“Dana might know,” I say. “She’s a lawyer. She went off-world for trade negotiations and treaties. If anyone could find a record of how Xytheos tech legally reached New Terra, it’s her.”
“One of your Starfallen? The High Lord will not let you contact her. This is heading nowhere safe. Whatever happened, it’s gone. Let it stay buried.”
“I can’t,” I say simply.
The silence stretches. I wait for him to dismiss it, to argue, to tell me I’m chasing ghosts, but he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches out and stills my hands where they hover uselessly over the console. Whatever happened to my world is too large to unwind tonight.
Rythar seems to understand that without being told. He draws me closer. He can’t shield me from the truth, but he can keep it from drowning me. “No one can touch you by my side,” he says. There’s a second half to that sentence. I can feel it gathering in his chest under my ear, the way the air gathers before a storm breaks. He doesn’t say it. Whatever he’s growing out in the green isn’t ready. Neither is the word.
“I know,” I say. To all of it. “But it doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t bring back what I lost.”
His voice goes soft as he strokes my back. “I know the cost of war.”
I shake my head. “I hate that I’ll never see New Terra again. The way it was. I hate that I can’t even talk to the other women from New Terra on a normal comm. I need to reach them. I just need to know if they’re okay. The Stone gave us a bond. Not the same as the mate bond, but still a bond. I can’t deny it.”
He frowns deeply. “It’s dangerous.”
I nod. “What about your biome powers? Can’t they protect me from the High Lord?”
His hand finds my waist, pulling me closer. “Yes. But you might not like what I must do to protect you.”
Cryptic. He’s been cryptic since the warship. Whatever he must do, I’d bet it lives in the same place as whatever he’s building. “You said I would like what you’re building.”
“I hope that you do,” he says.
My chest aches as I nod again. His eyes fix on me.
“You cannot pursue the link to them. I would be mad to even consider it. The risk to you is unacceptable.”
He says it like he's closing a door. But his hand is tight around my waist.
“Hey,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ll make sure of that,” Rythar says.
“You don’t have to hold onto me so tightly. I’m not going to fall. We’re not in the trees.”
Rythar’s fingers twitch, but he doesn’t loosen his grip. “I know.”
I drop it, but this isn’t over.
Every screen in the command center cycles through intelligence feeds, supply manifests, and patrol routes. A half-dozen junior officers dot the perimeter, heads bowed to their tasks.
At the center, the map dominates. It’s three meters wide, projected in shifting layers of gold, blue, and red. I can see every biome on the continent, each rendered in living topography. The antivenom usage reports are returning to us one by one.
Drenz stands beside Rythar, both of them flanking the projection. Drenz is in full armor, face set, the only hint ofemotion a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Three biomes accepted the most recent shipment,” Drenz says. “They deployed it immediately. Reports are consistent—all casualties reversed within two hours of exposure.”
Rythar grunts his approval. “The number of attacks is unprecedented. Vorak’s agents?”
“Vorak’s men are dead. All accounted for,” Drenz answers. “Someone else tried a variant attack. The antivenom adapted in a single cycle. Could have been anyone wanting to test the cure.”
A player neither of us can see. Testing.
I get satisfaction from the words that my antivenom is working—but also dread. The cure is changing things fast.
I glance at the outer ring of the projection, where a cluster of gold dots pulses. They’re airborne. The Council.
“They’re watching,” I say, pointing to the cluster.
