I collapse to the stone floor as waves of sensation crash over me. Pain, yes, but more than pain—awareness, heightened to a point that borders on agony. I can feel every current of air against my skin, hear the rapid beating of Jus-teen’s dra-kir, smell the fear and concern radiating from her like a dust cloud.

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 see everything—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—I need her. 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 my dra-kir dragging 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?”

The thought is fleeting, like a ripple across the still water, and for a moment, I think I’ve imagined it. But then another comes, clearer this time.

“What if I did this to him?”

It’s Jus-teen.

I can hear her.

In the mindspace.

I can hear her directly.

The barrier between our minds has thinned, becoming so fragile it’s nearly transparent. For a moment, I am distracted from the pain.

Her thoughts come in fragments, disjointed yet vivid, each one cutting through the chaos like a blade.

“I need to…him to cool down. His skin…burning up.”

“Stupid Xyma water. Stupid Xyma themselves.”

“What am I going to do if…doesn’t recover, huh? What the fuck are…going to do, Justine?”

Humor rises inside me. Her thoughts are just as many as her vocalizations. A constant stream of commentary.

I hold them close to my dra-kir as the darkness takes me.

For solmarks more, the fire rages.

Time passes. Jus-teen remains by my side, sometimes speaking, sometimes silent, but always touching me in some way—a hand on my arm, fingers brushing my face, her shoulder pressed against mine. Each contact soothes the fire within me, brings me closer to some equilibrium I cannot name.

When exhaustion finally claims her, she curls up beside me, her body a warm, steady presence against my side, her head resting on my shoulder. Her breathing deepens, evens out, and I know when she succumbs to rest.

I watch her, marveling at the trust this small, fragile being places in me. Even after witnessing my transformation, even knowing what I am capable of, she rests beside me without fear.

The thought fills me with a protectiveness so fierce it borders on violence. I would tear apart anything that threatened her, would face down the rival clan and shadowmaws and the dust itself to keep her safe.

Perhaps it’s the thought. For, without warning, the fire within me surges again—different this time, focused, concentrated in a way it wasn’t before. The heat pools in my gut, then lower, in the pouch that houses my member, and panic flares alongside it.

No. Not this. Not now.

But my body responds to some call I cannot resist, some transformation that has been building since I first tasted her essence. No…since I first touched her. My member, normally sleeping within its protective pouch, begins to swell, to change, to push outward.

The pain is excruciating—not like the burn of the transformation, but sharper, more localized. I bite back a cry, not wanting to wake Justine, but the agony of it tears through me like a dust-stalker’s claw.

It feels as though my member is being reshaped, remolded—which is impossible. The sensation is wrong, terrifying. But it is true.

My claws dig into the stone as I brace against the pain, a surprised grunt going through me as I see myself emerge. It breaks free of the protective pouch, the pouch itself reshaping as it escapes, fully extended for the first time in my life. I stare down at it in shock and confusion.

This is…not what I expected.

My stem…it has changed—transformed as completely as the rest of me. It is larger, thicker, the dark skin shot through with the same starlight that flows beneath the rest of my skin. The shape is different too—no longer the simple rod I emerged from the Giving Stone with, but something more complex, curved slightly, with a broad head and ridges along the underside.

And beneath it, where there was once only smooth skin, hang two heavy sacs, tight and full, their purpose a mystery to me.

My breath comes in harsh pants as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing, of what I’m feeling. The fire has localized here, concentrated in these new appendages, and the sensation is…intense. Not pain, not pleasure, but something in between, something that makes my claws flex against the stone and a growl rumble in my throat.

The movement, the sound, is enough to wake Jus-teen. She stirs against me, her eyes fluttering open, still heavy with sleep. For a moment, she seems disoriented, confused by the starlight emanating from my skin. Then her gaze drops to my lap, to the transformed member jutting proudly from between my thighs, and her eyes widen, all traces of sleep vanishing in an instant.