A Destined Legacy Ch. 01

"Did the two of you happen to compile your data into a real study?"

"Oh yes, we did everything but publish it. Ran it through every genetics researcher from Scotland to Timbuktu and Rus." Rhod gleefully explained. "We are considering publishing it under a pair of pseudonyms, because if we are being honest, what are the odds that someone might want to unseat the scientific findings of the emperor of the world and one of his sons? Neither of whom have formal scientific training, which would mean that either people would be afraid to contradict us, or-"

"It would make you a target to other academics. That's not a great situation." Angela agreed.

"Uh-oh," Rhod muttered, as he saw another line of people beginning to approach. "Looks like more meet and greet, we should sit down again, looks like this one will be a while."

___________________

When Rhod and his new bride were finally able to retire for the night, they were drained. Rhod liked her, he definitely did, and he knew that it was expected of him to conceive a child with her within weeks. But he was willing to wait, at least until tomorrow, if not until they arrived at their new in Willamettia in a few days.

"Angela, I know that we just got married, and we barely know each other. I also know what is expected of us. Would you be willing to put off our consummation? At least until tomorrow?" He asked with a tired smile.

Popping her head out the attached bathroom, she replied, "Of course. If you tried anything tonight, I'd be liable to be asleep the entire time. Not sure how enjoyable that would be." She adopted a small smirk as she added, "Unless, of course, you're into that sort of thing, Prince Rhoderick."

Rhod snorted and grinned, "I most definitely am not a necrophiliac, and please for the love of everything, call me Rhod."

"Well then we have that in common. Would... would you opposed to taking things slow and getting to know each other, first?" She asked tentatively, her face uncertain as she awaited his reply.

"No, I actually think that I'd prefer it." Rhod smiled softly as he stripped off his shirt and climbed into bed.

She emerged from the bathroom in a nightgown that seemed to hug her in all the right places. It showcased her elegant features; her small waist, long legs, and it even demonstrated the gravity-defying abilities of her breasts. The large globes seemed too perky to be without support, but her bared shoulders belied no trace of a bra.

Angela cleared her throat, drawing his attention. She was smirking, despite the faint blush creeping across her cheeks. "Oh... um, sorry." Rhod offered as he felt heat bloom across his own face.

"Don't be," she replied as turned slowly in a circle, giving him a great view of the ass that the gown hinted at. "I'm flattered. We're married, and you are quite the looker yourself. In fact, I think I'll like you a lot." She climbed into the bed beside him, and settled on her side, facing him.

"I hope this isn't... insensitive, but what's this?" Angela asked as her hand brushed Rhod's trace.

"My father calls it a 'Trace'. All of his children have it, each of us with a different mineral. For instance, my brother Argent has a silver trace while my sister Laura has an azurite trace." Rhod explained.

"What's yours? It's... so beautiful." Angela murmured.

"It's Rhodochrosite, or-"

"Manganese Carbonate."

"Yeah. How did you know?"

"I was raised by my uncle, he is-was, a bit of a rock hound." Angela explained, doing her best to stifle a yawn.

"It's late," Rhod yawned in agreement. "We should get some sleep."

"Agreed, husband."

Unfortunately for the newlyweds, not much sleep was to be had. Less than five hours later, a scream went up through the castle. Women were wailing and men were tearing out their hair. All because Emperor Beorthric Cynewulfson 'the Benevolent' Wessex of Wessex, died peacefully in his sleep that night, ending his eleven-hundred-year long reign and throwing the dynasty, and its vassals, into a tailspin.

A knocking had awoken Angela, who answered the door and received the horrible news. She, in turn, awoke her husband.

"What?" Rhod tiredly asked, a confused look on his face.

"The Emperor died in his sleep. They will be reading his will in an hour and then the vassals have to meet, to elect the new Emperor." Angela softly repeated, her voice on the verge of cracking.

"That's good, good." Rhod laughed after a moment. "You almost got me. Beorthric, dead! Good joke."

"No, no Rhod. It isn't a joke. The empire is about to get its second Emperor. I'm sorry, Rhod." Angela whispered as she pulled the confused Rhod into an embrace. He quickly extricated himself from the embrace and reached for the drawer of the bed-side table where their cell phones had been deposited just hours prior. He couldn't just barge through the castle looking for his dad. Now that he was a duke and married to the president and owner of Goff Arms Foundry, he was a target now, it was best to avoid dark corners. Especially if Angela was telling the truth, which seemed likely. She had no reason to lie about this, which meant that if something had indeed happened to the Emperor, he would be at the hospital in town, and it would soon be open season.

Rhod unlocked it and scrolled until he found the contact he was seeking. Mom. He pushed the call button and sat on the bed, biting one of his knuckles. No answer. Her mailbox was full. He hung up and found another name, Layla. The eldest child born by his mother. He pressed 'call' and waited.

She picked up on the second ring. "Rhod." She said quietly.

"Layla, I'm hearing some disturbing news and mom isn't-"

"Yeah," Layla sniffed. "He's dead, Rhod."

"What? How?" Rhod asked, stunned. The man was born in 750. 'Twelve-hundred and sixty-nine-year-old men don't just drop-down dead!' Rhod thought, feeling a creeping numbness over take him.

"The court physician is doing an autopsy now, but... Rhod. Dad doesn't look good." Layla explained.

"What do you mean he doesn't look good?!" Rhod all but shouted.

"He- he... he looks old, Rhod. His hair is white, his face was wrinkled like a bloodhound's, for fuck's sake." Layla sighed over the phone. "Wait, wait! The doctor is coming out, hold on."

Rhod could hear vague mumbling as his sister and whoever was with her talked with the doctor. He sat on the edge of his bed, his body tense. He felt the mattress shift as Angela crawled over to him and embraced him from behind. His left hand found one of hers, and he grasped it; even as his right hand's grip on his phone strengthened. He didn't like being left in the dark, and it was nearly two minutes before Layla's voice came back.

"Rhod, they are going to run an in-depth tox screen to check for toxins, but they think that they know what killed him."

"What?" Rhod choked out.

"His organs, Rhod. They were old, very old. It looks like Dad's heart, kidney, liver, brain, everything; it all just failed." Layla answered with a long sniff and a sad tremor in her voice. "But that isn't everything. I just heard, Afflaed's dead. She didn't want to live with her husband, so she hung herself."

"Shit. Grandma too? Anyone else dead?!" Rhod exclaimed in anger.

"Well no, but- um- A few of Dad's wives have started aging. Some more than others. Allison actually looks her age. What little magic there was left, I think it died with Dad. I can barely feel my mana, same as everyone else." Layla said, her speech picking up speed.

"Look, little brother, we have to attend Dad's will-reading in fifty minutes. Get dressed, get down there, and watch your back. We all have to vote after that, and don't vote for me! I don't want a target on my back!" Layla warned him before she hung up.

____________________

Rhod operated in a fog. He was aware that he was taking a shower and getting dressed, but he wasn't actively doing it. He was in shock, operating on autopilot; he just couldn't believe that the old man was really dead. 'Who lives for almost thirteen hundred years only to drop down dead, for no reason?' He bitterly pondered.

His fog lifted as Angel took his arm on the way to the situation room. Electricity seemed to emanate from her touch, feeling like a tingle it raced up his arm, seeming to lift the fog he was in as it went. He looked at her, and she gave him a sad smile.

"I'm sorry, Rhod, about your father. He seemed like a great man." She whispered as he pulled her close.

"He is. Was, I guess. Truthfully, I still don't know if I believe that he's dead. It seems so surreal, it feels like a dream." Rhod explained, his words hanging in the air like mist. It followed the pair while they walked, eventually dissipating as they arrived and entered the situation room.

Normally a control and briefing room, it was the only room large enough to allow the extensive amounts of vassals and spawn of the Emperor to be in a single room with at least one other individual. Rhod and Angela had just entered the room when Angela let out an audible gasp. Rhod couldn't help but chuckle. Her surprise was warranted; not everybody had as diverse a family as Rhod.

Most of them were scattered, but Rhod could already see most of the races present, dwarves, elves, demon-kin, divine-kin, the various shifter races, and if he looked hard, he could see a single orc, a couple of Ebu Gogo, Wechuge, and a handful of Fae and Hullder. He noticed a distinct lack of half-dragons, Ciguapo and Mermaids. The Mermaids being missing wasn't that unusual, since their human form was nearly indistinguishable from other humans. But for the Ciguapo and half-dragons to be missing? That was very abnormal.

After calming his awed wife, a bit, he led them to a pair of seats near the end of a row of folding chairs, about a third of the way in. His father's coffin was up front, on a platform, but his wives were nowhere to be seen. The dull roar of conversation died down within a few minutes as the High Priest walked out onto the platform, in dark red robes.

"Hello, everyone, and thank you for coming." His high-pitched voice came over the sound system. "We will be reading his will, and then you all may arise and say your final farewells to... A great man." The priest's voice was shaking now. "He was an Emperor, yes. He guided human civilization for over a millennium, yes. But that's not what we will be remembering him for. We will all remember him as different things; a friend, a supportive shoulder, a lover, and as a father. He was all of those things."

The priest sniffed more than a few times, and even Rhod could see that the man was struggling to hold back his tears. The priest, though, soldiered on, pulling a paper out of the pocket of his robes.

Rhod listened as the priest rattled on for almost an hour, dividing the Emperor's coffers, and a few artifacts. Rhod was surprised to learn that his father was divvying up the Kingdoms he had zealously guarded for so long. Rhod and his wife learned that they would be vassals to the Queen of Cascadia, Princess Karalinn, a sibling that Rhod had never had much interaction with before. She was nearly thirty years older than him, and was duchess of the Northwestern Sound, one of the most populous on the West Coast of Amerigo. Once Beorthric's will was read, came the next part. A vote had to be held on who would succeed their father as Emperor, or Empress.

Talking with his wife in hushed whispers, he decided to play it safe and vote for his eldest sibling, and his father's first child, Princess Allison. Allison was about sixty, and Rhod was stunned to see that Layla hadn't lied. Her age had caught up to her fast. He had seen her just twelve hours ago, whereas she looked vibrant and young. She had still looked eighteen, which wasn't that surprising considering that she had desired their father so much that she had refused land when she turned eighteen and begged Beorthric to take her as a wife. Whatever magic had flowed through him, also flowed through his wives, until a few hours ago.

Being Beorthric and the founder of Zor, which advocated incest, Beothric had been more than willing. And over the years she had borne him thirty of his countless spawn as a means of power and prestige. She was the foremost of his wives, and she was popular among her siblings. Thus, why she won the vote by a landslide, becoming Empress Allison Beothricsdohtor Wessex of Wessex. The first Empress of the empire. To her went most of Beorthric's artifacts, coffers, and the namesake duchy and kingdom of the Empire.

Rhod noticed that, while he had seen during her turn to vote, she had left the room as soon as she cast her ballot. He could sympathize, she probably realized that she would be given the Crown, a heavy responsibility that she had wanted to avoid in the first place by refusing a duchy. So, she had not been present for her own election.

With that done, the high priest motioned, and everyone in attendance stood up. They began to file out of the rows and towards the resting place of Beorthric, when the doors suddenly opened and a line of women in black began filing through them. The wives of Emperor Beorthric, led by Empress Allison. Her eyes were red and puffy, but she was already adorned in regal attire. Rhod cautiously glanced around; many of his siblings were not going to like this audacity on her part. However, no one seemed too keen to do anything about it right now.

___________________

The funeral mostly consisted of his father's wife taking turns kissing the corpse of the man they loved so much. His mother was one of the more controlled ones; one of the succubus wives tried 'stroke' the life back into him. He knew that his father loved his wives, and they loved him, but this was kind of ridiculous. The long line of forty-three wives finally ended, with the last, a dryad, bursting into tears as she walked away.

He leaned over to whisper in his wife's ear while watching an elven wife rush back and try to climb into the coffin with his father, trying to be cremated with him. "This ridiculous. This why I just want one wife, you." He started to lean back before darting forward again. "And for the record, when I die, I would want you to be able to eventually move on, and not try to crawl into the coffin with me."

"Oh, don't worry, I definitely would. I'd be remarried within a day." Angela teased.

"So soon? You wound me, dear wife." Rhod said with mock hurt and a smile. This was definitely the perfect woman for him. "All jokes aside, this is horrible. My grandma killed herself scarcely two hours ago."

"What? Why?" Angela asked with genuine concern in her voice.

"She didn't want to live without her husband." Rhod said, before making sure to explain that in addition to being Beorthric's mother, Afflaed had also been one of his first wives.

"This is where I'm kind of glad that I lost my parents early on." Angela replied. "I can talk about losing them and feel almost nothing. Barely a twinge of sadness. My uncle though, is a completely different story."

"That must have been tough, growing up with your parents."

"Eh, my uncle and aunt raised me, so to be truthful, I have always felt like they were my real parents."

"I forget sometimes how lucky I am, was, in the gilded cage. I didn't have the freedom to do what I wanted, but I wanted for nothing." Rhod reflected, as vassals and children of the Emperor were finally able to form lines to say their farewells. Rhod and Angela stood, hand in hand, in silence while the line slowly moved. It seemed like no time at all, that Rhod was standing in front of his father's lifeless body.

Layla had been right. He looked old. Almost unrecognizable, but a feeling deep in his gut assured him, that this was indeed his father. He looked up to see that roughly a third of his father's wives were situated behind the casket. He saw a familiar succubus, Hereswith, another of his father's first wives, and a dear friend of his.

"Hereswith, why are you back there?" Rhod gently asked, already having some suspicion.

"Rhod." She greeted him with a quiet whisper. "I don't want to live without him. None of us do."

"I know that things haven't been great between you and Thomas, but have you told him?" Rhod prodded out of concern. He had only met Thomas, once, but Hereswith was his mother. Thomas might look like a human, but that didn't mean that he wasn't her son.

"No. He betrayed your father, he got Badra executed, and it broke your father's heart." She replied, shamefully. "I didn't raise him right, I tried to raise him as if he was an incubus like Gregory. But he wasn't. It's my fault that he broke your father's heart, and got my friend executed."

"No, it's not, Hereswith. Just... Just tell him, before you do it. He deserves to know." Rhod said as he put a hand to her shoulder. "I suppose this is our final goodbye, then?"

"I guess so." Hereswith confirmed. "I hope to see you in the next life."

"And you." Rhod repeated the time-worn farewell of the Reincarnationists.

As Angela and he walked away, he felt a puff of air as his wife leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Are you a Reincartionist?"

"No. Would it matter though?"

"No. Would it matter if I was?"

"No." He parroted back.

"Was she your first?" Angela asked, surprising Rhod, and prompting him to turn around to face her.

"No! Jesus!" He said in a strained whisper, "That would have been treason. She's always been a friend to me, in some ways, I'm closer to her than my own mother."

"Ah, sorry, you two just sounded like old lovers."

"No, no. Given my family background, I'm actually a bit ashamed to admit that you would be my first."

"Aww, that's so touching." Angela said as she placed a hand over her heart. "Don't worry, I had a few wild years when I turned eighteen so I can show you the ropes with ease." She finished with a seductive bite of her lip. Despite the solemn occasion, Rhod felt his face reddened and his dick jump. As surreptitiously as he could, he slid his right hand into his pocket to ensure that it was concealed, should his own flesh attempt to further harden. A low giggle from his side told him that his wife had seen his flustered reaction.

Silence reigned for a few seconds until Angela spoke up again, "So, this isn't the first time I've heard about it, what happened with your brother Thomas?"

Rhod stopped in his tracks and looked at her, cocking an eyebrow. "Are you sure you want to know?" He watched as Angela nodded her head in affirmation. "Well, Duke Thomas of Deira is Hereswith's third child, and second born son. About thirty-five year ago, he seduced one of Dad's wives, Badra. Well she got pregnant, and Dad thought it was his."

Rhod paused to breathe. "When Eleanor was born, her trace was the same as Thomas'. A pale-yellow mineral, Thomasclarkite." Rhod explained. "Beorthric was incensed, and he was forced by an old law, a law that was put into effect by his father in 769, to execute Badra. So, he banished Thomas from ever setting foot on Wessex and his line are ineligible for the Crown, meaning no one else in the family will even attempt to marry his children or grandchildren. It sparked a rivalry between Thomas' legitimate children and his daughter Eleanor; she and her line have a permanent claim on the duchy, in addition to being given her own. And the children of Badra were not happy with Thomas. Every other year, someone tries to have Thomas killed."

"Wow, that's... those are some twisted familial relations." Angela commented as the pair began to walk towards the exit again. They only made it a couple dozen feet before they were stopped by a voice.

"Rhoderick!" An excited shriek sounded from behind them. The pair stopped and turned around, to see a young woman was walking towards them. She had shoulder length brown hair, and her eyes were green, but rimmed with red. Her modest tits jiggled a little as she jogged up to Rhod and his wife. She was wearing a close-fitting black dress.