Yorika
Iwake in my quarters with every nerve ending on fire.
Not pain, something else. Something that makes my skin hypersensitive and my body throb in places I didn't know could ache. When I shift on the bed, I feel it: warmth pulsing deep inside me, foreign but not unwelcome. His mark. His claim.
The memories crash back. The wall. The shadow tendrils. The way I begged.
"Fuck."
I sit up and catch my reflection in the dark mirror.
Silver-black marks trace patterns across my skin where the shadow tendrils held me.
They're beautiful in a way that makes me angry, delicate as lace but clearly stating ownership.
When I touch one, it pulses with warmth that shoots straight between my legs.
But it's what I can't see that disturbs me most. I can feel his essence settling into my bones, a permanent part of my marrow now. My scent has changed. When I move, I catch traces of something otherworldly on my skin, in my sweat. Not just on me but from me, seeping through my pores.
Anyone who gets close will know exactly what happened. What I let happen.
What I begged for.
My body feels satisfied in a way it never has before, even as my mind rages at the loss of control. I dress quickly, choosing clothes that cover most of the visible marks. The fabric against my sensitized skin is almost too much, but I force myself to ignore it.
The door opens easily. No guard. No Mikaere waiting. Strange, but I'm not questioning good fortune.
I need information. Need to understand what he's done to me, what these marks mean. The library might have answers, but P?ivi will be there, and I can't face her knowing questions right now.
Then I remember, the hidden chamber. The one he was so desperate to keep me from.
My feet carry me through the twisting corridors without conscious thought. The bond pulls me forward, stronger now. I can feel Nezavek somewhere in the realm, but the sensation is muted, distracted. Perfect.
The hidden entrance is exactly where I remember. The ward shimmers in the air, barely visible but tangible. Last night he said it would scatter me across seventeen dimensions. But last night, I didn't have his mark burning inside me like a brand.
I press my palm against the ward.
The marks on my skin flare with heat, and the ward... recognizes me. It dissolves like smoke, the door opening silently. His protections think I'm part of him now.
The research chamber beyond makes my breath catch.
Papers cover every surface, anatomical drawings, maps with red marks, lists of names and dates.
Some pages are old, edges yellowed and brittle.
Others are newer. Two different handwriting styles appear throughout.
One elegant and flowing. I recognize it from the Collector's journal.
The other is angular, sharp, unfamiliar.
My hands shake as I pick up the nearest page. It's a detailed drawing of the crystallization process, showing how flesh transforms to living glass while preserving consciousness. The elegant script notes: "Temperature gradient critical for awareness preservation."
The angular writing appears in the margin: "Reversal attempted at 72% crystallization. Failed. Subject lost."
Another note below, same angular hand: "Void energy disrupts process but causes cellular collapse."
I find more pages. Chemical formulas with corrections, crossed-out calculations, failed experiment notes. The angular script appears frustrated, desperate: "Forty-third attempt. No reversal achieved. Running out of time."
But then other pages confuse me. Notes about "optimization" and "enhancement." Lists of physical traits. Are these attempts to understand the process, or improve it? The dates are scattered across centuries. I can't tell what came first, what came after.
I find a ledger, names, dates, locations. All female. All young. My hands tremble as I scan the list, looking for.
There. Melara Korren. Factory District. Three years ago.
But it's the notations that make bile rise in my throat.
In the elegant script: "Acquired. Exceptional specimen. Artist's temperament ideal for prolonged awareness."
Below it, in the angular writing: "Intervention attempted. Too late. Crystallization at 67% when discovered."
No other notes about her. Just those two lines.
I keep reading, but the papers tell conflicting stories.
Some suggest collaboration, shared research, joint observations.
Others read like someone desperately trying to understand an enemy's methods.
There are attempts at reversal formulas, all marked "failed.
" There are victim lists with notes like "saved none" and "arrived too late. "
One page lists physical and psychological traits. Silver hair is noted as "strong anchor resonance, void compatibility marker?"
The more I read, the less certain I become. Is this the work of partners or enemies? Hunter or fellow monster?
Something glints beneath the papers. I push them aside and find a silver butterfly hairpin. The one I gave Melara for her twentieth birthday. There's a dark stain on one wing. Blood. Her blood.
No box, no note, just the hairpin lying there among the research. Like it was kept as a reminder. But a reminder of what? Failure? Guilt? Or trophy?
I'm going to kill him.
I grab several pages, the drawing of crystallization, the notes about Melara, the list with silver hair mentioned. Evidence, though of what I'm no longer certain. The hairpin goes in my pocket, its weight familiar and painful.
I slip out of the chamber just as footsteps echo in the corridor. Not Mikaere's grinding stone or P?ivi's rustling pages. These are deliberate, measured. Nezavek.
I hurry back to my quarters, the stolen evidence burning against my skin. The bond pulses, and I feel his attention turn toward me. He knows I'm agitated. Can probably taste my rage and horror through our connection.
Good. Let him come.
I hide the pages under my mattress, crude but effective for now. The hairpin stays in my pocket where I can touch it, remember why I'm here.
When sleep finally takes me, the dreams are confusing, fragmentary.
I see Nezavek finding Melara in a crystal gallery, his shadow form recoiling from her partially transformed body.
He pours void energy into her, desperate, frantic.
"Please," he whispers, and I feel his anguish like a knife in my chest. "Not this one.
Let me save this one." His pain tastes like copper in my mouth, so real I wake choking on it.
But I'm pulled back under. The dream shifts, twists.
The same hands that tried to save now hold a scalpel made of shadow.
He cuts into crystallized flesh with steady precision while something inside me screams. His voice is calm, taking notes: "Nerve responses remain active at 80% transformation.
" I try to run but I'm frozen, watching.
The woman on the table has Melara's eyes.
She blinks at me. Still aware. Still terrified.
Another shift. Violence explodes across my vision.
Nezavek fights something made of ice and bone, the Collector. They tear at each other with prehistoric hatred. Black blood splatters, freezes, shatters. Nezavek's roar shakes reality itself. "You took them all!" The Collector laughs, a sound like breaking glass. "We took them together, brother."
No. That's not right. Is it?
The scene fractures. Now Nezavek stands at an auction, but I'm seeing through his eyes.
He scans faces with predatory focus. Silver hair makes his attention sharpen.
The need burns in him, not desire but desperation.
He's dying, dissolving, searching for something to hold him together.
He sees me and recognition hits: anchor, salvation, the sister of the one he failed to save.
But underneath, quieter: mine, want her, need her, finally.
Which feeling is real? I can't tell anymore.
The dreams blur faster. Melara's voice: "Save her." Nezavek's hands covered in crystal dust. The Collector's elegant script. Angular notes reading "failed, failed, failed." My sister screaming. Nezavek screaming. Me screaming.
I see him cradling something small and silver, the hairpin. He's shaking. "I'm sorry," he whispers to it. "I'll find her. I'll protect her. I promise." But his shadow form flickers, and for a moment I see something else underneath. Something hungry. Something that collects pretty things.
I wake gasping, my sheets soaked with sweat, my body shaking. The bond throbs with confused emotions, his or mine, I can't tell. My chest aches like I've been sobbing, though my eyes are dry.
I don't know what's real anymore. The grieving savior or the calculating monster? The desperate hunter or the careful collector?
All I know is that Melara's hairpin is cold in my hand, and somewhere in this realm, Nezavek can feel my terror through our bond. Good. Let him feel what his existence does to me. Let him know that I'm drowning in uncertainty.
The worst part? Some piece of me, some traitorous part that remembers his touch, wants to go to him. Wants him to hold me and tell me which version is true.
I hate myself for that weakness most of all.