Elsbeth.
I felt her.
The moment I became aware of her presence, everything shifted—the world around me was no longer the same. Her heartbeat, rapid and steady against mine, filled my senses as if our blood had merged. She was here, in my arms. She was perfect, warm, tiny fingers curling instinctively, her soft, fragile cries a symphony that somehow made every nightmare seem distant.
But as the child's cry rang out, something else stirred within me. Something older, something darker.
I shifted, trying to sit up, my body still wracked with the aftereffects of birth. My body was sore, aching, every movement reminding me of the pain, the intensity of what I had just gone through. But there was something more—something at the edge of my consciousness, something that hadn't been there before.
