Xylo hadn’t stopped moving since.
The medical wing hummed with activity—sterilizers cycling, supply crates stacked against walls, hovercarts loaded with trauma kits and regenerative compounds. His hands cataloged inventory without conscious thought: bone-knit gel, neural stabilizers, the rare Circuli bloodwort that accelerated tissue regrowth. Thankfully, their medical greenhouse had paid off, but unfortunately for a time like this.
There was enough for a fleet. Enough for a war.
Not enough for the dread settling in his chest.
He sealed another crate. Checked the manifest. Moved to the next station. His body operated on its own rhythm while his mind drifted along the thread that connected him to his nestqueen—faint at this distance, but growing stronger with each passing hour.
She was coming home.
And darkness followed behind her.
Xylo paused, one hand braced on a storage shelf, and let his awareness sink deeper into their bond. The connection shimmered at the edge of his consciousness—teal threaded through gold, his color woven into her radiant web.
Exhaustion clung to her like a second skin. Emotional depletion that ran bone-deep. Something had happened on theShadowClaw—something that had cost her, though she’d hidden the price behind her mental shields.
His jaw tightened. He couldn’t heal what she wouldn’t show him.
The pregnancy progressed normally—that much, at least, he could verify. From the records he’d been sent since she’d been gone, he knew that Kaede’s daughter grew steadily.
Xylo returned to his inventory, hands moving through muscle memory while calculations ran beneath the surface. Triage protocols for mass casualties. Evacuation procedures for the vulnerable. The medicinal compounds that would be hardest to synthesize if supply lines fractured.
A healer planned for pain. It was the only way to minimize it.
“You’ll wear a groove in that floor if you pace any faster.”
Odelm’s voice carried from the doorway, warm despite the worry threaded through it. Xylo glanced up to find his bondbrother leaning against the frame, arms crossed, watching him with knowing eyes.
“I’m not pacing. I’m organizing.”
“You’ve organized that same shelf three times in the last hour.” Odelm pushed off the doorframe and crossed to him, movements unhurried. His empathic presence brushed against Xylo’s shields—gentle, inquiring, the way an Ulax checked on a friend without demanding entry. “They’re landing.”
Xylo’s hands stilled on the crate.
“Now?”
“TheShadowClawentered the atmosphere moments ago.” Odelm’s hand settled on his shoulder, firm and grounding. “She needs her Primary present, not buried in supplies.”
Xylo’s gaze swept the medical wing—the organized chaos, the careful preparations, all the ways he’d tried to feel useful while she flew toward him through the void. None of it would matter if she arrived and he wasn’t there to welcome her home.
He placed down his vidtablet and followed his bondbrother out.
The corridors of the Destima villa blurred past as they walked, but Xylo felt the weight of each step. Sunlight slanted through the windows, warm and golden, painting familiar walls in shades that should have felt like comfort. The scent of blooming vines drifted from the gardens. Somewhere in the distance, the pool’s waterfall murmured its endless song.
Home.
“Have you eaten today?” Odelm asked, breaking through his thoughts.
Xylo considered lying. Decided against it. “I’ll eat when she does.”
His bondbrother sighed but didn’t push. They understood each other, the two of them—the Favored who’d stayed behind while their nestqueen traveled, who’d spent sleepless nights reaching across vast distances just to feel the pulse of her presence. The waiting had carved something hollow in both of them.
Soon, that hollow would fill.
And then empty again when the constellation fractured.
“Zirene leaves at dawn,” Xylo said quietly. Not a question.
