We continue our descent in great, bounding leaps that somehow manage to be both terrifying and graceful. With each jump, my stomach lurches, but his arms hold me secure, his body absorbing the impact of each landing.

The ground rushes up to meet us faster than seems possible, and with one final, powerful leap, we’re suddenly on the desert floor, standing in sand that’s already warming in the morning sun.

He doesn’t set me down immediately, and I don’t ask him to. For a moment, we just stay like that—me cradled in his arms, my heart still racing, his golden eyes studying my face with that same intense focus. His arms tighten slightly, claws skimming lightly against my side in a way that sends unexpected shivers through me. There’s a rumble deep in his chest—a sound of pure, unmistakable satisfaction, like he’s thoroughly enjoying holding me this close.

“That was…” I struggle to find the right word. Terrifying? Exhilarating? Completely insane? “…something.” Pushing past the heavy breaths wracking my chest, I force a grin.

The alien blinks, gaze shifting to my lips.

His mouth curves in what might be a smile—though with those sharp teeth, it’s hard to tell if it’s meant to be friendly or menacing.

Slowly, carefully, he lowers me to my feet. My legs feel wobbly, like I’ve just stepped off a roller coaster, and I have to steady myself against his arm.

“Thanks, I think,” I say, looking up at him. “Although a little warning next time would be nice.”

He tilts his head, that now-familiar gesture that seems to say he’s trying to understand me but isn’t quite there yet.

“So,” I say, looking around at the vast desert stretching in all directions. “Where to now?”

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Chapter 13

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A NAME IS A MARK. SHE HAS MARKED ME

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ROK

I cannot look away from her.

The realization comes slowly, settling into me like the dust settles after a storm. She stands before me, small and fragile against the vastness of the desert, and something in me has…changed. Shifted. As if the very foundation of my being has cracked, allowing something new to take root.

The wind tugs at the strange coverings she insists on wearing, and beneath them, I can sense the heat of her skin, the rhythm of her dra-kir—strong and steady now, no longer fighting against the heat that had threatened to consume her. She moves in a circle and I follow her movement with my eyes, tracking each gesture, each expression that crosses her face. The way her brow furrows as she studies the horizon. The way her lips press together in what looks like concentration. The way the sun catches in her hair, turning it to fire.

I want to move closer. I want to breathe in her scent again, that strange, sweet smell that is unlike anything on Xiraxis. I want to press my face to the curve of her neck, where her pulse beats visibly beneath her delicate skin.

I want to taste her.

The thought crashes into me with such force that my claws dig into my palms. This is not…I am not… These urges are foreign, and yet they burn through me with an intensity that I cannot ignore.

Female.

The word echoes in my mind, ancient and powerful. A myth. A legend. A gift from Ain herself.

And yet, here she stands. Flesh and blood and warm, strange scent. Not Drakav, not of Xiraxis, but undeniably, impossibly, female.

“Okay, so we’re down from the cliff,” she says, her voice quick and light. “That’s good. Progress. But which way do we go now? I need to find my people.”

I watch her turn in circles, scanning the horizon with those strange, fragile eyes. No secondary lid, as far as I can tell. How will she protect against the storms when they come?

No need. I will protect her.

I will not leave her side.

“I think it was that way,” she says, pointing toward a distant ridge of stone. “Or maybe that way? I don’t know. Everything looks different now.”

The dust stretches endlessly in all directions, the same shifting sea it has always been. But she sees it differently. To her, it is a maze, a puzzle to be solved. She is lost.

Lost, and very far from home.

Perhaps Ain truly did send her. Perhaps there is purpose in her arrival, in our meeting.

Or perhaps the dust simply gives what it will, and takes what it will, and there is no greater meaning.

I try to mindspeak, focusing my thoughts into a clear image: “Where did you come from?”

But it is useless. She continues her restless movement, unaware of my question, her mind sealed away from mine.

She cannot perceive my thoughts. I have tried, again and again, to reach her mind, to share the images that would make her understand. Each time, I am met with silence—or rather, with the chaotic flurry of her own thoughts, sealed away behind a wall I cannot breach.

Yet somehow, she has given me her name.

“Jus-teen.”

The sound still feels strange on my tongue, unfamiliar and awkward. But when she spoke it, pointed to herself and shaped those sounds, an image formed in my mind—a bloom in the dust, delicate and impossible, yet somehow existing. Bright. Beautiful.

Names are sacred. We do not own them. A name is something given, not in sound, but in thought—a mark left in the minds of others.

My name was given to me long ago, shaped by my brothers, my kin, my tribe. The image of me that exists in their minds is simple, unchanging: a stone, steadfast and unyielding, braced against the storm. Alone, but enduring.

Rok.

That is what I am. That is what they see.

But when I think of my name now, with her warmth still lingering against my skin, her scent still in my nose, the image shifts. The winds of the storm grow quieter. The stone is no longer solitary.

It…frightens me.

I am not meant to change. Stones do not bend, do not waver, do not soften. Yet something in me has. Her name lingers in my mind, as if it has carved itself into the stone, leaving a mark that I cannot erase.

“I think I might just have to pick a direction and pray,” she vocalizes, eyes narrowing as she looks around. “Fuck. Shit. I can’t make a mistake in this.”

I do not understand her sounds, but her frustration is clear. It radiates from her in waves, as clear as if she were projecting her thoughts directly to me. She is afraid, though she hides it well behind her constant stream of sound.

She continues speaking, her voice rising and falling in patterns that have become almost familiar. I do not mind the sound as much as I did before. At first, her endless vocalizations grated against my senses, a constant, unnecessary noise. Now, there is something almost soothing about it, like the rhythm of the wind over the dunes.

“Hey,” she says suddenly, turning to face me. Her eyes find mine, and for a moment, it feels as if she can see into me. “I just realized—I don’t know what to call you. I’ve been thinking of you as ‘the alien’ this whole time, which is…well, accurate, I guess, but not very personal.”

I tilt my head, trying to understand. She touches her chest, the way she did in the cave.

“I’m Justine,” she says slowly. “Jus-tine.”

And there it is again—the image that forms in my mind when she speaks her name. A bloom in the dust, delicate and impossible, yet somehow thriving.

Then she points to me, eyebrows raised in question.

She wants to know my name.

I hesitate. Names are sacred, private things. They are not meant to be spoken aloud, to be cheapened with sound. And yet…

I focus on the image that has been my name for as long as I can remember: the stone, unyielding against the storm. I try to shape my lips around a sound that would capture it.