"You left us," it whispered, the words bubbling around teeth too small for the tongue that shaped them. "You used us."
Sylvanna's knees threatened to fold. Shame surged, hot and metallic. For an instant she smelled the reek of antiseptic, saw herself in a torchlit barn coaxing the broken creature toward unconsciousness.
She sucked air through her teeth, straightened, and forced her voice flat. "It isn't real."
Footsteps crunched behind her. Draven's shadow cut across the log; he never even looked at the apparition, only at Sylvanna's knuckles blanching around her bow. "No," he agreed. "But it's taking notes."
He moved on, the judgment absent from his tone doing more to steady her than comfort might have. Sylvanna exhaled, the hiss half‑snarl, wiped her eyes, and followed.
