Page 88 of Rok's Captive
And beneath it all, something else. Something new. Something becoming.
“Rok, talk to me.” Her voice cuts through the storm raging within me.
I try to respond, try to push thoughts toward her, but my mind seems incapable. My vision blurs, darkens, then expands beyond anything I have ever experienced. I can seeeverything—the dust in the air, the subtle patterns in the stone, the aura of warmth surrounding her body.
When her fingers brush my shoulder, the contact sends a jolt through me that is both torture and relief. Her touch soothes the fire even as it feeds it? It’s a contradiction that makes no sense. But it feels utterly right.
I lift my head, struggling to focus on her face through the chaos of sensations. Her eyes widen as she looks at me, her lips parting in shock, and I realize something has changed—something fundamental.
I look down at my arms, at my chest, and freeze.
My skin…has transformed. Darkness flows beneath the surface, not the absence of light but something deeper, richer—like the dark sky above the dust plains. And within that darkness, stars. Countless stars, swirling and shifting like the great dance of the celestial bodies we use to track paths through the dust.
What is happening to me?
Justine’s hand reaches toward me again, tentative but determined, and when her fingers make contact with my skin, the stars beneath the surface surge toward her touch, clustering beneath the point of connection like they are drawn to her.
“What’s happening to you?” she whispers. “What can I do?”
I want to tell her to run. To flee. That I am dangerous in this state, unpredictable, a threat even to myself. But I cannot speak, cannot form the words, and even if I could, I know the truth—Ineedher. Need her presence, her touch, her essence to survive whatever transformation is consuming me.
The fire surges again and I cry out, a raw, animalistic sound that echoes through the chamber. Jus-teen flinches, her beautiful, water-like eyes going wide, but she doesn’t back away. Doesn’t retreat.
Instead, she moves closer.
“I’m here,” she says, her voice low but steady, resolved. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Time becomes fluid, elastic.
Moments stretch into what feels like solmarks, each beat of mydra-kirdragging out endlessly as the fire rages beneath my skin. Then, just as suddenly, time compresses, everything blurring together in flashes of sensation. Pain. Heat. Her voice.
Solmarks pass. Sols. The light, then the dark. Light, then dark. Cycles. I am dimly aware of my Jus-teen moving around me.
She brings water from the pool, the cool liquid soothing my burning skin as she drapes something damp across my forehead. Her touch lingers, and I feel the faint tremor in her hands.
She’s afraid.
And yet she stays.
Her voice washes over me, vocalizations soft and insistent, lost in the roaring that fills my ears.
“…never seen anything like this…”
“…please be okay…”
“…don’t you dare die on me, Rok. I mean it.”
Her words are a balm, even when I cannot make sense of them.
But then, something shifts.
At first, it’s faint. Barely noticeable through the haze of pain and heat.
A whisper.
Not her voice—not the one I hear with my ears—but something deeper, softer, resonating within my mind. Thoughts in the mindspace. Thoughts that are not mine. Images that transform into words. Understanding.
“What if he’s dying?”
