The question landed in Riot’s body like a blade driven between his ribs. Not because of the words, he was sure Elysian Dynamics had a hundred euphemisms for terrible things and this was the gentlest one to use on someone too innocent to understand the thing being named, but because of how easily it came out of his mouth. No hesitation. No searching for phrasing. This was a man checking to see if anyone else had touched his work.
Cass didn’t answer.
The silence stretched and Riot counted his own heartbeats, lost count, then started again as he felt the particular stillness of the predator that lived in his blood find a target.
“Cassiopeia. You’re safe now. You’re home. But I need to know what happened to you out there. If someone carried negative energy into your body—if someone did terrible things to you in those wild places—the contamination can spread. It’s not just your well-being at stake. It’s everyone here. Everyone you love.”
The pause aftereveryone you lovesat in the air like a guillotine.
Honey. He means Honey. He’s reminding Cass that Honey is here and that protecting the community means telling the truth, and the truth he wants is one where the threat came from outside because that’s the version he can control.
“The wild Berserkers.” Cass sounded hollow and flat, like something that had been ironed until all the texture was gone. “At the roadblock. They grabbed me and talked about paying a toll. And they...didn’t mean earthly money. After, um…the toll…the seeker I brought found me after…”
After. He said after.
He’s protecting the cover. He’s protecting me. He’s building a story where I’m the rescuer who stumbled on the aftermath because that explains the bruises without explaining everything else.
Heat flooded Riot’s face, shame without a source, confusion without a name, heavy and desperate pressing against his ribs like a weight holding a door shut.
“You poor thing.” Matthias’s voice broke on the wordthing. “My poor boy. I never should have insisted you go on your mission. You are too spiritually sensitive for the terrible things outside of our paradise. Come here. Come here, Cassiopeia.”
Cass’s breathing hitched— not crying, but close, the shallow catches of someone being held by the person they believed would keep them safe. Riot heard Matthias murmur something too low to make out, heard Cass’s small, choked response, and tasted bile at the back of his throat.
Calm down. Calm down. Don’t turn the Elysian infirmary into a fucking light show. Stay calm.
“I’m so sorry,” Cass whispered.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
He apologized. He apologized to the man who—
Riot sat up. Slowly and controlled as the stitches screamed. He didn’t care.
“He’s right,” Riot said. “I found him at the roadblock and kept him safe through the rest of the Static Zone.”
The curtain pulled back.
Brother Matthias stood with one hand on the white fabric, the other still resting on the back of Cass’s neck in a light touch, like the gesture of someone who had been stroking hair and transitioned to stillness without letting go. He was exactly as Riot remembered with warm eyes and a welcoming smile that landed on Riot like crosshairs settling into position.
But it was Cass that Riot saw.
He was facing away from both of them, completely nude with his head bowed and his hair still streaked with blood hanging loosely around him as he sniffled.His good hand gripped his injured arm just above where the sling should be.
Count the ceiling panels. Count them again. Be the seeker. Be humble. Be broken. Be everything this man wants to see because that is how you stay in this building long enough to get Cass back out.
“So you’re the one who found Brother Cassiopeia,” Matthias said. Those calculating eyes swept Riot’s shirtless torso—the scars, the stitches, the musculature—and Riot watched him read the story the same way Brother Cyrus had, but with a different appetite. Not academic.Acquisitive.“You have my genuine gratitude.”
Riot made himself nod.
“I found him in bad shape,” he said, his tone hollowed-out into the rasp of a man reaching for redemption. “Afterward, he told me about this place. About what you offer here. I want—” He let his voice catch. “I want to be something other than what they made me.”
Matthias studied him during a long silence in which Riot could feel himself being weighed, measured, and provisionally categorized. Then he smiled, and it was the warmest expression Riot had ever wanted to peel off someone’s skull with his bare hands.
“Brother Cyrus,” Matthias said, without looking away from Riot. “Thank you for your care. I’ll be taking over both patients from here.”
Brother Cyrus blinked, then withdrew with a murmured blessing.
“You’re clearly exhausted,” Matthias continued. “And you’ve both been through significant trauma. Given the negative energy you’ve absorbed, both of you, I think it’s prudent to keep you together during the initial cleansing period. Brother Cassiopeia can serve as your spiritual advisor during orientation. He’ll help you adjust to our ways.”
