He stands and offers his hand.
“Walk with me,” he says.
I hesitate, frowning as I look at his hand. The last time I took his hand, it ended in a fight.
He reads the pause, and for the first time, I see something like irritation on his face. “I thought closeness was expected by wives.”
“Wife?” I repeat, tasting it like something untested. He said that before, but it’s only catching up to me now.
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “You are my wife.”
I push myself up on one elbow as the sheet slips down my side. “You say that like it’s all settled.”
He turns fully toward me now, brows knitting. “It is. It names your place. My place. Our place together.”
“I don’t think I’m yourwife. The translator is wrong.”
“A wife is a wife. It is not a mistake.”
“That’s not how it works where I come from,” I snap. “You don’t name something and expect it to suddenly mean the same thing to everyone.”
His jaw tightens. “On Xytheos, a wife is a wife.”
“Well, on New Terra, words like that were just labels,” I say. “Administrative. They didn’t come with promises. They didn’t come with… expectations.” I hesitate, then add, sharper, “They didn’t come withownership.”
His eyes darken. “You believe being my wife makes you owned.”
“I believe you think it explains everything,” I fire back. “And it doesn’t. Not to me.”
He studies me for a long moment, like he’s deciding whether to correct me—or challenge me. “You must leave your New Terran ways behind. They will not serve you on Xytheos.”
Heat flares in my chest. “My world taught me how to survive.”
Silence stretches between us, taut as a drawn wire.
Finally, he says, "And Xytheos taught me that survival is not the same as living." He pauses. "I was built for survival. I chose living."
“Well, maybe survival is a small thing to you, but I’ve had to do a lot of things to survive, even when they didn’t feel likeliving,” I snap.
His gaze sharpens. “I know what it costs to survive,” he says. “I have done it by degrees, long before venom ever touched my blood. I did not mistake any of that for living.”
Rythar is right. I know it. He took that wound for me. If he’d died, would the Reach have collapsed into bloodshed and chaos? I would have caused it.
I stare at his hand, wary. But I don’t want to continue this fight, so I put my palm in his.
It pleases him. His fingers close around mine. He pulls me to my feet. His touch lingers—thumb stroking the back of my hand.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
He motions toward the door. “You wish to see the jungle from above. I will show you.”
My stomach flips. “I didn’t say I wanted to?—”
“You looked,” he interrupts. “On the rooftop. When you thought I was not watching. You looked a long time.”
I open my mouth to deny it. Nothing comes out.
He didn’t have to do this. Of all the things he could have shown me, he chose the view. Open, lush jungle, so different from anything on New Terra.
