# God Seed
## Chapter 10 – Roots and Wounds
The Phoenix landed in the central courtyard of the Romaniastar Family complex with a grace that belied its size.
The moment its feet touched the ground, dozens of soldiers and attendants snapped to attention along the courtyard's edges. Not a single person made unnecessary noise. The discipline here was a different quality from anything in the Two-Star City — quieter, more absolute.
Romaniastar stepped down first, then glanced back at me.
I followed without a word.
A senior attendant approached immediately, bowing low. "My Lady. The Lord arrived two hours ago. He is waiting in the East Hall."
Romaniastar gave a single nod. "Tell him we'll be there shortly."
The attendant disappeared.
I stood in the center of the enormous courtyard and looked around. The complex was even more impressive up close — layered stone corridors, open training grounds visible beyond the eastern wing, tall crystalline structures that caught the fading evening light. Everything was built to last. Built to intimidate.
A home that felt nothing like a home.
Romaniastar fell into step beside me as we walked toward the main hall. After a moment she said, without preamble:
"The family physician will need to examine you tonight."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you disappeared for five days, reappeared with different colored eyes, claim to have no memory of who I am, and your legs were allegedly severed and somehow grew back." She said it all in the same even tone. "Pick any one of those reasons."
I said nothing.
She glanced at me sideways. "The memory — how much is gone?"
"Most of it," I said. This was the version of the truth I had decided on. Simpler. Harder to disprove. "I remember fragments. Impressions. But names, faces, relationships —" I shook my head slightly. "Almost nothing."
Romaniastar was quiet for several steps.
"Do you remember me?" she asked. Her voice was careful — the kind of careful that meant the answer mattered more than she wanted it to.
I looked at her.
"When I saw you in the arena," I said, "I knew you were family before you said a word. I don't know if that counts."
She didn't respond to that. But the line of her shoulders shifted — very slightly.
"It counts," she said finally, almost too quietly to hear.
---
The East Hall was large and warmly lit, furnished with the kind of quiet luxury that didn't need to display itself. A long table occupied the center, and at the far end of it, a man sat alone.
Romankas.
My father.
He was tall even seated — broad through the shoulders, with the kind of physical presence that came from decades of combat and power. His hair was dark with threads of silver, and his eyes, when they lifted to meet mine across the room, were sharp and dark and complicated.
He studied me for a long moment without standing.
Then he said, "Rohan."
Just my name. Nothing else. But the weight behind it was considerable.
I met his eyes and held them. I didn't bow. I didn't look away.
Something shifted in his expression — surprise, perhaps, quickly controlled.
Romaniastar sat down without ceremony. I took the seat beside her.
The silence stretched for a moment before Romankas spoke again.
"Your sister tells me you've lost your memory."
"Most of it," I confirmed.
He leaned back slowly. "And your legs."
"Recovered."
His dark eyes moved to Romaniastar briefly, then returned to me. "I've had three physicians standing by since yesterday. You'll be examined tonight."
"Fine," I said.
Another silence. Romankas looked at me the way a man looks at something he recognizes but can't quite place — a familiar object in an unfamiliar arrangement.
"You seem different," he said finally.
"I'm told I am," I replied.
His jaw tightened slightly. Not anger — something more difficult than that. He reached for the tea in front of him, took a slow sip, and set it down carefully.
"When you disappeared," he began, "the engagement party —"
"Father." Romaniastar's voice cut in cleanly. "Not tonight."
Romankas looked at her.
"He's been found," she said. "He's here. The engagement can wait."
The two of them looked at each other across the table. It was not a comfortable look. There was history in it — long history, and not all of it clean.
Romankas set down his cup.
"We'll speak tomorrow, Rohan," he said. "Rest tonight."
He stood, gave me one last long look, and left the hall.
---
When his footsteps had faded down the corridor, the silence in the East Hall changed completely. Romaniastar sat back in her chair and stared at the far wall for a moment.
Then she said, "He was worried about you."
"He didn't show it," I said.
"He doesn't." She turned her cup slowly on the table. "He never has. It doesn't mean it wasn't there."
I looked at her. "What was the engagement?"
She exhaled slowly. "A political arrangement. A girl from the Westaron Family — they control a Four-Star City to the east. Your father negotiated it six months ago." A pause. "You were against it. You never said so directly, but it was obvious."
"Was that why I disappeared?"
"That's what we assumed at first." Her voice was flat. "Until we found the kidnapping trail."
She fell quiet for a moment. Then, abruptly, she said:
"I don't want you to go through with it."
I looked at her.
"The engagement," she clarified. Her eyes were on the table. "I never agreed with it. Father arranged it without asking me. Without asking you, really — he told you, he didn't ask." She paused. "You're my brother. You should marry someone you choose. Not someone Father trades you to for political leverage."
"Did you tell him that?"
"Many times." Her voice had an edge now. "He doesn't listen. He never has — not about things involving you."
Something in her tone was heavier than simple disagreement. I watched her face.
"Why specifically you?" I asked quietly. "Why do you push back on my behalf?"
Romaniastar was silent for a long moment.
Then she said, "Because nobody else does."
She stood up, smoothing her outer robe with a precise, practiced motion that told me she was closing the conversation before it went somewhere she wasn't ready for.
"I'll show you to your room," she said.
---
Later that night, after the physicians had come and gone — their instruments finding nothing conclusively wrong, which seemed to disturb them more than anything else would have — I lay in the dark of the room Romaniastar had given me and stared at the ceiling.
The room was larger than Jun's entire apartment.
The sheets were finer than anything I had touched in either of my lives.
And the God Seed pulsed quietly in the center of my chest, satisfied and patient, counting down its hourly rhythm with the indifference of something that had existed long before I arrived in this world.
*Twenty-four souls per day. Every day.*
I ran the numbers in my head — as I had done every night since the altar. It wasn't difficult math. It was just a number I had to meet. Every hour. Without fail. Without anyone noticing.
In a Seven-Star City surrounded by some of the most powerful people on this planet.
I closed my eyes.
I thought about Romaniastar's face when she'd said *because nobody else does.*
I thought about my father's eyes across the table — dark, sharp, trying to read something in me that he couldn't quite find.
And I thought about something else. Something the man in the underground prison had mentioned before I had killed him.
*My name is Rohan.*
But who was Rohan's mother?
---
I found out the next morning.
Romaniastar came to my room early, before breakfast, with two cups of tea and the expression of someone who had decided to tell me something and was choosing her words carefully.
She sat across from me and was quiet for a moment.
Then she said: "There are things about this family that you should know. Especially now — with your memory gone. You'll hear versions of it from different people. I'd rather you hear the real version from me."
"Go ahead," I said.
She wrapped both hands around her cup.
"Your father has been married twice," she began. "I am from his first marriage. My mother —" a brief pause, almost imperceptible, "— died giving birth to me. I never knew her. I know her only from portraits and from what the older servants sometimes say when they think I'm not listening."
She said it plainly, without asking for sympathy.
"Your father remarried when I was seven," she continued. "Your mother. Her name is Vaelith."
Something about the way she said the name was careful. Not hostile — careful.
"She and I are civil," Romaniastar said. "We are not close. That is the honest answer."
"Where is she?" I asked.
Romaniastar looked at me directly. "That is the part most people in this family don't speak about openly." She paused. "Your mother almost never comes here. She has her own... affairs. Her own world, separate from this family." A beat. "She is powerful, Rohan. More powerful than most people know. More powerful, honestly, than most people in this family would be comfortable admitting — including your father."
I kept my expression neutral. "What do you mean by powerful?"
"I mean that the full extent of what she can do —" Romaniastar shook her head slightly, "— I don't know. And I've been trying to find out for years. Almost no one outside her immediate circle knows either. Even within the family, most people only know the surface." She met my eyes. "You spent more time with her than I did, when you were young. But whatever you knew — it's gone with your memory."
I let that sit for a moment.
A mother who was stronger than a Nine-Star City Lord. Who stayed deliberately hidden from the world. Who the family itself barely understood.
*Interesting.*
"And my father," I said. "How does he feel about all of this?"
Romaniastar's expression shifted — not quite a smile, not quite a grimace.
"He married her," she said simply. "That tells you something about how he feels. And how little control he has over it."
A knock at the door interrupted us.
An attendant's voice came through: "My Lady. The Lord requests breakfast with both of you in the main dining hall."
Romaniastar stood, smoothing her robe.
She looked at me for a moment — assessing.
"One more thing," she said quietly. "About the engagement. Father will bring it up again today. He's already sent word to the Westaron Family that you've been found." Her voice was level but firm. "When he does — don't agree to anything. Not yet. You have memory loss. Use it."
I looked at her.
"You've thought about this," I said.
"I've thought about you for five days," she replied simply, and walked to the door.
---
Breakfast in the main dining hall was a tense and carefully choreographed affair.
Romankas sat at the head of the table. Romaniastar and I sat on opposite sides. The food was elaborate — more dishes than the three of us could consume in a week. None of us paid much attention to it.
Romankas waited until the attendants had withdrawn before speaking.
"The Westaron Family," he began, "has been patient. But they expect a formal response within the week."
"Father —" Romaniastar started.
"Romaniastar." His voice was quiet but absolute. "This is between me and your brother."
She pressed her lips together and said nothing. But her eyes moved to me — a single, brief look that said *remember what I told you.*
Romankas turned to me.
"The arrangement is beneficial to this family," he said. "The Westaron Family controls eastern trade routes that we need. This marriage consolidates an alliance that took three years to negotiate." He paused. "I understand you had reservations. But this is larger than personal preference."
I looked at him steadily.
"I lost my memory," I said. "I have no recollection of the negotiations, the girl, or the reasoning behind my reservations." I kept my voice even. "It would be unwise — for everyone — to make a permanent decision about my future while I'm still recovering."
Romankas studied me.
"That is surprisingly reasonable," he said slowly.
"The physicians found nothing conclusively wrong with me," I continued. "But memory loss of this scale takes time to address. Rushing a marriage negotiation while I'm in this state could cause complications you don't want — politically or otherwise."
Romankas was quiet for a long moment.
Then he exhaled through his nose and leaned back.
"One month," he said. "I'll ask the Westaron Family for one month. In that time, you will meet with the physicians daily and work on recovering what you've lost." He fixed me with a hard look. "And you will take this seriously, Rohan. This family's future doesn't wait on personal comfort."
"Understood," I said.
Across the table, Romaniastar was looking at her tea. But the very slight relaxation around her eyes told me everything.
Romankas stood, straightened his outer robe, and left the hall without further words.
The moment he was gone, Romaniastar looked up at me.
I looked back at her.
"Well handled," she said quietly.
"I had good advice," I replied.
For just a moment — brief, unguarded — something warm crossed her face.
Then it was gone, replaced by her usual composed expression, and she reached for her tea.
Outside the tall windows of the dining hall, Romaniastar City stretched in every direction — its towers, its walls, its armies, its flags.
Half black. Half white.
I sat in the middle of all of it, in a body that wasn't originally mine, with a God Seed counting down in my chest, a father negotiating my future like a trade agreement, an elder sister who trusted me more than she should, and a mother somewhere out in the world —
Powerful. Hidden. Unknown.
*One problem at a time,* I reminded myself.
But the problems were multiplying faster than I had planned.
--