My Femboy System

I woke up with the kind of headache that made me think someone had slipped a cathedral bell inside my skull and then rung it for fun.

My first instinct was to groan, but that would have required breath, and breath was a scarce commodity when Hollow was plastered against my side like a man auditioning for the role of "human scarf."

His arm was draped across my waist, his leg tangled over mine, and his forehead pressed against my temple in that infuriatingly affectionate way that suggested he’d been in this position for hours. Worse still, he was cooing—a soft, rhythmic little hum that tickled my ear and made my skin crawl in that half-amused, half-horrified way you get when someone is trying to pet you like a beloved housecat.

I tried shifting away, but Hollow had that unconscious grip strength unique to sleeping men and dying sailors clinging to bits of wreckage. All I managed was to tilt my head a few inches toward the edge of the pillow before the bell in my skull rang again, reminding me that I’d barely slept in the first place.

And of course, I knew why I hadn’t slept. It had started again. The woman. The one who began appearing in my mind after I touched the cube in the secret chamber—the little psychic souvenir I hadn’t exactly asked for but was too tempted to peel myself away from.

The first few times she’d been a vague silhouette, like my brain was struggling to load a portrait in bad lighting. But now... now she was clearer. Her cheeks had color, flushed with some emotion I couldn’t quite place—shyness, maybe, or fever. The folds of her clothing were visible now, the fabric draping in soft, deliberate lines that whispered wealth. Her hair—gods, her hair—was long and silken, snowy white but with that odd strip of green tucked deep within the mass, like some secret she didn’t mean for anyone to find.

It was messy, but not in the accidental way. More... artfully disheveled, like she’d spent an hour making it look like she’d just rolled out of bed. She kept trying to whisper things to me, her lips moving with intent, but in the hazy fog of my not-quite-sleep, I couldn’t catch a single word. Just the shape of her mouth, the promise of sound. Maddening.

I told myself it was nothing. I told myself that more than once, actually, because saying it out loud in my head somehow made it more believable. She was just another trick of the mind. A figment. Something my subconscious had cobbled together out of scraps of faces I’d seen before. I refused to let it get under my skin. Instead, I untangled myself from Hollow with the slow precision of a man defusing an explosive, rolled out of bed, and made for the mirror propped against the far wall.

My reflection looked like it had been through three nights of bad decisions and one very long fall. Pale skin, dark circles, hair that was less "artfully disheveled" and more "cursed by an ill-tempered wind spirit." Still, a smile tugged at my lips. It was time. Time to set the plan into motion.

I placed my fingertips lightly against the frame, closed my eyes, and activated Divine Femmeform.

The shift was... intoxicating. The way the magic curled through my veins, rewriting lines and angles, redrawing me in a softer, sharper script. Shoulders narrowing, waist tapering, features smoothing into that perfectly calculated mask.

When I opened my eyes again, Cecil Valen was gone. In his place stood, Callie, the figure who had infiltrated the church and turned the selection of the new high priest into a memorable evening of chaos. Long lashes, a sly curve to the lips, a body honed for elegance and distraction both.