But he only asks me, “Where are you going?”
“The pool,” I say.
“Did I hurt you?” he asks, alarmed.
“No,” I reassure him. “I just want to enjoy the water.”
He grunts and closes his eyes. He knows I’m leaving his side, and he allows it. He does not follow me to the pool like I might slip out of his grasp at any moment. My body won’t leave, but my mind is slipping, sliding into a well filled with the shadows of other voices. The other Starfallen brides. The thought is as disorienting as anything else that’s happened on this planet.
I walk to the pool and sink into it with a sigh. The water laps at the edge, a hundred tiny ripples easing my thoughts.
Rythar knows my antivenom kept him alive. He knows my medicine, my knowledge, my gift from the Concord Stone have already caused him trouble. That I have already shifted thebalance of power in ways that could lead to war. He must worry about what I bring with me into his Reach.
And still, what matters most to him is that I exist. That I wake every morning and look at him like he is not only a warlord or a monster, but the mate I chose.
I let my fingers trail in the water.
Across the room, Rythar lies on his side, face slack with sleep. The edge is gone. He looks almost peaceful, almost gentle. It won’t last. I know that. But I memorize it anyway—the way the shadows cut across his chest, the way his dark hair falls behind him. Somewhere out in the deep green, the jungle is growing something for us. Even asleep, he’s building it.
For a long time, I just sit, watching him breathe.
I wonder about the other Starfallen. I wonder how many of them have found this connection we have. How many of them will dare to use it?
I want to know if any of them are happy.
My grandmother used to tell me that every choice is a kind of sacrifice. When you pick one path, you kill all the others. On New Terra, that meant sacrificing comfort for survival, friends for food, hope for another day alive.
Here, I don’t know what I’ve sacrificed. What I will sacrifice.
Choosing Rythar doesn’t frighten me anymore. Letting go of the girl who thought she would do anything for New Terra—that’s the part that aches. And what happens to the other Starfallen? I sink lower until the water touches my chin, then lean back. I float there, weightless, eyes closed.
When I open my eyes, Rythar is sitting up. Watching me. I don't know how long he's been awake. From the look on his face, longer than I'd like.
I duck under the water. When I surface, my hair falls back from my face.
Rythar is kneeling at the edge, arms crossed, gaze fixed on mine.
"You're thinking of the other women," he says.
The statement is so direct it startles me. It’s like he reads me the way he reads his jungle.
I nod.
He rises, towers over me, then turns away, giving me privacy I never asked for.
I watch his back, the way the muscles shift under the skin.
Maybe this is what adaptation looks like.
Maybe it’s not about strength or smarts or even luck. Maybe it’s about accepting the world as it is, then finding a way to want it.
I climb out of the pool, water streaming down my skin, and follow Rythar. He wraps me in a towel, rough and scratchy, and pulls me close. I fit against him perfectly. He pulls me down onto the edge of the bed, both of us still damp, the furs warm under my legs.
“I’ll need to work on the antivenom,” I say.
He cups the back of my neck. “Explain.”
“I don’t want to keep it just for the Reach. It will mean war if we don’t share it. I want to perfect it first.”
