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“Please, calm down,” she yelled, putting her hands up, but didn’t dare touch something so large and dangerous.

His white orbs flared bright orange, and he shoved her away so hard that she fell onto her backside. “Stayback!” he roared, while dropping his fangs, and giving her a resoundinghiss.

Heat drained from her features as she pushed up on straightened arms.He’s never pushed me before.Then again, he’s never donethisbefore either.

His whines and whimpers made her heart squeeze.

Linh backed up but didn’t back down. Instead, she used the only tool she had in her arsenal: her voice. She sang with all her might. Through sheer force of will and the desire to help him, she managed to keep her voice from shaking so it wouldn’t ruin whatever power she had.

Even as he continued to writhe and scratch at his own neck, she didn’t stop. Nathair clawed down his throat until he tore open his flesh all the way to his spine. His wounds gaped, revealing purple muscles.

Then, after a minute, he began to slow as a deep breath left his parted maw. He snapped it closed as he turned to her, to the sound of her voice. She expected him to dart around her in comfort, but he just fell to the side until his skull and one of his horns bashed against the stone with a horriblethunk.

“Linh,” he rasped, reaching out a hand until it fell against the ground weakly.

She kept singing as she crawled her way to him. Linh knelt behind his head, and he shuddered as he rolled to his back to give his chest room to breathe. He struggled, each rise and fall accompanied by a wheezed whimper.

As carefully as she could, she lifted his weighty skull and propped it on her legs as tears of sympathy bubbled in her eyes. They fell directly onto his beautiful, bony face. She never stopped trying to lull him, yet he didn’t fall asleep instantly like normal.

He appeared to be in too much pain, or perhaps his rapidly heaving chest was too frantic. She placed her hand over his heart to feel it was fretful and so fast she feared it’d burst any second.

His gills on both sides were torn to shreds. If he tried to swim, she knew he’d suffocate. Blood saturated her favourite dress, but she didn’t care; all she cared about was his wellbeing.

Nathair gained the strength to lift his right hand so he could rub a claw under her tear-filled eye. “Little nightingale...”

A distressed hiccup burst through her song as she grasped his hand to keep it to her cheek. She rubbed against his knuckles and claws, wishing she could talk to him. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was that he had to go through this, that she wished she had a way to help him more than what she was doing now. She wanted to tell him she loved him, cared for him, and wanted to be with him in hopes it would ease him through his pain.

“Don’t cry for me,” Nathair stated, his voice stronger in volume, as if the memories were gone, but his tone was weak and sluggish. “I will be fine.”

Every time he swallowed, blood bubbled faster, and it washarrowingto watch.

He lowered his hand, despite her desire to hold on, so he could nudge against the corner of her lips. She didn’t even know what song she was singing, or if it was just mumbled, pointless words.

“Thank you,” he rasped.

As if he couldn’t hold on any longer, the weight of his arm became too heavy for her to hold up. It slipped through her trembling grasp as his orbs blackened and he fell asleep for her.

Linh refused to stop singing. Like her body was in unison with her mind and heart, she didn’t eat, didn’t go to the bathroom, didn’t do anything but this. She settled her tears to keep her strength, and only gave herself moments of rest by humming.

She knew he would eventually heal. After the fight with the bandits, he’d returned to her without a single wound. That didn’t stop how pity swirled behind her sternum, aching for him and what he had to go through.

She hated that he’d been suffering through this for centuries.

Like the first time she’d done this, Nathair slept for hours. He didn’t wake, even when the day morphed to night. The longer it dragged on, the more her eyes drooped. She longed to stay awake for him, but she found herself lying down around the top of his skull with her belly pressed to his horns. On her side, she stayed near his head so that if her singing softened, she’d be near his ear.

I’m so tired.A whole day and night had passed, and it wouldn’t be long before the sun rose.

She closed her eyes and just focused on humming.

Something clasped her bare ankle, but she was so exhausted she barely registered it. Sleep had befallen her, and she kept waking just to sing, only to slip back under.

Linh screamed when she was tugged.

With eyes stark and wide, she gripped one of Nathair’s horns when she was dragged across the ground. She held tight and braved looking at the Demon grabbing hold of her.

Its face was pointed and almost fishlike, with minute human qualities. She noticed an eel-type tail flopping around, so like Nathair’s and yet so different.

“Shush!” she hissed, the Demon female in nature. “It sleeps! It’s injured. Don’t wake the Mavka.”