Chapter 11 #3
He didn’t finish.
Before we ran out of time. Before another piece of our constellation broke away. Before the distances between us grew too vast to bridge.
Z’fir’s vines brushed my cheek—cool and steady, grounding me when everything else felt like freefall. “We will reach for you through the bond. Every night. Every morning. As often as we can.”
“I know.” The words caught in my throat. “I know you will.”
But knowing didn’t make it easier.
Another fracture. Another absence that would ache like a wound ripped fresh each morning.
First Zirene. Then V’dim and Z’fir.
And soon—after them—I would leave as well, answering the CEG’s summons. I would face a galaxy that wanted me controlled or captured or dead, while the males who should have stood at my side spread out across the stars to hold the line elsewhere.
The cubs would lose their clanfather figures one by one. The constellation would stretch until the bonds strained at their limits. And I—
I would return and stay here. Growing heavier with Kaede’s daughter while the males I loved flew toward danger.
Helpless.
The thought burned through me, sharp and acidic.
I watched V’dim and Z’fir return to the pool, giving me space they knew I needed—the privacy to process, to grieve, to find the strength that felt so far from my grasp.
The cubs immediately demanded their attention, Meti asking pointed questions about where they’d been and why they looked so serious.
Watching them deflect—watching them pretend that nothing was wrong, that their family wasn’t about to shatter—made something crystallize in my chest.
No.
I was not helpless. I refused to be helpless.
There were things I couldn’t control. The war. The deployment orders. The political machinations of empires and councils and enemies who wanted me dead or captured or studied.
But there were things I could control.
My abilities. My readiness. My capacity to reach my mates across any distance.
The memory of Ryzen offering to teach me that night during the Harvest Festival. The lanterns had burned low, music softened by distance, as he showed me how to expand my range. Not by forcing it. By sharing it.
He’d woven his power with mine, threading his mind alongside my own—steady, controlled—until our combined reach stretched farther than mine ever could alone. I remembered the moment it happened, the quiet click of something aligning, and suddenly my awareness flowed outward on that shared current.
Xylo first—vast and patient, a living blanket of welcoming warmth. Then Odelm, warm and resonant, his presence humming like a melody carried on breath and memory. The connection had held only briefly, just long enough to prove it was possible.
Ryzen had let go gently after, careful not to overwhelm me. But the imprint remained. Proof that with the right bridge—trust, control, intention—I could reach my Favored across impossible distances with his help.
It had worked.
It could work again.
Farther. Stronger. Enough to hold my constellation together no matter how scattered we became.
I pushed myself up from the gazebo’s bench, ignoring the way my belly protested the sudden movement—a flutter of objection that I acknowledged with a gentle press of my palm before straightening fully.
Tori reached for me, concern flickering through her expression. “Selena—”
“I need to find Ryzen.”
She didn’t ask why. Didn’t try to stop me. Just nodded once, her bright green eyes holding understanding that went deeper than words.
She knew what it meant to feel powerless. And she knew what I was willing to do to change it.
Oeta’s fuchsia aura pulsed once—acknowledgment, perhaps. Or maybe approval. The Nyaviel valued mental strength above all else, saw it as the truest measure of a being’s worth. Seeking to improve mine aligned with everything her people believed.
I walked toward the villa, each step carrying me away from the peaceful pretense of the backyard and toward something harder. Something necessary.
Ryzen’s quarters were housed within my consort wing—the farthest rooms from the others by design, tucked deep into the eastern stretch of the villa.
They had their own private entrance that opened directly into my royal backyard, a deliberate buffer of space and silence between him and the rest of the household.
The distance wasn’t rejection. It was consideration. The quiet helped steady him, gave his powerful mind room to breathe without brushing too close to the others. Here, within the villa’s protection but removed from its constant pulse, he could exist without overwhelming—or being overwhelmed.
He’d explained it once, in his clipped way. The constant noise of other minds grated against him—emotions, thoughts, fears all bleeding through inadequate shields. Solitude was survival.
But he’d opened his door to me anyway. Let me in when my presence should have been another burden.
I wasn’t sure what that meant. Wasn’t ready to examine it too closely.
A single, expansive studio dressed in Aldawi colors: black stone floors veined with silver, panels of deep royal purple catching the light, everything arranged with deliberate restraint.
He sat near the center of the room.
His spirit daggers hovered around him, emerald-gemmed hilts glinting as they traced slow, meditative arcs through the air.
Seven blades, each moving with purpose that only he seemed to understand.
Not random. Never chaotic. They followed an internal rhythm, will-made weapons forged from intent rather than metal, as much a part of him as his emerald eyes or the sharp, unyielding lines of his face.
I slowed, letting the space—and him—settle around me, already bracing for the kind of conversation Ryzen never made easy.
I knocked on the doorframe, and his daggers stilled. His gaze found mine, and for a moment I saw it—the rawness beneath his control, the grief he never let anyone witness. The desperate hope that maybe, maybe, I was bringing news about his brother.
Then his walls slammed down, and he was simply Ryzen again. Cold. Precise. Impenetrable.
“Selena.” His voice carried no inflection. No welcome, but no rejection either. “You should be resting.”
“I should be ready.” I stepped into the room without waiting for invitation. “That’s what I came to discuss.”
His daggers resumed their orbit, but slower now. Watchful. Assessing.
“V’dim and Z’fir deploy in fifty-three hours,” I continued. “Soon it will be our turn—the CEG, our return, and everything that comes after.”
“I’m aware of the timeline.”
“Then you know I need to be prepared.” I moved closer, watching his daggers for any sign that I was overstepping.
They remained calm. Steady. Their patterns didn’t shift.
“During the Harvest Festival, you taught me to extend my mental range. You showed me how to reach my Primaries when the distance should have made it impossible.”
Something flickered through his expression—there and gone before I could name it. Memory, perhaps. Or anticipation of what I was about to ask.
“I remember.”
“I need more.” The words came out stronger than I felt—projected confidence I wasn’t sure I possessed. “I need to reach farther. Hold the bonds tighter. Keep my constellation connected no matter how scattered we become.”
His daggers paused their orbit. The silence that followed carried weight—calculation, consideration, the precise evaluation of cost and benefit that drove every decision Ryzen made.
“You understand what that training requires.” His voice carried an edge that might have been warning. “The exercises necessary to extend mental range... they deepen connection between teacher and student. They require intimacy of thought that cannot be undone.”
I met his gaze without flinching. “I understand.”
“Our bond would strengthen.” His jaw tightened, just slightly—the only sign of tension in his otherwise controlled form. “The thin thread between us now—it would grow into something more substantial. More permanent.”
I knew what he wasn’t saying.
The connection between us had always been different from my bonds with the other males. It had formed out of necessity during the crisis that had nearly shattered his mind after Xenak’s capture. I’d stabilized him. Saved him.
“I’m prepared to do whatever it takes.”
Ryzen studied me for a long moment, his emerald eyes searching for something I couldn’t identify. Whatever he found—doubt or determination, desperation or strength—it shifted something in him.
His daggers resumed their orbit. And I felt the change in him through our thin connection—the calculation giving way to something else. Something that approached acceptance.
“Dawn.” His voice was quiet now. “Training begins at dawn in your royal backyard.”
Relief flooded through me so sharply it threatened to buckle my knees.
“Thank you.”
His daggers settled into calm orbit, their patterns steady and purposeful. Through our thread—that thin connection I was asking him to strengthen—I felt his respect.
And something else.
Something neither of us would name.