The Heart That Heard the Whispers

Previously

…Kael screamed and scrambled away, but Nagayanah stood her ground. Her sword was in her hand now, the familiar weight a balm to her frayed nerves. She didn't understand this world, its creatures, its rules. But she understood the language of threat, the instinct to protect. And as the shadowed creature lunged, its tendrils lashing out like whips, Nagayanah met its advance, her blade a silver streak against the alien gloom. Her empathy, for the first time since arriving, felt like a weapon, not a weakness, as she sensed the creature’s raw hunger, its desperate need to feed on the world’s imbalance. The battle for survival, for understanding, had truly begun.