35. Choices
CHOICES
ELENA – RYTHAR’S FORTRESS IN THE GREEN REACH
We sleep in the mating chamber.
I lie still and watch the lighting shift around me.
It responds to my awareness. It never used to.
The light traces gentle waves across the smoothed stone walls.
I feel the heat of Rythar’s body like an entire continent of male, curled around my back, one arm anchored over my hip, the other thrown wide.
My wounds are gone. The mating chamber pool erased every bruise, every cut, every ache. I could almost pretend the last couple of days didn’t happen, if not for the pulse of the mate bond humming under my skin, a call in my chest that refuses to quiet.
I’m safe, but only for the moment. Nowhere on Xytheos is safe unless Rythar is within arm’s reach.
He’s asleep, but hardly defenseless. Even at rest, his hand is a clamp across my belly, his breath warm and steady in my hair. When I shift, he tightens his grip. Possessive. A living manacle, if ever there was one.
I used to ask myself if I should be angry. If I should rail against the inevitability of it. I don’t ask anymore. I wondered once whether he would see what I’ve become as a complication or a threat. He sees me as both. And still he wants me. Still he protects me.
The bride mark the Concord Stone set into my finger glows, even now, a line of light under the surface, a reminder that I am claimed. A reminder that I embraced Rythar as my mate.
I turn onto my back, careful not to wake him, and think of the other women from New Terra, the ones I haven’t seen since the claiming.
I want to reach out to them. The connection is there, and sometimes I can feel it, but it’s not safe to use it.
The longer I lie here, the less clear it gets. The mate bond is stronger now, being so close to Rythar’s body. I want him again. I can’t think past it.
I plant both hands on the mattress and roll sideways, careful, my bare feet landing on soft fur beside the bed.
Rythar stirs. For a second, I freeze, waiting for the familiar iron clamp of his arm, the low growl, the warning—do not run.
But he only asks me, “Where are you going?”
“The pool,” I say.
“Did I hurt you?” he asks, alarmed.
“No,” I reassure him. “I just want to enjoy the water.”
He grunts and closes his eyes. He knows I’m leaving his side, and he allows it.
He does not follow me to the pool like I might slip out of his grasp at any moment.
My body won’t leave, but my mind is slipping, sliding into a well filled with the shadows of other voices.
The other Starfallen brides. The thought is as disorienting as anything else that’s happened on this planet.
I walk to the pool and sink into it with a sigh. The water laps at the edge, a hundred tiny ripples easing my thoughts.
Rythar knows my antivenom kept him alive. He knows my medicine, my knowledge, my gift from the Concord Stone have already caused him trouble. That I have already shifted the balance of power in ways that could lead to war. He must worry about what I bring with me into his Reach.
And still, what matters most to him is that I exist. That I wake every morning and look at him like he is not only a warlord or a monster, but the mate I chose.
I let my fingers trail in the water.
Across the room, Rythar lies on his side, face slack with sleep.
The edge is gone. He looks almost peaceful, almost gentle.
It won’t last. I know that. But I memorize it anyway—the way the shadows cut across his chest, the way his dark hair falls behind him.
Somewhere out in the deep green, the jungle is growing something for us. Even asleep, he’s building it.
For a long time, I just sit, watching him breathe.
I wonder about the other Starfallen. I wonder how many of them have found this connection we have. How many of them will dare to use it?
I want to know if any of them are happy.
My grandmother used to tell me that every choice is a kind of sacrifice. When you pick one path, you kill all the others. On New Terra, that meant sacrificing comfort for survival, friends for food, hope for another day alive.
Here, I don’t know what I’ve sacrificed. What I will sacrifice.
Choosing Rythar doesn’t frighten me anymore. Letting go of the girl who thought she would do anything for New Terra—that’s the part that aches. And what happens to the other Starfallen? I sink lower until the water touches my chin, then lean back. I float there, weightless, eyes closed.
When I open my eyes, Rythar is sitting up. Watching me. I don't know how long he's been awake. From the look on his face, longer than I'd like.
I duck under the water. When I surface, my hair falls back from my face.
Rythar is kneeling at the edge, arms crossed, gaze fixed on mine.
"You're thinking of the other women," he says.
The statement is so direct it startles me. It’s like he reads me the way he reads his jungle.
I nod.
He rises, towers over me, then turns away, giving me privacy I never asked for.
I watch his back, the way the muscles shift under the skin.
Maybe this is what adaptation looks like.
Maybe it’s not about strength or smarts or even luck. Maybe it’s about accepting the world as it is, then finding a way to want it.
I climb out of the pool, water streaming down my skin, and follow Rythar. He wraps me in a towel, rough and scratchy, and pulls me close. I fit against him perfectly. He pulls me down onto the edge of the bed, both of us still damp, the furs warm under my legs.
“I’ll need to work on the antivenom,” I say.
He cups the back of my neck. “Explain.”
“I don’t want to keep it just for the Reach. It will mean war if we don’t share it. I want to perfect it first.”
He inhales deeply, then breathes out slowly as he holds me to him. Finally, he speaks, chin resting on my head. “The formula is yours to give. But the method—how you made it—remains here.”
He pulls back and gives me a warning look—the one that tells me his mind is made up. He expects an argument from me.
“I agree,” I say, leaning back against his chest. He’s not wrong.
His eyebrows rise.
I explain. “If we give the process away, they’ll just engineer a new venom. Or they’ll use it against us. Or they’ll find a counter-countermeasure.”
One corner of his mouth turns up. “You think like a warlord.”
I hate how much that flatters me. “It’s common sense. I want peace, but I’m not na?ve.” Water drips from my hair onto the fur between us.
“You may work,” he says. “But understand this, Elena—every cure you make changes Xytheos. And I will not let Xytheos take you for it.”
I understand him. Now that change has started, I can’t escape the threat of war. All I can do is choose, and let Xytheos answer.