My filthy clothes dissolve into dust under a shimmer of blue light. My grandmother’s ring stays on my finger. A new outfit materializes from hidden compartments. It’s a soft, white dress that drapes around me.
My hair lifts in an invisible breeze. Warm air threads through it, washing out sweat and dirt. The faint hum of drying mechanisms threads the air, and then my hair falls around my shoulders in a clean, heavy sheet of black. Brushed, smoothed. Shining like obsidian under the lights.
When the mirror slides up from the wall, I freeze.
It’s me. But not the scraped, grimy, exhausted version I’ve been dragging through war and terror. My face looks rested. My skin looks alive again. My eyes are bright. Then the worry creeps back as I remember what this is for.
A faint chime sounds. A door panel nudges open.
The machine is shooing me out.
I step out into the clearing, feeling light, whole, almost unreal in the white drapes of fabric. We all look new—even if inside, we’re the same as we ever were.
Rythar sees me and stops breathing. It's only a split second before he turns and barks a command at his men. But I saw it. And he knows I saw it.
The "bridal spa" is swiftly removed, but more males step out of the jungle, carrying a massive object on a platform.
“What is that?” I ask, already dreading the answer.
Rythar doesn’t look away. He hasn’t looked away since I stepped out of the pod in my white dress.
“The Concord Stone,” Rythar says.
It’s taller than I am. Crystalline. It glows. First transparent, then ink-black, then a shifting shimmer that feels like beingstared at by something older than logic. It’s putting out an energy field that’s, well… alien. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it on New Terra.
My hands clench before I even know why. I want to understand it. Take it apart, rip the secrets out of its guts.
But mostly, I want to run.
CHAPTER 8
THE CONCORD STONE
ELENA – THE GREEN REACH
The clearing becomes a stage.Our stage. They line us up in two rows so we face the Concord Stone. We stare straight ahead. Twenty freshly clean human women dressed in flowing white, facing down a wall of alien males.
The clearing fills out with males who radiate different powers. Heat, storm, shadow, ice, and others. Wings take up space behind one bronzed warrior. They’re massive, black-feathered, and half-furled. A blue-skinned male with glowing markings watches us, his stare licking over every movement. Another leans in the shadows, relaxed, dangerous, violet eyes glinting. And standing apart from all of them is one in silver robes, posture straight as a blade, gaze so cold it chills the jungle.
Rythar stands at the head of the half-circle like a primitive god in alien battle armor. Still and centered, but coiled. There’s a leashed energy to him that wasn’t there before. Around him, the other warriors hold unnaturally still.
“The Concord Stone will adjudicate,” Rythar says, and lifts one arm as a summons.
Despite the scent of the calming sap, irritation prickles under my skin at Rythar’s announcement. Dutiful breeding assignments were a fact of life on New Terra. Awkward andinconvenient, but temporary. I shut my eyes tightly for a moment because I get the feeling this assignment isn’t going to be temporary. I scan the males again, wondering which one I’m going to be stuck with, and how I can get out of it.No forced mating, they said. But we’re gift-wrapped and on display for these hungry-eyed alien males.
Just give us the assignment already. Get it over with. Quit pretending we want any part of this.
For the first time, we meet a Xythean female. She exits a small pod, then stands near the stone, waiting solemnly. She’s heavily genetically modified, with three-fingered hands.
Maya’s name is called. She steps forward in a controlled way, looking so much braver than I feel.
The priestess places Maya’s hand on the Stone.
Light pours from the Stone. Holograms bloom in the air. Names and symbols in tangled threads that split and reform like the world’s cruelest family tree.
A voice recites: “Designation: Starfallen. Assignments proceeding.”
I don’t dare breathe. The lines stretch, fracture, reconnect, matching each woman to a ruler, a region, a bloodline. A fate.
