24. Mistakes and Consequences
MISTAKES AND CONSEQUENCES
ELENA – RYTHAR’S FORTRESS IN THE GREEN REACH
There’s a space in my mind reserved for lurking threats. Now Vorak lives there. He runs Reach’s End and was gifted a Starfallen bride. He might not take this head-on, but he’ll work at it another way.
Rythar walks with me through the halls, always staying close. I still haven’t explored much of the fortress, but when I drift toward some corridors, his hand brushes my elbow—barely there, just enough to turn me. I don’t push it. Not now. Not when I know Rythar is expecting something.
We’re heading to breakfast. We’ve outgrown eating in the room, and the rooftop is “not private enough,” according to Rythar.
He doesn’t elaborate.
The route he chooses is longer than necessary, winding into older corridors—narrower, cooler, the air holding a processed, filtered scent that usually gets overwhelmed by the natural scent of the jungle elsewhere.
The corridor opens into a small chamber cut deep into stone.
“This was part of the original headquarters,” Rythar says, almost to himself. His eyes assess it like he hasn’t been here in a long while.
The room feels settled. Comfortably broken in. A stone table sits at the center, its surface worn smooth from use. Only two chairs. Two places are set. Food waits in shallow dishes, steam lifting in thin threads.
“How do things like this get here so fast? Just on time?” I ask.
Rythar pulls a chair out for me, then takes the seat opposite, his eyes angled toward the entrance. Only then does he lean back, one arm resting along the stone.
He raises an eyebrow. “Things like what?”
I gesture to the steaming food. “Like this? Like the fresh towels. Fresh clothes. I’ve seen people bring food into your quarters, a few other places. But most of the time things are magically waiting for you. How do they do this without being seen? Hidden passageways?”
Rythar stares at me for a moment. “Some. But things like food and cleaning are automated. It has been this way for a long time. We do not have many suited to service of that kind.” He grins at me, showing his perfect white teeth and inhumanly long canines. “No women.”
A smile tugs at my lips before I can stop it. He rarely grins, and when he does, I know he’s up to something. “I’ve seen lots of men cook and clean,” I say primly.
He lowers his chin. “And do you think I should cook and clean?”
“Can you?” I ask.
“Would it impress you if I did?”
My smile breaks into a small laugh.
He watches my mouth as it does. For a heartbeat, he looks almost unguarded. Then something shutters behind his eyes. “I have left many matters to Drenz,” he says. “But some things do not wait.”
“Vorak,” I say, guessing what he’s referring to.
He takes a drink. Swallows. “Yes,” he says darkly.
I break off a piece of bread. The crust flakes onto the plate. “People like him don’t let go.”
“No.”
“You know more than you’re telling me,” I say softly. I’m useless cooped up inside this fortress. I can’t do anything to help anyone.
His gaze drops to where my fingers brace against the table’s edge. “I would prefer you not be involved,” Rythar says in a firm voice.
I look up. “That stopped being an option when I crashed on your planet.”
Rythar’s expression tightens. He exhales through his nose once, slowly, then nods. “Yes,” he says. “But I can reduce your exposure.”
“I can’t stay hidden forever,” I say.
“You are not hidden,” he replies. “You are kept out of reach. Every male on Xytheos knows where you are. Where every Starfallen Bride has ever been placed. And I do not want them taking a special interest in you. No more than they already have.”
My hands shake when I reach for the food again. I rest my wrists on the edge of the table and focus on tearing the bread apart.
Rythar’s chair scrapes softly as he leans forward. He reaches across the table and closes his hands over mine.
“Whatever comes,” he says quietly, “will have to come through me first.”
“So I sit here with nothing to do but worry.”
“No.” He releases my hands and gestures toward the far wall.
A seam in the stone catches the light, just visible if you know where to look.
“I did not bring you here only to eat. I have a gift for you. I have prepared an engineering room,” he says.
“It is private to you.” He pauses for a moment.
“You may dismantle whatever you wish. Build what you can. No one but you and I may enter this room. Nothing leaves the room unless I approve it.”
He watches my face closely, brow lowered.
When I smile, the tension in his expression drains. He’s pleased that I like his gift. It’s the happiest I’ve seen him since before Vorak visited.
I squeeze his hands tightly, because he sees me. “Now I know why you grinned. You had this surprise planned. Of course I love it.”
“My Elena,” he says softly. “I know it makes you happy to use your skills. And you bring invention to Xytheos. That’s something we have not had in a long time. We left everything to the Concord Stone, long ago. We must be cautious with anything new.”
“I want to see it,” I say. “I can’t wait.”
Rythar straightens and picks up a piece of protein. The corner of his mouth lifts again. “Food first. There is time.”
After breakfast, he shows me the room. It’s larger than the makeshift spaces I worked in on New Terra, filled with work surfaces and lined with shelves scattered with half-assembled circuits, raw mineral cores, and very finely calibrated tools, among other supplies.
He’s had my medical tinkering supplies moved down here, too, relocated from our quarters.
He leaves me with a kiss and my new distractions. I lose myself there for hours, taking things apart just to see how they were made. The door is always guarded, and the guards carefully avoid looking inside the room.
Rythar returns for meals. He doesn’t ask what I’ve built.
He only watches. At night, he brings me to bed.
Whatever waits outside our quarters doesn’t follow him there.
He leaves it waiting. He takes his time exploring our physical relationship, like he’s building the new version of us—the version that moves as one.
This is what he wants now. Slow undressing.
Lingering touches. Careful attention to what works and what doesn’t.
Each night follows a quiet rhythm. Skin against skin.
The low hum of connection settling deeper without the Stone's help. The world narrows to breath and heat and the familiar press of him anchoring me in place. Sometimes he shifts the angle, sometimes he stills me with a hand or a look, until we are perfectly aligned. It’s about staying here, together, while something unspoken gathers beyond the walls.
When it ends, it never ends. We stay tangled, skin slick, breath slowing. He doesn’t pull away afterwards. His weight remains my anchor until the tension in my body eases and my thoughts finally loosen their grip.
Outside, the fortress stays restless.
A few days later, I am on the rooftop testing a solar-powered device when a patrol returns at a dead run. Two warriors flank a third who’s barely upright, one arm across each of their shoulders, legs dragging, head lolling. They cut straight through the main gate.
The fallen warrior is fit and muscular, even by Xythean standards, but he’s limp, breathing in ragged, wet bursts.
His skin has gone sickly gray, striped with bands of purple-black that crawl up from a bite on the inside of his thigh.
I don’t need a med scan to know what it is.
Serpent-panther bite. The venom has almost killed him.
From the rooftop with me, Drenz barks an order at the warriors who carried him in.
I bolt for my medkit.
"Elena." Drenz is behind me even as I race for the medkit. "Do not do what I think you're about to do."
"He's dying, Drenz," I say as I grab my medkit. I’ll never outrun Drenz.
"I can see that he's dying.” Drenz blocks my path.
"Then move." He doesn't move. He also doesn't grab me as I dart around him, which is what Rythar would have done. Instead, he keeps pace beside me until we reach the fallen warrior.
I drop to my knees beside the warrior and crack open the medkit.
Drenz crouches across from me. He’s angled to block the view of anyone outside the courtyard. "Rythar gave you specific orders," Drenz says, low enough that only I can hear.
"Rythar isn't here."
"That is why I'm reminding you of his orders," Drenz says. The words are loaded.
I shove the antivenom into the warrior's thigh and follow it with cellular repair.
Drenz watches my hands, but he doesn't try to stop them.
The bite is already necrotic, veins black and pulsing, the tissue around it dead. The warrior’s eyes are rolled back. His chest is still moving. Barely.
The venom is strong, but my formula works.
Not the one I built for Rythar—that one rode on a biome lord’s engineered redundancies.
This is the general batch I’ve been stabilizing in the engineering room for days.
I built it for common Xythean warriors. And, with Xythean analytics, I made some careful improvements to my New Terran cellular repair formula. Now I find out if it works.
It works almost too well. Slowly, the purple-black bands fade, then recede.
The fallen warrior’s breathing steadies.
His pulse returns to something closer to normal.
After a few minutes, he’s not just alive—he’s conscious.
He’s confused, but he’s alive. I was hoping I could get him inside before he healed. Now everyone will have seen.
I wipe my hands on my tunic and stand up. Drenz stands with me.
Despite Drenz’s large body blocking the view, the warriors are staring at me like I just walked through a wall.
The med-tech's hands are shaking. "He should be dead," he whispers.
Drenz’s expression is wiped clean, but his eyes flick from the medic to me. "You are aware," Drenz says to me, "that I am going to have to explain this to Rythar."
"Tell him you tried to stop me."
"Did I try to stop you?"