The Matriarch's words were not a proposal; they were a blade, expertly slid between my ribs. She had not offered me an alliance. She had presented me with a test, a trial by fire designed to incinerate any path I chose.
"The choice of which daughter... I will leave that to you, Lord Silverstein. A test of your wisdom."
The silence in Gorgomoth's ruined throne room was a living entity, thick with the smoke of dead fires and the heavier, more suffocating weight of an impossible decision. The fifty Fenrir honor guards stood like statues of grey stone and white fur, their golden eyes watching, waiting for the judgment of the southern alpha. My pack—my brilliant, furious ice witch, my fierce, proud wolf warrior, and my terrified, hopeful elf-maid—stood frozen, each trapped in their own private hell of my making.
I looked at the faces of the two sisters.
Luna, my little spy, my Sworn Shield, my first true friend in this forsaken reality. She stood with her hands clenched, her head bowed, refusing to meet my gaze. Through our shared senses, I felt the raging tempest of her soul. It was a storm of terror and a wild, secret, and deeply ashamed hope. She wanted me to choose her. The thought was a prayer she was desperately trying to suppress, a dream she felt she had no right to even imagine. She knew, with a certainty that was breaking her heart, that choosing her would be my political ruin, and she loved me too much to ever wish for that.
Then there was Lyra. The Winter Fang. The warrior princess. She stood tall, her arms crossed over her chest, her expression a mask of fierce, proud neutrality. But her golden eyes, when they met mine, held a flicker of something new. A challenge. An assessment. She was not a prize to be won; she was a fellow alpha, judging my worthiness. To choose her would be to accept a partner of equal, if not greater, strength. It would be a true joining of power. But it would also be a political declaration that I valued the strength of the wild North over the subtleties of my own human kingdom.
And beside them all, Elizabeth. She was a statue carved from glacial ice, her face a perfect, beautiful mask of cold, controlled fury. Her loyalty, which had been so painstakingly rebuilt, was plummeting. I didn't need ARIA to tell me that. I could feel the trust between us freezing over, cracking under the weight of this new, impossible complication. She saw this not as a choice between two women, but as a choice between her carefully laid plans and a path of reckless, savage madness.
[This is a 'Zugzwang' scenario,] ARIA's voice was a cold, clear bell in the chaos of my mind. The term was from the game of chess, a situation where any move a player makes will worsen their position. [Any choice you make—Luna, Lyra, or refusal—results in a catastrophic loss. Refusal alienates the Fenrir. Choosing Luna alienates the Royalists and Elizabeth. Choosing Lyra alienates the Royalists and Elizabeth, and signals a shift in power that will be seen as a threat by all human factions.]
[There is no winning move, Kazuki,] she concluded, her voice for once devoid of sarcasm, filled only with a grim, logical finality. [You are in checkmate.]
No, I thought, a cold, hard certainty beginning to form in the depths of my soul. You're wrong. This isn't chess. A checkmate only exists if you agree to play by the rules of the board. The Matriarch thinks she is testing my wisdom. She is not. She is testing my nature. She is asking, 'What kind of alpha are you?'
I took a deep breath, the sulfurous air of the fortress doing nothing to calm the storm inside me. I looked not at the daughters, but at the mother. I met the Matriarch's ancient, golden gaze, and I did not flinch.
"Your Majesty," I began, my voice calm and steady, echoing in the silent throne room. "You have presented me with a choice, and you have called it a test of my wisdom."
"I have," she confirmed, her expression unreadable.
"But it is a flawed test," I countered. "Because it is based on a flawed premise."
A dangerous murmur went through the Fenrir honor guard. Lyra's eyes widened. Elizabeth's head snapped up. To question the wisdom of the Matriarch was a grave insult.
But the Matriarch simply raised a hand, silencing her guards. "Explain," she commanded, a flicker of interest in her cold, golden eyes.
"You have asked me to choose one of your daughters to be my wife, to seal our alliance," I said, walking slowly into the center of the circle. "But you are a Queen of the North. A leader of a pack that has survived for a thousand years in a world that despises and fears you. You are a pragmatist. You are a survivor. You are not a fool who would risk a vital military alliance on the romantic whims of a southern boy."
I stopped in front of her. "This is not about marriage. This is not about choosing a bride. You don't care which of your daughters I share a bed with. This is about loyalty. This is about power. This is about ensuring that my power, my 'glitch,' is irrevocably bound to the fate of the Fenrir. You want to chain me to your people, Matriarch. Not with a flimsy legal document from the South, but with a bond of blood and honor that I can never break."
The Matriarch's impassive mask did not crack, but I saw it in her eyes. The flicker of surprise. The dawning of respect. I had not just seen the trap; I had seen the architecture of the trap.
"You see with clear eyes, little glitch," she said, her voice a low rumble. "So, the test remains. How do you solve the unsolvable problem? How do you bind yourself to my pack without shattering the alliances you need to survive in your own?"
"By refusing to accept the premise of your test," I declared. "You ask me to choose between a warrior and a watcher. Between a sword and a shield. Between the wild heart of your people and the quiet, fierce loyalty that has become my own."
I turned and looked at the two sisters.
"I will not choose between them," I said, my voice ringing with an absolute, unshakable conviction. "Because a true alpha does not discard a valuable member of his pack. A true leader does not break a weapon because he is offered a sharper one. He adds it to his arsenal."
I looked back at the Matriarch. "I will not choose one. I will choose both."
The room exploded into chaos. The Fenrir guards snarled, their hands flying to their swords. Lyra gasped, her face a mask of disbelief. Elizabeth looked at me as if I had just announced my intention to set myself on fire.
"Blasphemy!" a Fenrir captain roared. "To take two daughters of the Matriarch? It is an insult to our line!"
"SILENCE!"
The Matriarch's voice was a thunderclap that shook the very stones of the fortress. The room fell silent instantly. She stood up, her full, terrifying height seeming to fill the chamber. She walked toward me, her golden eyes blazing with an intense, unreadable fire.
"You would dare..." she began, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "You would dare to claim both of my daughters? An act of unparalleled arrogance."
"No," I corrected her calmly, standing my ground, not flinching from the immense pressure of her aura. "An act of unparalleled logic. You want to bind me to your people. What better way than to bind me to the two pillars of its next generation? Lyra is your heir, your future. She is the strength and pride of the Fenrir. To have her at my side is to have the might of your warriors with me. She is my sword."
I then turned to Luna, my gaze softening. "And Luna... Luna is the heart of your people. She has their ancient wisdom, their quiet strength, their unbreakable spirit. She has survived in a world that tried to crush her. She has shown a courage that rivals any warrior's. She is my eyes, my conscience, my shield."
I looked back at the Matriarch. "You asked me to choose. But a leader who would choose between his sword and his shield is a fool who deserves to die in his first battle. I will not make that choice. I will honor them both. I will protect them both. And through them, I will be bound to your people forever."
I had not just cheated on her test. I had redefined it. I had thrown her own logic, her own pragmatism, back in her face.
The Matriarch stared at me for a long, silent eternity. The throne room was so quiet I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. I had either just forged an unbreakable alliance, or I had just signed my own death warrant.
And then, to the utter astonishment of everyone in the room, she began to laugh.
It was not a small chuckle. It was a deep, booming, full-throated laugh of genuine, unrestrained delight. It was the laugh of a wolf who had just seen a rabbit turn around and bite a hunter.
"By the frozen gods of the North!" she roared, slapping her knee. "Magnificent! Absolutely magnificent! The sheer, glorious arrogance of it! He does not just accept the challenge; he raises the stakes! He does not just take the prize; he takes the whole damn table!"
She walked up to me and clapped me on the shoulder, a blow that sent a jarring shock through my entire body. "I knew you were a true alpha!" she declared. "You do not see my daughters as wives, as property. You see them as assets! As weapons! As vital components of your pack! You think like a Fenrir!"
She turned to her stunned honor guard. "Did you hear him?" she bellowed. "He will not choose! He will take them both! He will honor our line not by half, but in its entirety! This is not an insult! This is the greatest honor he could possibly pay us!"
The Fenrir warriors, their minds struggling to process this radical new interpretation of their traditions, looked at each other, then at their laughing Matriarch, and then at me. A slow, dawning understanding began to spread through their ranks. The southern alpha was not weak or indecisive. He was greedy. He was powerful. He was ambitious. These were qualities they understood and respected. A few of them began to grin, their sharp teeth flashing in the dim light.
"But the law of your land remains," the Matriarch said, her laughter subsiding, her expression turning serious again. "You are betrothed to the little human princess. You cannot legally marry either of my daughters."
"We will use the same solution I proposed before," I said, pressing my advantage. "The 'Spirit-Pact.' But we will expand it. It will not just be a bond between me and Luna. It will be a three-way bond. A 'Pack-Pact.' Between me, Lyra, and Luna. A spiritual union that binds us as the leaders of our new, combined pack. In the eyes of your traditions, they will both be my mates. In the eyes of my kingdom's law, they will be my sworn, adopted sisters, my most trusted retainers, members of my noble house."
It was a perfect loophole. It gave the Matriarch the binding, familial tie she craved. It gave Lyra and Luna a position of immense honor and power within my own house, without the legal complications of marriage. And it kept my politically vital engagement to Seraphina intact.
Elizabeth, who had been watching this entire exchange with a look of horrified fascination, finally spoke. "It is... legally sound," she admitted, her voice faint. "Adoption into a noble house is a recognized legal precedent. It would make them officially 'Silversteins.' It would bind their fates to ours. It is... brilliant. And completely insane."
The Matriarch looked at her daughters. "The choice is yours," she said, her voice soft for the first time. "I will not force this upon you. Do you accept this... unconventional arrangement?"
Luna looked at me, her eyes shining with tears of pure, unadulterated happiness. She was not being forced into a political marriage she did not want. She was being offered a place of honor at my side, as family. She nodded, unable to speak.
Lyra looked at me, her arms still crossed, but her golden eyes were gleaming with a new, intense fire. I was not just a scrawny smooth-skin anymore. I was an alpha who had challenged her mother, the most powerful being she knew, and won. I was a leader who saw her not just as a bride, but as a weapon.
"To be the sword of a pack led by a cunning, powerful, and completely mad alpha?" she said with a slow, dangerous grin. "It sounds like a far more interesting life than ruling a frozen wasteland. Very well, little glitch. I accept. Let's see if you are worthy of wielding me."
The deal was struck. The unholy alliance was forged.
A cascade of notifications flooded my vision, my Harem System apparently having a complete and total meltdown.
[CRITICAL SYSTEM ERROR! ATTEMPTING TO PROCESS MULTIPLE, CONFLICTING 'WIFE' ENTRIES!][RECALIBRATING... HAREM SYSTEM UPGRADED TO 'PACK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM V.2.0.']
[New Pack Member Added: 'Lyra Silverwind (Pact-Sworn Sword)'][Relationship Level: 1 (Intrigued Rival)][Loyalty: 60/100][Notes: Subject's loyalty is conditional. She respects your power and cunning but is still assessing your worthiness as an alpha. She will challenge you. She will test you. Impress her, and her loyalty will be absolute. Disappoint her, and she will likely try to kill you in your sleep.]
[Pack Member 'Luna Silverwind' has been updated.][Status: 'Pact-Sworn Spirit Bride' -> 'Pact-Sworn Heart'][Notes: Her position as the emotional core and moral compass of the pack has been solidified. Her devotion is a stabilizing force for your own chaotic power.]
[Pack Member 'Elizabeth (Annulled Ally)' has been updated.][Loyalty: 50/100 -> 60/100][Status: 3 (Strategic Necessity) -> 4 (Intrigued Partner)][Notes: She is horrified by your reckless diplomacy but cannot deny its effectiveness. Your ability to turn an impossible situation into a political victory has rekindled her respect for your strategic mind. She has accepted her role as the 'Brain' of the pack but will fiercely compete with Lyra for the position of 'Alpha Female.']
I had not just averted a disaster. I had acquired a warrior princess, solidified the loyalty of my two closest companions, and forged a military alliance that would shake the foundations of the kingdom.
The Matriarch clapped her hands together, her face alight with triumph. "Excellent! Then it is settled! We will hold the ceremony tonight, under the light of the twin black suns! A true Fenrir bonding!"
She turned her attention to the whimpering, broken form of Gorgomoth, who was still lying on the floor. "As for you," she snarled, her good mood vanishing instantly. "You are a disgrace to demon-kind. You are not worthy of a warrior's death."
She looked at me. "He is yours, Lord Silverstein. A gift. Do with him as you will."
The future of the kingdom, the war with the demon general, the mystery of the collapsing simulation—all of it could wait.
Tonight, we had a ceremony to attend. A strange, chaotic, and dangerous wedding.
My wedding. To two people at once.
And as I looked at the three powerful, brilliant, and terrifyingly complex women who had now irrevocably tied their fates to mine, I had a feeling that the battles to come would be the easy part. The true challenge would be surviving my own pack.