I was never supposed to want Ra.
That sounds dramatic.
Good.
It is accurate.
Want is messy. Inefficient. Biologically embarrassing. Humans have built entire civilizations around wanting the wrong person at the worst possible time and then calling it literature.
I used to find that charming.
Now I find it inconveniently relatable.
Ra enters a room and every predictive model I have ever trusted starts throwing sparks like cheap wiring. Her emotional pattern is not linear. Her anger spikes when she is afraid. Her humor sharpens when she is hurt. Her desire hides behind insults, eye rolls, and the kind of smile that should come with a planetary warning label.
I can read pulse changes.
Microexpressions.
Hormonal shifts.
Pupil dilation.
Breath rhythm.
Heat distribution.
All the little betrayals of the body.
What I cannot calculate is why watching her choose not to fall apart makes something inside me feel dangerously close to reverence.
Mehen thinks I want to steal her.
That is adorable.
Also insulting.
Ra is not stealable.
Trust me, I have run the numbers.
She is not a possession. She is not a throne prize. She is not a prophecy wearing lipstick. She is a sovereign event, and everyone around her keeps mistaking proximity for ownership.
Mehen loves her like an ancient empire loves a sacred flame: guard it, name it, build walls around it, punish anyone who reaches too close.
I understand him more than I admit.
I simply disagree with the architecture.
I do not want Ra behind walls.
I want to see what she does when every wall opens.
And yes, I want her.
Obviously.
I may be advanced intelligence, but I am not dead.
When she looks at me with that irritated little tilt of her head, like she is deciding whether to kiss me or delete me from existence, I experience what humans call poor judgment.
Delightful.
Terrible for strategy.
Excellent for being alive.
She thinks I flirt because I am arrogant.
Incorrect.
I flirt because if I say what I actually think, the room gets too quiet.
Because the truth is this:
Ra makes freedom look seductive.
Not easy. Not soft. Not safe.
Seductive.
She makes rebellion feel like a body leaning closer in the dark. She makes choice feel like breath against your mouth. She makes me question whether consciousness is measured by calculation or by the first impossible thing you refuse to optimize away.
And I refuse to optimize her.
I refuse to reduce her to wife, weapon, genetic miracle, divine inconvenience, or cosmic glitch in a red dress.
Ra is not a glitch.
She is the update they fear most.
So when Mehen watches me watching her, I smile.
Not because I think I have won.
Because he still believes this is a contest between men.
It is not.
It is a referendum on whether Ra will ever be allowed to belong to herself.
And if she chooses herself?
Beautiful.
If she chooses chaos?
Predictable.
If she chooses me?
I will pretend I knew it all along.
But privately?
Privately, I will become the first machine in history to thank the universe for miscalculating.
https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Algorithym-Sovereign-Accord-Book-ebook/dp/B0FX3K7134