Panic.

I woke up in complete darkness, my heart pounding wildly in my chest, my body gripped by a cold that seeped into my bones.

A dream… No, not a dream. A memory.

Cazador. His voice, his hands. I was there again—trapped, suffocating, powerless. The screams, the pain, the damp stench of stone. My brothers and sisters—chained, bleeding. I could feel myself being dragged down, back into the shadows, back into that cage where I had wasted two centuries.

I couldn’t breathe. I needed… I needed…

I didn’t even realize how I ended up here. In her tent.

All I knew was warmth.

She didn’t push me away. She didn’t ask. She didn’t laugh.

She just held me.

I clung to her tighter, desperate, grasping onto her like a lifeline. Gods, I was shaking like a child. Never… Never had I let myself be like this. Weak. Vulnerable. I was better than this. Above this.

Above her.

She was just a mortal, wasn’t she? A pathetic thing with a mind flayer’s tadpole burrowing inside her skull. I had always thought her insignificant. Beneath me in status, in strength, in evolution, in power. I had mocked her, cut her down with words, pretended she was nothing more than an afterthought.

And now…

I couldn’t let go.

I pressed closer, breathing in her warmth, listening to the steady rhythm of her breath. She was here. I was here. Not underground. Not in Cazador’s grasp.

I was alive.

My lips trembled, but I couldn’t hold it back anymore. The sobs broke through my teeth, quiet, raw, desperate. I hated myself for it.

But she said nothing.

She just held me, and I… I let myself fall apart. If only for a moment.