Aveline looked at the creature, then at her own hand.
Her fingers trembled.
She had heard it.
Not with her ears, not as a voice carried through air, but somewhere deeper… somewhere that did not belong to reason, or logic, or anything she had ever been taught to trust.
The moment her skin had touched its head, she had understood.
The creature was staring at her now, its strange, gleaming eyes fixed on hers as though it were waiting. As though it had placed something fragile into her hands and was watching to see what she would do with it.
And then the words came again, not quite words, and yet unmistakable.
Save my child.
Aveline's breath caught.
It had not spoken. And yet she had heard it. She had felt it.
The emotion behind it was not sharp or violent, nothing like the ugly shape of its body suggested. It was not monstrous.
It was desperate… So desperate it hurt to feel.
