Transmigrated Into A Women Dominated World

Chapter 292

As far as he was concerned, that sounded like a gift someone had just handed him for free. He dropped into his seat with the satisfaction of a man who’d watched his entire schedule clear itself without having to lift a finger to make it happen.He hadn’t even settled fully into the seat before his wrist comm chimed, and the projection that flickered to life above his forearm this time wasn’t text. It was Ingrid, her image rendered in soft blue light, arms crossed and looking entirely too pleased with herself for someone who was supposedly just passing along a message.

"Hey. Leia says you’d better get yourself to her place, or she’s telling Professor Audrey you refused to do the project."

Zaeryn wanted to argue, but Ingrid kept talking before he got the chance.

"And before you ask, yes, crossing Audrey is a bad idea." Ingrid’s grin sharpened into something equal parts sympathetic and delighted. "Good luck, anomaly."

The projection went out before he could get a single word of protest through, leaving him alone with nothing but the low hum of the engine and the sinking understanding that he was now, without question, on the wrong side of a threat he hadn’t taken seriously enough thirty seconds earlier.

Whatever satisfaction he’d been sitting in only a moment before drained out of him at once. He didn’t know what Professor Audrey did to students who skipped out on assignments she’d personally paired them for, and he had no interest in finding out.

"Mireille, change of plans." He leaned forward toward the front of the cabin. "Take me to Leia’s house."

Mireille didn’t ask questions. She adjusted their heading without a word, and the cruiser banked smoothly toward a very different afternoon than the one he’d been expecting only an hour earlier.

★★★★

The imperial council had been in session for the better part of an hour when the subject turned to Sage Stellan.

"And the Vorthak research," one of the councilwomen said, consulting the notes in front of her. "Where do we currently stand with Dr. Stellan’s progress?"

"It’s too early for anything visible," another answered, before anyone else could. "She’s barely had the division a matter of weeks. Give her time."

General Rostova responded. "She’s brilliant. No one’s disputing that." Her eyes swept the table once, until finally landing on the person who had asked that question. "But brilliant isn’t the same as fast. If we want results sooner rather than later, I nominate Daphne Virellith to work alongside her. Her research record outpaces Sage’s by years. There’s no reason to run this with one mind when we could run it with two."

"Three, if we’re serious about it." Valerie leaned forward slightly, her tone lighter than the General’s but no less pointed. "Sage, Daphne, and Dr. Veyne together. That combination is the only one I’d trust to guarantee something comes of this."

"There is also the matter of time. We must accelerate the research, and find a way to defeat our enemy once and for all," someone added.

"There’s no need to have this discussion today." Athea’s voice cut through evenly, carrying the deliberate finality she reserved for moments she meant to close for good. "She hasn’t failed at anything. Give her the time she needs before we start reorganizing her division around her." She let the silence that followed settle before continuing. "Is there anything else, or shall we adjourn?"

"Yes. Considering that the other Queendoms have been doing their own research on Vorthaks, have they found anything?"

This time it was Calyra who responded. "No, they are in the same place as us."

"One more matter, Your Highness." The councilwoman who’d opened the discussion glanced down at her notes again, her expression unreadable. "Since we are already discussing Dr. Stellan’s unconventional methods, there are unconfirmed reports out of Sector 7. They concern her... personal life. Specifically, a male."

The word landed strangely in the room, out of place inside a setting built on careful language and centuries of protocol.

"A male wielding Vitae," the councilwoman continued. "Classified as an anomaly."

For a moment, nobody breathed. The phrase itself felt like an insult to centuries of established law. A male wielding Vitae was a biological contradiction so vast that the council seemed to stall out entirely under the weight of it.

Then the uproar hit all at once.

"That’s not possible."

"Are you sure you didn’t misread that?"

"I am certain. Sector 7 has indeed discovered a male with Warlady biology."

Voices piled over one another around the table, each one certain of its own outrage, none of them waiting for the last to finish.

"There’s no recorded case, not once, in the entire history of the Queendoms."

"Males can’t hold Vitae, that’s not a policy position, it’s biology." The objections piled over each other, indignant more than curious, the tone of people confidently explaining why something couldn’t have happened rather than asking whether it had.

Athea said nothing. Her expression didn’t move, didn’t so much as flicker, though she and Calyra were the only people in the room who already knew exactly whom they were describing.

Calyra, just like Athea, remained calm, giving no sign that she knew anything at all.

"I’m afraid it isn’t a false report," the councilwoman said, once the noise had thinned enough for her to be heard again. "And there’s one further detail." She paused, as if aware of exactly how the next part would land. "The male in question appears to belong to Dr. Stellan, apparently kept as a personal pet."

That set the room off properly.

"And now it makes sense. He’s Dr. Stellan’s experiment, surely. What else would explain it?"

"She’d have to be insane to attempt something like that, unsanctioned, and on a male." The theories came fast and overlapping, each one competing to sound more certain than the last.

"I don’t think that’s it." Valerie’s voice cut through the noise, its calm all the more noticeable because everyone else in the room had already abandoned theirs. "Experimented? That implies a level of reckless, illegal desperation Sage simply doesn’t possess. I’ve met him. He’s human. The Vitae, I can’t explain, but he isn’t a lab rat."

"Enhancement wouldn’t work regardless of what she attempted," General Rostova said, her voice carrying none of the heat the rest of the room had worked itself into, which was exactly what made it cut through. "A normal male artificially holding Vitae isn’t just illegal. It’s biologically impossible."

She let that sit a moment before continuing. "Every Queendom in history has had the resources, the motivation, and the minds to try. If a male could be engineered to wield Vitae, it would have been done generations ago by empires with far more to gain than Sage Stellan."

She looked around the table, letting that land. "Forbidden magic, ancient rites, banned workings, everything has been tried, and every single attempt ended in catastrophic failure. If there is a male wielding Vitae in Sector Seven, he isn’t an experiment. He’s something else entirely."

The room went quiet again, differently this time.

Athea’s expression still hadn’t changed.

"That still doesn’t change the fact that he exists," the councilwoman near the doors said, once the room had quieted enough for her to be heard. "A male wielding Vitae is walking around out there, and we should do something about it."

"Like what?" Athea asked.

The question sat there, plain and unhurried, and for a moment nobody answered it directly.

"Evaluate him," General Rostova said finally, the first to commit to something concrete rather than circle the theory again. "Sector Seven cannot be trusted to evaluate a Queendom-level anomaly alone. Bring him here." She spread her hands slightly, the closest thing to a shrug the General ever allowed herself.

A few heads around the table nodded at that, the kind of nodding that came from relief at finally having something to agree on rather than genuine conviction.

"I can save this council some time," Athea said.

The room’s attention shifted toward her fully.

"I’ve known about him for a little while now." She let that land exactly as long as it needed to before continuing, her voice carrying the same even, unremarkable weight it always did. "He isn’t a threat. I don’t make a habit of presenting this council with half-finished findings." She paused. "You brought me a rumor from soldiers’ gossip. I’m telling you it isn’t a rumor, and that the people studying him haven’t found reason yet to call him dangerous. That’s the difference between what you had an hour ago and what you have now."

"That does explain the delay," someone offered, and the murmur that followed carried the particular relief of an explanation that let everyone stop being suspicious of each other and go back to being merely unsettled by the anomaly itself.

Athea let the room settle into that easier footing without hurrying it. It cost her nothing to let them have this version of the truth. He existed, he wielded Vitae, and he was being watched carefully by people with every reason to be careful. All of that was true, and none of it touched the one fact she had spent years making sure no report, however thorough, would ever be able to confirm.

"My suggestion still stands," Rostova said, glancing once at Athea as though seeking permission before she finished the thought. "This is not a small matter, and it shouldn’t be left for Sector 7 to handle alone. Bring him before this council, so we can judge him for ourselves instead of relying on someone else’s word."

"Agreed," Athea said, and something in the evenness of it made the motion feel less like a concession and more like exactly where she had intended the conversation to land all along. "I’ll see that it’s arranged."