It’s a lot of feelings, all at once. Too much. I need things I can control. “I finished the antivenom. I know how to make it stable now. We can ramp up production and ship it to the otherbiomes. End the problem for everyone.” I twist in my seat and meet his gaze head-on.
Rythar’s eyes narrow. “Problems never end. They could reverse-engineer the formula,” he says. “Make it themselves.”
“They could,” I agree. “Eventually, they’ll probably figure it out. But they’ll start with Xytheos tech.”
He nods, knowing that using Xytheos tech will instantly accelerate the venom beyond anything my antivenom can cure. He leans forward and pulls me to him.
I close my eyes, savoring the way his presence fills the space around me. The hum of the tech, the steady beat of his pulse, the way his body shields mine from the rest of the world.
I whisper, “Thank you.” I shudder against him, wanting to cry and not knowing why. I’ve spent weeks using Xytheos tech to analyze the antivenom, and there’s something I can’t get over.
He pulls back, studies my face. “What else troubles you?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
He growls softly. “Liar.”
A laugh escapes, shaky. “Fine. There’s one thing.” I glance down at my hands, flex them. “The venom. We know it was engineered. We know it was linked to New Terra. But the exact connection is bothering me. I assumed that somehow Hushbite venom was taken to Xytheos, but some things I’m seeing don’t click with that scenario.” I shake my head. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
He sets both hands on my shoulders, centers me. “We will find out. You will find out.”
I let my hands work. There are moments when all the old trauma threatens to bubble up—every time I lost someone in the plague, every wound that never knit right, every memory of running short on hope. I can’t let it in. Not now.
I stare at the sequence of the molecular code again, the way the strands spiral and dock.
There is something about the lines, the logic of the structure… something in them that makes my chest go hollow.
I freeze in place. The compiler’s display washes my face in blue light. My hands go cold.
Rythar is silent as a shadow. I turn to him. The words tumble out.
“The New Terran venom was based on a Xythean protocol. New Terra got its bioweapon from Xytheos. And it had to have happened within the last fifty years or so.”
He grunts. “That is not possible.”
I shove the readout at him. “Look. The alignment, the base pairs. The sequence doesn’t lie.”
He takes the display, studies it, then hands it back. “You think this was planted on your world.”
I nod. “Yes. It means that someone from Xytheos was involved in New Terra’s war.”
He considers this, eyes narrowing. “Who do you suspect?”
I don’t know. I know so little of Xytheos. “The High Lord has gotten two fertile human females out of this deal so far. Maybe him.”
Rythar folds his arms. “Biome rulers are not conquerors. We are custodians. And no world would risk losing fertile women to a bioweapon.”
“The New Terra Hushbite venom didn’t kill women,” I tell him. “Only men.”
“A clever weapon,” he grunts. “I assumed serpent-panther venom was deadly to anyone. It has killed females of various species.”
“Then it has been taken off Xytheos,” I say.
“The females killed were on Xytheos. They were not human. It was long ago. Perhaps a thousand years. When the venom first appeared. Females were scarce then—but not as scarce as they are now.”
“Maybe someone else did it. Someone from New Terra, or one of the other ships.”
He shrugs slowly. “Maybe. Maybe the venom had been on New Terra for a long time and was only discovered recently.”
