Chapter 6 #2
“It is the most honest answer I can give.” He leans back slightly.
“You were selected based on pheromone compatibility, fertility profile, and biological viability. All three matter. In Tigris marriage culture, especially among the hordes, those categories are not considered insults. They are considered foundational.”
Foundational. There is that clean language again, trying to make something hard sound noble.
I turn toward the window. Mars has flattened beneath us into layered color and haze.
The poor sectors are gone from sight. So are the alleys.
The rent notices. The food stalls. The women leaning in painted doorways.
Distance makes everything look cleaner than it was.
My reflection stares faintly back at me in the glass.
Thin face. Dark hair. Blue eyes gone nearly gray in this light.
“If I can’t have children,” I ask softly, still looking at the window, “what then?”
Marat does not answer right away.
“That is not a simple question,” he says.
“It matters to me.”
“I understand.”
I turn back. He chooses his next words more carefully.
“The expectation is honest effort toward marriage and family. Not magical guarantees. A woman is not punished for something her body cannot control. But disappointment can exist. Pressure can exist. Grief can exist.”
The answer settles in my chest like a stone. Not punished. But not untouched either.
I flatten my palms against my thighs.
“So I’m right to be afraid.”
“Yes,” Marat says.
The bluntness of it almost startles me. He does not look away.
“You are also right to understand what is being offered in return.”
He taps the tablet once, bringing the housing and protection clauses back up.
“King Kaiven’s household can feed you,” he says. “House you. Clothe you. Protect you. You will not spend your life clawing one day at a time from Mars dirt and city mercy. You will have status. Security. Belonging to a household with the power to defend its own.”
Belonging. That word lands differently. Not because it sounds softer.
Because it names something I have not had for years.
I had a family once. A place where hunger was shared instead of hidden.
A place where someone noticed if I came home quiet.
Or late. Or hurt. Since then, I have had walls.
Rent. Work lines. Whatever part of myself I could keep standing through force alone.
Belonging feels more dangerous than food.
“Does he know about me?” I ask after a while.
“He knows your file.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
“So what does he know?”
Marat glances at the screen, though I suspect he already knows every line on it.
“Your age. Your background summary. Your health clearance. Your compatibility profile. Your physical description. Your fertility match level.”
Physical description. Heat moves over my skin. The thought of some giant alien male reading a report about my age, my body, my hips, my fertility, and deciding whether he approves makes something low inside me twist.
“He’s never seen me.”
“Not yet.”
Not yet. My pulse jumps in a way I do not like. Not excitement. Not exactly. Something sharper. More alert. The animal knowledge that there is a real male waiting at the end of this trip. One who knows enough about my body to marry me and nothing about me at all.
The shuttle lights dim slightly, shifting into travel mode. An attendant passes the aisle beyond the privacy field, then keeps moving without looking in. I reach for the water and take a sip. It is so cold it almost hurts my teeth. I drink anyway.
“What is he like?”
Marat’s gaze settles on me.
“Dominant.”
That answer comes too fast. Too easily. I set the cup down with care.
“Only that?”
“No.”
He seems to consider how much to give me.
“Watchful. Controlled. Highly territorial. A king by nature as much as by position. He does not waste movement or words.”
My stomach pulls tight again.
“That sounds comforting.”
A flicker of dry understanding touches his face.
“It was not meant to.”
I hate that a small part of me appreciates the honesty.
“He is harsh in public,” Marat says. “That is not uncommon for horde leaders. But his file reflects consistency in law, discipline, and household protection.”
“His file.”
“Yes.”
I almost ask if kings are graded like breeding stock too. The bitterness flashes hot and ugly, then dies just as fast. It would be unfair. He did not build this system any more than I did. He just stands on the better side of it.
The fear stays. Not of monsters exactly.
Monsters are simple. This feels more dangerous than simple.
A male with power. Rules. Land. People. Expectations.
A male who wants children, whether because the law requires it or instinct does, or both.
A male who has been told my body is compatible with his in all the ways that matter to marriage and the future. My future, apparently, is now.
I look down again at the line glowing on the contract screen.
Lifetime union.
“You said daughters matter,” I say.
“They do.”
“Because there are so few women.”
“Yes.”
I think about that. Growing up in a place where girls are bartered by hunger and danger and debt, then going to a world where women are rare enough to shape law and bloodline.
It should sound like a good thing. Instead it sounds like pressure.
Expectation. More people deciding what my body is supposed to do.
“What if I say the wrong thing there?” I ask. “Do the wrong thing. Miss some custom and insult half his people before I even know what I did.”
“Then you learn,” Marat says. “Quickly.”
Not comforting either.
The silence stretches until the shuttle clears atmosphere and the light outside the window shifts from red haze to black.
I have never been off-world. The sight steals the next thought right out of my head.
Mars drops away beneath us in a curve of dusty copper and clouded light, and beyond it is something so huge and silent that it makes me feel smaller than hunger ever did.
Black space. Cold stars. The hard white shine of distant worlds.
I press my fingertips lightly to the window. For five years, my whole life fit inside a few districts, a rented room, and the distance I could walk before dark. Now the planet itself is behind me.
I should feel free. Instead, I feel suspended between terror and relief, neither one strong enough to swallow the other.
Marat lets the silence stand for a while before he speaks again.
“One more thing.”
I turn from the window.
“The contract also guarantees this.” His voice is formal again. Steady. “You will not be abused. Not physically. Not sexually outside the terms of your marriage. Not publicly as spectacle or punishment. Those protections are written because they are enforceable.”
I stare at him. Something in my chest opens painfully at that. A place I did not even know had locked itself shut. Not because I expected abuse exactly. Because I have lived inside enough fear to know there are too many ways a woman can be made to endure what powerful people call normal.
“And if he wants something I can’t give?”
Marat’s face stays unreadable.
“Then the two of you will have to become husband and wife enough to speak plainly.”
The answer is not soothing. But it is real. Maybe that is the closest thing to kindness I am getting on this trip.
He deactivates the tablet and folds his hands.
“Do you accept the contract?”
I look back at the window. Mars is a shrinking curve now, already too far behind me to hold me if I changed my mind.
Ahead is Tigris. A world I have never seen.
A king I have never met. A life I cannot picture wearing yet.
Children are expected. Marriage is for life.
The customs are hard. I may be wanted for my body as much as for myself. Maybe more, at least at first.
Even so, I think about the food in my stomach from yesterday.
The rent paid. The blue dress folded in my bag.
The first clean coat I have owned in years.
The simple fact of sitting in a warm shuttle where no one is touching me, cornering me, or deciding hunger gives them a right.
I think about what Marai said. Choose the thing that gives you a chance.
I turn back from the window and lift my chin.
“Yes,” I say.
Marat watches me for one long second, then inclines his head as if I have passed some final test.
“Then prepare yourself,” he says quietly. “When we land, you will no longer be a candidate.”
My pulse jumps.
“What will I be?”
Marat holds my gaze.
“A king’s bride.”