“So do you,” I whisper back, and our laughter comes out in identical little gasps, momentarily soothing the tension. Neither of us have had much of a chance to clean up.
“Should we talk in our minds? This room must have surveillance.” Sophia frowns.
I shake my head. “Have you seen the way the High Lord looks at us? He can hear something. Maybe everything when he’s nearby. It’s better if we just talk.”
Now that we can talk, a minute passes with neither of us saying anything. The silence is almost a relief. More like the quiet before a deployment. There’s a comfort in being with someone from New Terra that I don’t get anywhere else. But with it comes the sense that we’ve got a job to do.
Finally, Sophia asks hesitantly, “Do you accept being mated to an alien warlord? Are you okay with it? Because if you say so,I will go down fighting with you. I don’t care if they’re listening right now, either. I fought like a wildcat when Vorak grabbed me. I got away. I hid until the Council found me. I was ready to fight them, too, until I realized Vorak was dead.”
“How did you survive in the jungle?” I ask, shocked. “There are dangerous things everywhere!”
Sophia gives me a wry smile. “Vorak left projectile weapons everywhere. I grabbed one, shot a bunch of them, and ran. They have all these catwalks and rope bridges in that territory. Once I got high up into the trees and found a defensible position near some fruit, I was set.”
I think about how I clung to Rythar when he brought me up into the catwalks. I love this about Sophia—that she could make a run for it. “I ran for it, but I grabbed my medkit instead of a weapon,” I say sheepishly. “Weren’t you terrified?”
“I was a lot more terrified of staying in there with Vorak. And I sure could have used a medkit while I was hiding.” Sophia waves her bruised knuckles. “Tell me, Elena. Are you really ok with Rythar?” Sophia asks.
My thoughts race as I recall my experiences with Rythar. “Rythar is…not like that," I explain softly. "He’s never hurt me. He’s…I can’t explain the mate bond. I rejected it at first. I guess you did, too, with Vorak. But then, Rythar won me over, and it came back. I want to stay with him. We talk, and he has me working on things. I made an antivenom, which kind of kicked off some of this trouble.”
Sophia’s eyebrows raise. “Yeah, I gleaned something about that from your conversation with Mr. High and Might Lord out there. Guess you really pissed them off. But Rythar is letting you work on stuff? These guys seem pretty stuck in their ways. And they think we’re idiots.”
“He even gave me a special room for tinkering. I don’t think these guys have come up with anything new in a long time.Their tech is amazing, though—just stagnant. Figuring out the engineering behind the Xytheos technology is going to keep me busy for a long time.”
“So you like Rythar? You’re happy?” Sophia presses.
“It’s complicated between Rythar and me. But it’s real. And mating is…well, really good with him.” I feel the heat rise in my cheeks. “He doesn’t rush through it here. It’s not anything like reproduction duty. I even kind of feel like you’re missing out if you don’t have your own mate.”
Sophia wrinkles her nose in distaste. “I’d rather be a courtwife.”
“Are you sure?” I ask her gently. “Rythar says we’ll live a long time. Hundreds of years, maybe a thousand. More. The Concord Stone changed us. That’s a long time to be alone.”
She snorts. “Elena. I didn’t do anything extra to try for a baby on New Terra.” She rolls her eyes. “I did my assigned duty. No more. I would have found a way to get out of it if the population numbers weren’t so bad.”
“You don’t like men?” I ask her.
“It’s not that I like women, either,” Sophia says. “I just find the whole thing annoying. Men are annoying. I don’t ever want to do a fertility rotation again.” She rolls her eyes.
“And you don’t have to,” I tell her, squeezing her hand once, quick and hard. “Rythar offered me the option to procreate without intercourse, so I know they can do it here. They can use laboratory methods.”
She nods. “I gathered that’s what a courtwife does.”
I lean closer, dropping my voice to a murmur. “It might not be that easy a job. I think there was a courtwife that greeted us when we landed. There might be more things he wants you to do. And you’ll be in the High Lord’s territory. He’ll be able to spy on you.”
Sophia’s eyes flick around the room, then back to me before she answers. “I have eyes and ears, too, Elena. I’ll try to see Maya. I could already tell when she’s scared or angry…or?—”
She breaks off abruptly, but I understand. It’s like how I felt Sophia in my mind. Maybe more.
“Yeah,” I say, empathizing. “Things will be?—”
She cuts me off with a knowing look. “Very complicated. Dana’s in some kind of trouble. I feel her sometimes, too. Just beyond a line in my head. Do you?”
I shake my head. “Kind of. The clearest time was here, with you. And this was the first time I could really hear your thoughts, too. I think you can do this better than I can.”
She glances at the guards and then at the High Lord, whose attention is now very much focused on us. “He knows right now," she breathes. "Or suspects." Her voice grows firmer as she adds, "We have to assume everything we do is monitored. Even messages in our heads.”
Rythar is watching us watch the High Lord. He begins arguing with the High Lord, the two of them going back and forth. Irritation flashes across the High Lord’s face. Rythar is more talkative than he usually is, and for a moment I wonder what he could be arguing about. Then I realize he may be distracting the High Lord from watching us. Giving us privacy.
“Talk now while they’re arguing. It’s more than just technology, and more than just the High Lord,” I warn Sophia in hushed tones. “They have biome powers. Like magic, but they’re made for it. Rythar controls the jungle." A shiver runs down my spine as I add, "We don’t know what the High Lord can do. He knows things. Maybe he has the same connection we do…if he wants. But I bet he can do other things.”
