Transmigrated as the Cuck.... WTF!!!

"What if I refuse?"

I asked it just to feel the edges of her hunger. I had to know how far she would go, what she wanted in return, and whether whatever she wanted would cost me more than I was willing to spend.

She made a sound, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. Then she leaned forward, and for the first time her eyes sharpened into something that resembled calculation rather than amusement.

"I know," she said, slow and cruelly calm. "I can guess what is rattling around in that twisted mind of yours. And to your mindful question, yes. I have an ulterior motive for teaching you."

Okay. I had been right.

Hearing her say it out loud removed the last of the mystery. She was not playing coy. She was not hiding behind riddles. Whatever scheme lived in that head of hers, she was willing to name it.

"So what is it?" I asked. Calm on the surface, teeth braced under the words.

She did not look away. She held my gaze. "I wish to explore the fracture you stumbled through. Not merely to peek, but to live inside what you found. To walk its beginnings, to study creation when it was still raw."

There it was, blunt and obvious. She had used me as a probe, and not delicately. I had been her test subject, dropped into the long dark to see whether the crack in the sea was a harmless curiosity or a mouth that chewed. Similarly, the problem was what she wanted to do next. She wanted to move in.

"So where do I fit in?" I asked. Straight question, simpler than a trap. I wanted to know my role, my price.

She hummed, a sound of gears turning. "You do not yet see the correlation, but I will make one."

I felt my brows pull together. Skepticism sharpened the muscles in my face. Maybe she noticed, because she let a small, almost theatrical smile slip across her features.

"Ha," she said, as if the sound were a prop. "I do not like that expression on you, but I cannot punish you. You are useful. Hah, such a tragic life I have."

It was impossible not to roll my eyes. She staged pity and called it culture. Still, the smugness in her voice told me she already counted on me saying yes. She had placed her bet and she liked the odds.

"We are not getting anywhere with heavy speeches," I said, short and to the point. "Tell me plainly what you want in exchange. No riddles, no theatrics."

"Fine. Let me put this bluntly," Wannre said, folding her hands like a bored monarch. Her voice lost the teasing edge for a second and sharpened into something crisp. "I want to make you an executive member of the Aquis Vanlur council."

The words landed like a stone.

Executive member. The phrase carried weight—more weight than any compliment, threat, or casual insult she could have thrown at me.

From what I had picked up, mostly from eavesdropping on Luris and Muirs and the odd leak from Denus, the council of Aquis Vanlur was a layered machine. Top Management, Division Heads, Core Staff.

Each layer split into committees and subcommittees until the bureaucracy could choke a whale. Executive meant the roof, the inner ring, the people who moved things that moved everything else.

Wannre, as far as anyone dared speak, sat at the very top. She alone could scratch a rule into law and then erase it with a bored sigh.

So the offer should have been flattering. Instead it felt like someone had offered me the captain's hat on a ship I was pretty sure wanted to run me through with the tiller.

"Excuse me?" I said, because apparently the human reflex is to seek confirmation when your life flips into a new currency.

She smiled but she was smug in a way that implied she had already paid for half the ride. "Yes. Executive. I have the authority. No one will object. I can sign you in, grant privileges, issue directives. The usual parade of power."

That was the part that should have solved the question in my head. If she could make it official, if she could bend the council the way she bent lesser minds, then the barriers were irrelevant. The problem was not who could sign the paper. The problem was why she would sign it for me.

"Why me?" I cut in, leaning forward because the conversation had teeth and I wanted to see them. My tone was casual but edged with something colder than curiosity.

"You could pick any yellow-tailed noble. You could pick a scholar, a general, a pet octopus. Why gamble the legitimacy of your executive board on a human who can't even be read properly by your mind-scan?"

Her eyes flashed, and for a second she looked less like a million-year-old enigma and more like a student who had just been caught with a prank.

"Because you are unpredictable," she said. "Because you passed through a fracture I could not pierce. Because whatever you are, you are not the same as the rest of us, and that difference is useful."

Useful: a neat, antiseptic word. Useful did not mean noble. Useful did not mean safe. Useful implied experiment, variable, expendable if need be. My throat tightened in a half-laugh.

"You have circled around this answer the whole time," I said, pushing the irritation up so it sounded like interest. "You told me you wanted to live inside that fracture, to study it. Fine. That still leaves a gap. How does appointing me to your board help you crawl into a cosmic crack? Why not send your own agents? Why not glue eyes to the rift and call it research?"

She rested her chin on her hand, the picture of faux patience. "Because my eyes are the problem, and your presence is the experiment. I can issue orders. I can open doors. I cannot change how that fracture responds to merfolk blood, merfolk sight, merfolk intent. You are, bluntly, an instrument that responds differently. To put it simply, I want to use the power of governance to experiment on you, so in the near future. I would be able to go through the crack."

"So you want me in politics because you think politics gives you better access to the fracture." I let it out like a joke and then took it back. The room hummed. The fish outside the window paid no attention. "And if I refuse?"

She gave that small, deadly smile again. "Then I will find another key. I will always find a key. But I prefer one that knows how to say no and still stay useful."

I sat for a beat, tasting the offer. Executive rank, access, knowledge. Power was always promised as a tool. It always wound up being a leash. Still, leashes can be useful if you want to pull something heavy.

"All right," I said finally. "You want me inside the board. You want me to be your test subject. You get me access. You teach me to hold my element. But I get two things in return: I keep my freedom, and if your curiosity becomes a cage, I walk away and you do not follow."

Her laugh settled into the room, softer this time. "Deal," she said, and both of us knew deals made with merfolk rarely came with a receipt.