survived.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What did you hear?”
She blushed and cleared her throat. “Umm… Well…”
“Now you have to tell me.”
She leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Our rooms shared a wall. And-Gods, I can’t believe I’m admitting this. And I could hear when she brought a boy home. Well, you know what she’s like in bed.”
I grinned, doing an even worse job of hiding it this time.
“I touched myself to those sounds sometimes,” she admitted.
“Sometimes?”
Esita sighed, the red in her face deepening. “All the time. Ugh, that makes me sound like a whore or some kind of pervert. Or both.”
“What would you do if you had the chance to listen to her and me together?”
A playful kick bounced off my shin beneath the table. “Stop it.”
“You’ve thought about it, haven’t you?”
She turned her chair away from me and hid her face with a hand. “I’ve thought about our time together in Borja on several occasions. It’s one of my biggest regrets.”
“You regret helping me?”
Esita shook her head. “No, I regret not going all the way. I was so in my head at the time, and it messed me up. I… I don’t know. I like sex.”
“We have that in common.”
“No, I mean, I’ve always liked it. The other priestesses thought I was a slut for sleeping with too many guys. When I thought about it with you, I heard them making fun of me.”
“You’re not a slut,” I assured her.
“You wouldn’t say that if I told you how many men I have been with.”
I hooked the leg of her chair with my foot and pulled, turning Esita back to face me again. “I don’t care.”
“You would.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I’ve never asked any of my girls how many men they’ve been with because it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t do anyone any good to arbitrarily decide what numbers are acceptable and what aren’t.
The only thing to ever come out of that is people feeling bad for letting themselves enjoy life for once. ”
“All guys care,” she countered.
“Would I want to swirl my dick around in another dude’s jizz? No, I wouldn’t. Otherwise, all I care about is that she wants me in that moment. If that desire is sincere, and she’s as present as I am, the past is irrelevant.”
“And the future?”
“That can be more complicated,” I admitted, “but not by much. If we want to share that again, then we share that again.”
“So you would sleep with me without knowing how many guys I’ve been with since Borja?”
I raised a finger. “I’m not sure it’s my place to tell you, but I’m going to marry your sister soon. That makes being with you, specifically, more complicated than normal.”
“But she’s married to Queen Ashley.”
“I know.”
“So it’s one big open relationship?”
I wobbled my head. “We’re all committed to each other, yes. Out of respect for Invia, I would want her to approve before you and I did anything. I’d want Purity to do the same. If you were a stranger, then no, it wouldn’t be an issue.”
“I was aware you all slept with each other, but I didn’t realize it was… organized. Purity is okay with this arrangement?”
“Loves it.”
Esita went quiet, her eyes looking down, shifting back and forth to avoid mine.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Umm… Geez, I don’t know how we have ended up on this topic, but…
I pray to the Silk Goddess. I was one of the biggest skeptics at first, but when I prayed to her, I felt the connection.
It was more real than anything the Goddess ever gave me.
A little while ago, she whispered in my mind that ‘the Silk loves me.’”
She looked up to see a smile so big I didn’t bother trying to hide it.