Page 21 of Nebula Hearts
“Your eyes are starting to glow,” Aris warns.
“‘I know.’ The word came out distorted, my voice not my own. “I can finish this.”
Suddenly, the coupling assembly makes a high-pitched whine. Wrong. The power regulator is overheating. If it fails, the component is ruined.
My vision fragments—the equipment, the ruins, the interface that shattered me—all overlaid in a dizzying cascade. I reach for the controls, my hand shaking too badly to grip the tool.
“Tynrax, stop!” Aris’s voice cuts through the chaos. “Stop right now!”
“Can’t,” I rasp. “Component will fail.”
Then her hands are on my shoulders, forcing me to look away from the equipment and at her.
“Look at me. Focus on my voice.” Her face fills my vision. Real. Solid. “You’re here with me. Aris. Stay with Aris.”
The pressure doesn’t stop. It builds, cracking the walls of my training. My markings blaze so bright they hurt, my eyes burning with violet light.
“I can’t...” The words barely form. “It’s too strong.”
“Yes, you can.” Her hands frame my face, palms against my cheeks. Warm. Grounding. “Stay with me. Right here. Don’t let it take you.”
Her touch. The pressure of her hands, the warmth of her skin. It cuts through the interference from the ruins, a focal point to hold onto as everything else fragments. I focus on the details of her face: the freckles across her nose, the red highlights in her hair, the way she’s biting her lip because she’s worried but trying not to show it.
“That’s it,” she says quietly. “Stay here. With me.”
My hands find her wrists, gripping too tight. An anchor. The only thing solid enough to keep me from dissolving into instinct.
Slowly, the glow in my vision fades. The pressure recedes, humming at the edges but manageable again. My eyes clear. The violet light dims, my markings settling to a faint glow.
Aris is still holding my face, and I’m still gripping her wrists. We were so close I could feel the warmth from her skin, see the frantic pulse in her throat. She’s scared.
But she didn’t run.
“That was too close,” she says, her voice shaking slightly.
“You brought me back,” I say, my voice rough. Scraped raw. “You anchored me.”
“I don’t know if I can do that again. That was...” She trails off, her thumb moving slightly against my cheekbone. “You were almost gone.”
We’re still holding each other, neither of us pulling away yet.
I should let go, maintain professional distance. But her touch is the only thing keeping the pressure at bay, the only point of stability in the chaos.
“Aris.”
“Yeah?” I almost don’t catch her whisper.
“Thank you.”
She nods, then slowly pulls her hands away. I release her wrists. We step apart.
The space between us feels wrong. The pressure immediately builds again, though not as intensely as before.
I turn back to the fabrication unit. The coupling is complete, but the power regulator is partially damaged. We’ll need to repair it.
“I couldn’t maintain control long enough,” I say, stating the obvious. “The pull from the ruins is too strong.”
“Then we need a different solution.”
