36. Suspects
SUSPECTS
ELENA – RYTHAR’S FORTRESS IN THE GREEN REACH
The antivenom production section of the laboratory needs an overhaul. First, I need to perfect the antivenom. Then, I need mass replication.
I already stripped out parts and recombined them in new ways, the way I used to do with scavenged parts during New Terra’s war. It feels good to destroy something and rebuild it better, even if it brings up bad memories.
Drenz delivered Vorak’s shield weapon to the fortress. It sits sealed on the far bench. I’ll take it apart once the antivenom is finished.
I finish the new antivenom run, snap the fiber couplings in place, and watch the readout spike as the system purges itself. I run diagnostics again, then a third time, even though I know it’s solid.
I don’t even have to look up to know Rythar is standing silently near the doorway as I work. He lets no one enter. Not even Drenz.
“This is making some of your warriors nervous,” I say without turning. “I think they’re scared I’ll turn the fortress into a bioweapon factory and start a war.”
He grunts, but doesn’t move. “Let them be afraid. It will keep them disciplined.”
I roll my eyes, knowing he can see the motion reflected in the display glass. “You want them afraid of me?”
His footsteps cross the lab. He stops just behind my shoulder, close enough to touch.
“I don’t mind it,” he says. “But I would prefer they respect my wife more than fear her.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, and I feel the tension there ease.
“I don’t want war. I don’t want to be the reason this world goes to war,” I whisper.
His hand tightens, then slides up to the back of my neck, thumb massaging the tendon where it knots with stress. “I do not want war, either,” Rythar says. “I want you here. I want us. I want a hundred children with you.”
I snort. “Not ambitious at all, are you?”
He leans in, breath close enough that it fogs the display glass. “I want us to see every sunrise in this Reach. I want to watch you grow old.” He pauses. “If you age at all.”
If I age at all. The Concord Stone marked me. The mate bond rewired me. My body is changed, and my mind answers to this world now in ways I don’t understand. Children are a distant possibility. What if we never find out what we could have made together?
The future fractures into possibilities I can’t control.
“We still can’t be certain we can genetically reproduce together…” I start to say, but I trail off as he brushes my hair behind my ear, fingertips lingering at the curve of my jaw.
“We will find out. And if not, then I will be happy with just the two of us.”
It’s a lot of feelings, all at once. Too much. I need things I can control. “I finished the antivenom. I know how to make it stable now. We can ramp up production and ship it to the other biomes. End the problem for everyone.” I twist in my seat and meet his gaze head-on.
Rythar’s eyes narrow. “Problems never end. They could reverse-engineer the formula,” he says. “Make it themselves.”
“They could,” I agree. “Eventually, they’ll probably figure it out. But they’ll start with Xytheos tech.”
He nods, knowing that using Xytheos tech will instantly accelerate the venom beyond anything my antivenom can cure. He leans forward and pulls me to him.
I close my eyes, savoring the way his presence fills the space around me. The hum of the tech, the steady beat of his pulse, the way his body shields mine from the rest of the world.
I whisper, “Thank you.” I shudder against him, wanting to cry and not knowing why. I’ve spent weeks using Xytheos tech to analyze the antivenom, and there’s something I can’t get over.
He pulls back, studies my face. “What else troubles you?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
He growls softly. “Liar.”
A laugh escapes, shaky. “Fine. There’s one thing.
” I glance down at my hands, flex them. “The venom. We know it was engineered. We know it was linked to New Terra. But the exact connection is bothering me. I assumed that somehow Hushbite venom was taken to Xytheos, but some things I’m seeing don’t click with that scenario.
” I shake my head. “It just doesn’t make sense. ”
He sets both hands on my shoulders, centers me. “We will find out. You will find out.”
I let my hands work. There are moments when all the old trauma threatens to bubble up—every time I lost someone in the plague, every wound that never knit right, every memory of running short on hope. I can’t let it in. Not now.
I stare at the sequence of the molecular code again, the way the strands spiral and dock.
There is something about the lines, the logic of the structure… something in them that makes my chest go hollow.
I freeze in place. The compiler’s display washes my face in blue light. My hands go cold.
Rythar is silent as a shadow. I turn to him. The words tumble out.
“The New Terran venom was based on a Xythean protocol. New Terra got its bioweapon from Xytheos. And it had to have happened within the last fifty years or so.”
He grunts. “That is not possible.”
I shove the readout at him. “Look. The alignment, the base pairs. The sequence doesn’t lie.”
He takes the display, studies it, then hands it back. “You think this was planted on your world.”
I nod. “Yes. It means that someone from Xytheos was involved in New Terra’s war.”
He considers this, eyes narrowing. “Who do you suspect?”
I don’t know. I know so little of Xytheos. “The High Lord has gotten two fertile human females out of this deal so far. Maybe him.”
Rythar folds his arms. “Biome rulers are not conquerors. We are custodians. And no world would risk losing fertile women to a bioweapon.”
“The New Terra Hushbite venom didn’t kill women,” I tell him. “Only men.”
“A clever weapon,” he grunts. “I assumed serpent-panther venom was deadly to anyone. It has killed females of various species.”
“Then it has been taken off Xytheos,” I say.
“The females killed were on Xytheos. They were not human. It was long ago. Perhaps a thousand years. When the venom first appeared. Females were scarce then—but not as scarce as they are now.”
“Maybe someone else did it. Someone from New Terra, or one of the other ships.”
He shrugs slowly. “Maybe. Maybe the venom had been on New Terra for a long time and was only discovered recently.”
“Dana might know,” I say. “She’s a lawyer. She went off-world for trade negotiations and treaties. If anyone could find a record of how Xytheos tech legally reached New Terra, it’s her.”
“One of your Starfallen? The High Lord will not let you contact her. This is heading nowhere safe. Whatever happened, it’s gone. Let it stay buried.”
“I can’t,” I say simply.
The silence stretches. I wait for him to dismiss it, to argue, to tell me I’m chasing ghosts, but he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches out and stills my hands where they hover uselessly over the console. Whatever happened to my world is too large to unwind tonight.
Rythar seems to understand that without being told.
He draws me closer. He can’t shield me from the truth, but he can keep it from drowning me.
“No one can touch you by my side,” he says.
There’s a second half to that sentence. I can feel it gathering in his chest under my ear, the way the air gathers before a storm breaks.
He doesn’t say it. Whatever he’s growing out in the green isn’t ready. Neither is the word.
“I know,” I say. To all of it. “But it doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t bring back what I lost.”
His voice goes soft as he strokes my back. “I know the cost of war.”
I shake my head. “I hate that I’ll never see New Terra again.
The way it was. I hate that I can’t even talk to the other women from New Terra on a normal comm.
I need to reach them. I just need to know if they’re okay.
The Stone gave us a bond. Not the same as the mate bond, but still a bond. I can’t deny it.”
He frowns deeply. “It’s dangerous.”
I nod. “What about your biome powers? Can’t they protect me from the High Lord?”
His hand finds my waist, pulling me closer. “Yes. But you might not like what I must do to protect you.”
Cryptic. He’s been cryptic since the warship. Whatever he must do, I’d bet it lives in the same place as whatever he’s building. “You said I would like what you’re building.”
“I hope that you do,” he says.
My chest aches as I nod again. His eyes fix on me.
“You cannot pursue the link to them. I would be mad to even consider it. The risk to you is unacceptable.”
He says it like he's closing a door. But his hand is tight around my waist.
“Hey,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ll make sure of that,” Rythar says.
“You don’t have to hold onto me so tightly. I’m not going to fall. We’re not in the trees.”
Rythar’s fingers twitch, but he doesn’t loosen his grip. “I know.”
I drop it, but this isn’t over.
Every screen in the command center cycles through intelligence feeds, supply manifests, and patrol routes. A half-dozen junior officers dot the perimeter, heads bowed to their tasks.
At the center, the map dominates. It’s three meters wide, projected in shifting layers of gold, blue, and red. I can see every biome on the continent, each rendered in living topography. The antivenom usage reports are returning to us one by one.
Drenz stands beside Rythar, both of them flanking the projection.
Drenz is in full armor, face set, the only hint of emotion a twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“Three biomes accepted the most recent shipment,” Drenz says.
“They deployed it immediately. Reports are consistent—all casualties reversed within two hours of exposure.”
Rythar grunts his approval. “The number of attacks is unprecedented. Vorak’s agents?”
“Vorak’s men are dead. All accounted for,” Drenz answers. “Someone else tried a variant attack. The antivenom adapted in a single cycle. Could have been anyone wanting to test the cure.”
A player neither of us can see. Testing.
I get satisfaction from the words that my antivenom is working—but also dread. The cure is changing things fast.
I glance at the outer ring of the projection, where a cluster of gold dots pulses. They’re airborne. The Council.
“They’re watching,” I say, pointing to the cluster.
Drenz nods. “Scouts, drones, and at least one council envoy. No attempt at contact. Just observation.”
Rythar moves behind me, close enough that his chest brushes my shoulder. “They’re moving this direction,” Rythar says. He brushes my hair off my neck. It’s a casual gesture, but I feel the tension growing in his touch. Rythar isn’t watching the Council’s ships. He’s watching me.
I step away from the projection and turn to him.
“I shared the antivenom,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “That should be enough.”
“The more we give them, the more they will demand,” Rythar says.
I fold my arms. “Then how do we make this stop?”
Rythar’s jaw tightens. His gaze drops to the faint glow beneath my finger. “I will make it stop. Not we.” Silence falls between us. His thumb brushes the ring of light on my finger.
Not we.
"We," I say hotly. "You said with. Behind the waterfall. Not behind you—with you. Did you mean it, or is it something you say to calm a female down?"
His head tips toward mine, slow, and I know he’s mad. He pulls me into the dead space behind the projection, where the hum of the map eats our voices and the officers know better than to look.
"Do not throw my vow at me as if I have forgotten it." His voice is quiet. "You are teaching me to be held. I am learning. Now hear the other half of the bargain," Rythar says.
I wait, arms crossed, pulse hammering.
"There is a strength I must teach you. The kind that means no warrior on this planet can ever take you from me again.
Perhaps no lord." His jaw works. "I cannot teach it yet.
Not here. Not until what I am building is ready.
Until then, when the Council comes, I stand between.
Not because you are weak, Elena. But because you are still only flesh and bone. "
The fight goes out of my fists and lands somewhere lower, somewhere that aches. "Fine," I say. "Then build faster."
The corner of his mouth twitches. "The jungle does not rush."
"Neither do I," I say. I look back at the gold dots crawling across the map. "But they do."
The Council ships continue their approach.