I isolate his circulatory data, frown, then pull it apart layer by layer. The vessels aren’t just enlarged. They’re reinforced, working in a way I’ve only seen once before, in a classified fertility augment case that never made it past animal trials. There are secondary channels running in parallel to the primaries, ready to take over if one of the primaries collapses. Redundancy built in.
I swallow and keep going.
His liver is processing the venom faster than it should, enzymes flaring in waves rather than spiking and crashing. His kidneys are doing the same thing, cycling load between structures that don’t exist in the human body. Even his blood—there’s something wrong with it. The cells are larger, tougher, and the membranes are resistant to rupture. They’re dying, yes, but slower.
The only reason Rythar is alive is a combination of my base Hushbite antivenom and his freakishly overengineered physiology. My hands still as the implication settles in.
Whatever Xytheos calls him, a warlord, a protector, a stabilizer, he wasn’t just trained to endure. He wasbuiltfor it. Designed to stay on his feet long after pain should have taken him down. Designed to keep fighting when a normal body would have failed. Designed so that death has to work harder.
I look at him then, really look. My fingers hover over the scarred chest rising and falling under his shallow breaths. I trace one old mark, a pale ridge that runs along his ribs, wondering what blade made it, what enemy, what year.
His hand twitches beside mine. Not a tremor from the venom. Something else. His fingers curl, reaching, as though to close over mine.
I pull my hand back.
His hand stays there, open, waiting, fingers half-curled where mine had been.
Even half-dead, he knows where I am.
It all builds up to one thing?—
This isn’t a male who happens to be dangerous. He was made this way.
I move fast, dosing and scanning, tweaking the ratios as I see the numbers shift. I remember the rats in the tunnels, the way the venom moved through the blood, how only the tiniest change in pH could make the antivenom ineffective. I adjust and adjust again until the cocktail is stable. I inject him with a walloping dose of it, then follow it with more New Terran cellular repair. I’m not sure he needs the latter, with his physiology, but it hasn’t hurt him so far.
Rythar’s breathing evens out, but the fever still burns.
Ex O Drenz walks to the threshold and beckons me. I step outside with him.
He clears his throat, barely above a whisper. “He breathes.”
“Yes,” I say.
Drenz looks at me for a long moment. Then he gives me a full, formal bow. “No one survives the serpent-panther venom,” he says quietly. “Not in my lifetime. Not in the records.” He straightens. “I will remember what I watched you do. Rythar will remember.”
Something hot rises in my chest. I thought my training wouldn’t matter here. Now it saved a Warlord. SavedmyWarlord. “My antivenom is from New Terra. It shouldn’t have worked on Xytheos at all. On an alien,” I say carefully.
The Ex O looks away, then back at me. “It is a strange coincidence. Or someone violated the laws against contact with primitive human planetary breeding grounds,” he says.
I frown and fold my arms. “New Terra isn’t primitive human breeding grounds. We were an advanced civilization with space travel. And medicine that cures a venom when yours can’t.”
Drenz stiffens. “I realize that the word ‘primitive’ may have offended you. I apologize.”
I’m caught off guard by his swift apology. I straighten, arms to my sides, and the anger falls away. I search for the words, realizing that in a society full of male warriors, offending someone may be a more serious matter than I’m used to.
“Apology accepted, Ex O Drenz,” I say stiffly. “We didn’t really worry much about offending anyone on New Terra. We were too busy fighting to survive.”
Drenz gives one swift nod, and turns to leave.
“Wait,” I say quickly.
He stops immediately, but we stand there for an awkward moment while I consider what to say next.
“I’m not sure what you meant,” I admit. “And since you didn’t mean any offense, I would appreciate if you explain further. Why did you call us primitive human breeding grounds?”
He gives another nod, softer this time, careful. “The Astra Conventum forbids unpermitted contact with New Terra. If not for this protection, New Terra would have been taken over long ago. Many planets would have warred to take your resources. Natural and genetic.”
“No, that’s why we had a planetary defense system. Aliens couldn’t get past it,” I say.
