“So, you’re telling me that this guy–this terrible, frightening, ‘could make someone piss themselves with a single glare’ kind-of-guy–tripped on his shoelace, fell on his knife, and just died? Just like that?” Tazaro asked in disbelief through a bite of Pyuritan Apple. He dabbed at a spot of juice that dribbled down his chin, thankful Sheeva’s back was turned as she currently led the way through the grey-stone, towering, rocky cliffs.

  “Imagine how I felt trying to explain that to the sheriff! He didn’t believe me, either. I had to lead him and his soldiers to the place and show them.” She called back over her shoulder. He briefly overheard her say something along the lines of wondering if the people in Agonia still talked about the incident, her voice drowned out by the crunch of his next bite of the apple.

  Over the last three weeks, Sheeva intended to make that town her next stop, eager to visit and show Tazaro a favored lookout of hers that spanned a picturesque view of Vivroa’s Southeastern Crags.

  With his encouragement, she decided to sketch out the view into her now tattered blue leather notebook that she attempted to keep hidden from him. Occasionally, when the mood struck her, she’d show him a couple of the new things she’d either jotted down or roughly drawn in, and when Tazaro asked when she would show him everything, her response was a lightly teasing “when we’re good and dead.” The smirk and wink she’d flash him soothed his impatience, suppressing the deep urge to snatch it from her and fly away to read its secret contents.

  “Hm…” Sheeva hummed, pausing as she looked around for something.

  Chucking the picked-clean apple-core aside, Tazaro stopped and glanced, too, wondering what the discontented expression on Sheeva’s face was for.

  “Are we lost again?” He cracked with a playful sneer.

  The discontented look quickly shaped into an indignant pout, and as she huffed and crossed her arms, Tazaro felt a little remorseful. She apparently had taken it more seriously than he’d intended, and as he opened his mouth to apologize, she gave a haughty, quick “don’t.”

  “I was just kidding, Sheeva, but...are we really lost?” He asked carefully, mildly on edge.

  He wasn’t sure exactly why but chalked up Sheeva’s snippy, quick-to-defend self towards their encroachment on Midna’s Overlook, or perhaps she was simply on edge about getting ever closer to Cruinia. Despite how curt she could be, she still made a conscious effort to step back and took the time to calm herself. Each time, she’d apologize to him, and that helped him to brush the incidents off more quickly, relieved and proud of her attempts to keep the promise she’d made shortly after their fight at the temple in check.

  “No, not lost. I…” She began, then waved her hand at something. “It’s dumb.”

  Tazaro stepped closer and took her hand in his, only now noticing the stickiness of apple juice on it. He hoped she didn’t notice it too, but there were more important matters.

  “Come on–the day you have a dumb thought, I’ll eat my shorts. What’s up?” He urged.

  She chuckled with his comment, then remained silent for a moment, nibbling on her lip in contemplation of whatever it was that fostered her trepidation.

  “Just...unsure about something.” She murmured, dropping her hand from his to retrieve the map and pocket journal she carried. Glancing back and forth between the two, Tazaro waited her answer out, feeling more and more certain it was about their location.

  He let his eyes wander, scouting for anything that might jump out at them. The towering stone that nearly blocked out the sun emitted a cooling effect that made his fingers tingle, and as his eyes fell upon a mark in the thick stone, Tazaro walked up to it, curious to know if it was a trail marker someone had left behind.

  Peeling away the layer of vines, he saw four jagged lines parallel to one another, and he squinted at it in thought. It wasn’t a marker he had ever seen before and, if he didn’t think otherwise, would have dismissed it as a claw scrape of some creature.

  At the thought, the smile faded from his face as quickly as his stomach plummeted into his feet, and as he took a step back to get a clearer view, worry formed a brick in his gut. He closed an eye, held out a hand, and spread his fingers to mimic the swipe of a claw and found the markings matched far too well with the action.

  “Uh, Sheeva?” He called to her. She had already folded up the map and slipped it in place in her journal, and stuck the things back in her pocket.

  “Tam?” She answered, heading to stand beside him. He didn’t look back at the scrape but instead lifted his gaze to the tops of the cliffs, wondering if whatever it was would ambush them from above.

  “You see that?” He asked, tipping his head towards the scratch behind him. At Sheeva’s wide-eyed stare and lowly muttered, “Oh, Vilg,” Tazaro reached up over his shoulder for Tyrj's handle.

  He didn’t get to ask what the scratch belonged to as a low, rumbling growl sounded out from above. As two sharp-clawed paws curled out from inside the mouth of a cave on the side of the cliff, Tazaro watched in terror as a mohawk of horns jutted out from the dark space.

  How something could reek of wet soba regardless of the dryness of the crags was beyond him, but as the dusty, matted, grey-and-brown fur of a behemoth appeared, Tazaro scrunched his nose in distaste, unappreciative of the stench. He hoped the patch of silver fur on its chest alluded to the creature being too old to move well, but he vaguely remembered Sheeva saying something about the colorful deception of crag behemoths.

  A long tail with feathered fur that thinned out to create the whip-like appendage responsible for the scars along Sheeva’s back came into view. Tazaro could only watch, frozen, as a line of drool dripped from snarling jowls and onto the ground by his feet, sending a small cloud of dirt into the air, like a fresh drop of rain.

  The earsplitting roar it gave was almost worse than the stench of whatever meal was stuck in the nooks and crannies of its teeth and mouth, and Tazaro groaned as he brought his hand to his nose to cover it.

  “Oh, for fuck’s–Run!” Sheeva cried, grabbing his hand and racing away from the giant creature. Tazaro followed Sheeva’s advice and sprang to action as his feet pounded through the canyon.

  It didn’t do them much good since not only did they not get far, the behemoth simply pounced from small cliff to cliff ahead of them, just as fast as Sheeva had described. It was astonishing given the creature’s sheer size, and Tazaro almost lost his footing as it dropped to a menacing halt in front of them. He turned to run back the way they came, but as he saw the crumbling of rocks as they tumbled into the path and obstructed their escape, it was a moot point.

  When Sheeva told Tazaro to bare his wings and take flight, he did, hoping he could catch enough air to get a proper lift-off, but when the behemoth swiped at them both with a quick left and right slash, Tazaro swerved, nearly crashing into the side of the cliff. He caught himself and landed back on the ground, shuffling his wings back into his back. They would do him no good here.

  Sheeva had also dismissed the idea of flying away and held Abraxas at the ready, a look of fierce determination on her face as she glared the creature down.

  Tazaro pulled Tyrj and Laerso out of their scabbards as well, taking more courage in the metallic zing that sang in his still-ringing ears.

  As though deliberately deciding to split the two up, the silver-chested behemoth slapped down a paw between Tazaro and Sheeva, causing Tazaro to dodge to the left and Sheeva to the right, though both of them swung at the arm as they fell away. It roared and swooped low with a bloodied claw as it turned its attention on Tazaro and its back to Sheeva.

  Tazaro vaulted over the sweep of the massive claw as it passed, wondering if it would be fruitful to close distance and attack the creature’s underside, as they tended to do when fighting something gigantic. The attempt was made but rendered absolutely futile as the behemoth reared back on its haunches and swiped.

  Tazaro blocked the affront on his left, then stopped the paw coming in from his right as the behemoth tried to squish him. Instead of shoving off towards the back, Tazaro tried again to strike the belly of the beast, rolling forward and finding his solid footing. He locked Tyrj and Laerso together, and just as he went to thrust them forth, he felt the whip-like tail wrap around his middle, squeeze tight, and lift him off of his feet.

  Effortlessly he was lobbed to the side and watched the world spin over and over before landing in the dust, his sides aching and guts threatening to upheave.

  “Fuck.” He groaned, doing his best to collect himself. He’d forgotten about the damn tail.

  He watched as Sheeva attempted to sever the tail, but as soon as Abraxas made contact with the thick hide, the behemoth turned and shoved Sheeva away. With a snarl, it pinned her against the side of the cliff a good few feet off the ground.

  The air turned cold and close, and as Tazaro heard the chittering of lightning, he watched as the behemoth drew in energy through the mohawk of horns. Streaks of blue gathered around the thing’s shoulders to signal the ready of a spell.

  Tazaro scrambled to his feet, snatched up his blades, and hurried to shatter the thing’s focus but skidded to a halt and stared, wide-eyed, as Sheeva grasped at the paw in her own focus.

  The behemoth’s arm began to turn into ice from the point of contact of Sheeva’s hand with a rumbling crackle, and the gleam of crystalized flesh cavorted its way up the behemoth’s arm into its shoulder. As the spell the behemoth had been charging fizzled, it backfired.

  The end result was an explosion that sprayed blood everywhere as the frozen chunk dislocated the rest of the behemoth’s arm. In its painful rage, the behemoth roared, stumbled away, then tripped on its feet to barrel into the side of a cliff.

  Creature away for who knew how long, Tazaro used the moment to bare his wings and fly toward Sheeva. Despite the incredible feat, she was still pinned, and as he tried to bust the ice with the handle of Laerso, it barely chipped at it.

  A quick glance confirmed the behemoth was still reeling and thrashing about with no mind to them, giving Tazaro more time to think. He took as deep a breath as he could muster past the frantic pant of adrenaline, formed the sigils for a fire-breathing spell, and blew, but as it only melted and seemed to refreeze, Tazaro nixed the idea.

  “What’d you do, go absolute zero?” He blurted in frustration, trying again to chip at it with Laerso with a grunt of effort.

  “I don't even know what the hell that even means!” Sheeva barked back, trying to squirm her way free. She looked toward the behemoth and squiggled faster with a worried whimper; it had managed to at least seal the dripping wound with a cauterization, emitting the unnerving scent of burning flesh and singed hair. It stood on its haunches as it began to stumble toward them, the tip of mohawks standing above the peaks of the cliffs.

  “Oh, this cannot be!” She cried, fighting harder to break free.

  Tazaro shivered, more from the menacing advancement of the behemoth than the pillar of ice they fought with, and he found himself wishing he had a stick of dynamite to blow the stubborn thing to bits.

  It gave him a crazy idea, something he had only begun to toy with out of sheer curiosity, but as he saw the drooling, dazed monster take another step, Tazaro felt he was out of time. Sheeva was still struggling, a more panicked expression on her face now than there had been a few seconds before.

  “Sheeva.” He called to her, managing to snare her attention. The hazy worry made him think she was far away, and he reached through the space of the claw to cup her cheek. She blinked a couple of times and waited expectantly as she came back to reality.

  “Reinforce your shield; I’m going to try something.” He ordered.

  Sheeva didn’t argue. With a nod, she closed her eyes, brow furrowed in intense focus.

  Tazaro didn’t waste time. Wedging one hand between her body and the ice, he grasped her shirt with the other. The ice made the sweat on his hand seem to freeze too, but he powered through, closing his eyes to begin his experiment.

  Intense, vibrant energy flowed from his palm and into the ice, and as he felt a rumbling vibration carry through to the far side of the arm, Tazaro formed a bubble around the both of them, willing it to shrink on the tiny space.

  His ears desperately wanted to pop, and he could feel his heartbeat in his head, but only for a short moment before he felt the protective heat of a passive shield ripple through his body, cleverly delivered with a press of Sheeva’s cheek to the back of his hand. Encouraged, Tazaro took a deeper breath and rapidly shrunk the bubble.

  The intended effect occurred as the intense, rapid rise in pressure exerted such force that the ice shattered, freeing Sheeva. No longer supporting the both of them in the air, they fell, hitting the dusty ground with a grunt as shards of ice fell down around them.

  Tazaro found his feet and helped Sheeva stand, leaning her against him as he searched for someplace they could hide, whether until the behemoth gave up or something more terrifying came along for a meal. If he had the mindset, he would have snorted with himself; it didn’t seem like there was anything more terrifying than the monstrosity that began to charge after them on two feet.

  “Bereich!” Sheeva barked, forming a shield as the behemoth dove at them. It smacked face-first into the honeycomb shield and shattered a fang, stumbling to the side without its other arm. In a fury, the tail whipped at the air above their heads, sending a crack that echoed through the canyon. Tazaro found a small enough crevice for them to hide in and dove for it, pulling Sheeva behind him as they flattened against the wall.

  He couldn’t believe his insane amount of luck. For all the reaching the behemoth did with its one arm or furious lashing with its tail to sweep them out, the cubby in the wall was deep enough that claws and tail grasped at air. It screeched at them in anger again, causing Tazaro to wince and cover his ears. Apparently, they still needed to pop, and he hoped he hadn’t caused permanent damage to his hearing, though deafness would still be better than both of them losing their lives.

  They watched as the thing paced back and forth at the exit like a ketze waiting to pounce on a rat that dared to peek out from its burrow.

  “Damn.” Sheeva panted, appearing exhausted as she clung weakly to his jacket.

  Tazaro tenderly brushed a lock of hair out of her face.

  “You alright? You’re not hurt, are you?” He asked, readying his scanning spell. Sheeva huffed and grabbed his hand to stop him.

  “No, not hurt. Just tired. Shouldn’t be–I think I ate today.” She stated with a grin, attempting to make a joke of it. It helped alleviate the tension of their pinned state, and Tazaro chuckled, giving a teasing sneer.

  In honesty, she certainly had, somehow eating more than he had at breakfast.

  “Don’t I know it! Maybe we can eat this guy when we’re done with him!” He half suggested, glancing over his shoulder in nerves as he felt the rush of air from another angered swipe that ruffled his hair.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Feh! If we survive!” She barked over the thundering boom of the creature’s attempt to bash the wall down. As the wall crumbled, Tazaro felt the worry weigh his gut as the claw reached in just a little further than it had before.

  “We need to trap his claw, or tail, or something.” He muttered.

  “And bring the walls down upon us, too? I don’t think so!” Sheeva countered.

  Sure, the condescending tone was a little annoying, but in all fairness, they were sitting duck either way. Tazaro brushed it off, glancing at his blades. There was no way he could pin the claws or tail down–not with that thick hide.

  He looked up as a shadow careened overhead, hoping it wasn’t something else coming their way, but as he realized he was looking at the sky above, perhaps it would be a possible way out. Or maybe, he could distract the angry bastard trying to kill them and give Sheeva enough time to escape.

  “Stay here. I have an idea.” He urged, sheathing his blades and beginning to climb.

  “What? What are you going to–Bereich!” She barked, casting another shield as the tail came damn close to snaring Tazaro’s leg. The tail bounced off the shield and retreated. “What are you doing?” She called, leaning heavily against the side of the wall, dizzied from her spell.

  “Distracting it. Maybe for a pincer attack?” He answered, pushing on towards the top.

  As Tazaro climbed, the space expanded enough that he could spread his wings, and it seemed he hadn’t gathered the behemoth’s attention just yet as he spread his wings and shot out of the crevasse like a cannonball. He peeked out from over the edge of the cliff. The behemoth still waited, sniffing at the place Sheeva still hid, crouched down and tail flicking behind itself.

  Perhaps behemoths are just massive ketze, after all… Tazaro thought. He snickered with himself, amused at his thought process as he began to thread together a net because, indeed, even a giant-ass ketze would like to play with yarn.

  Tazaro leaped off the cliff with two nets, one in each hand, baited and ready. He managed to snare one around a horn and the other around the behemoth’s neck and, like riding a Sleipnir, reared back as hard as he could with the makeshift reins. With an enraged screech, the behemoth began to run in a loopy, off-kilter gallop away from the nook and further into the ravine.

  Tazaro sat down on the creature’s back and squeezed his legs to keep from flying off as the behemoth stopped to buck him off, barking out a sudden "whoo!" As he lurched forward.

  The flicker of green light caught his eye, and he jerked his head to the sky. Sheeva was up in the air, waving at him and pointing in the direction the wisp of green light had gone.

  Catching the hint and going along with the unknown plan, Tazaro jerked the reins to the right, jabbing his heels into whatever space they connected with. It spurred the behemoth, and it continued its wobbly, messed-up run.

  Together, they guided the thing toward whatever Sheeva’s endgame was, and as they came upon a clearing surrounded by thick, verdant vines covered in a veil of dust, Tazaro clicked his tongue in realization.

  Sheeva was utilizing the point of “there’s always a bigger fish” as she had led them straight to a Malboros Magnificum. Tazaro stood, blinded the creature with a final spell, and kicked off to catch the air as the frantic, panicking behemoth charged straight into the pit.

  Like a snare net trap, the Malboros vines curled up and caged the massive creature in, engulfing the creature whole through a mouth that unhinged like a snake’s. Tazaro landed on an outcrop, watching with amazed interest as such a giant monster disappeared into the other’s gut.

  “How the hell does that even work?” He blurted, looking up at Sheeva as she floated down to kneel beside him.

  “We lucked out. Malboros usually don’t grow like this; they prefer flat wetlands.” She mused to herself, then shook her head and waved her hand at the tangent. “Malboros root themselves into the soil and solidify their spot by burrowing their stomach into the ground, creating a vast chasm beneath the surface–hence why we needed to tread carefully in the bog; it’s full of sinkholes. Suppose the burrowing keeps Malboros stable so that they don’t blow away in windstorms. Anyway, the softness of the ground in the wetlands allows for the shift of earth when their stomachs collapse.”

  Tazaro tilted his head, baffled.

  “Their stomachs collapse?”

  She nodded, peering over the ledge in interest as a rumbling crackle sounded out. As the ground split and shifted, they watched as the jagged splits spanned the trails of the ravine, and as the creature dropped what must have been a few thousand feet, it threw up mounds of dirt and dust into the air.

  “Huh. I’ll be damned. I think that thing unwittingly helped create this ravine. Fascinating.” She murmured, eyes wide with wonder.

  Tazaro smiled, sat back, and let Sheeva have her moment, taking a breather himself as he reached for his water-skein and sipped from it. His mind wandered to their courageous, impressive tactics, and he cleared his throat to get her attention.

  “I’m impressed. You turned the entire arm to ice. How’d you do that?”

  “I didn’t think of it at the time, but I figure we’re mostly water, so…” She trailed off with a smile and blushed, offering a shrug. “But hey, you shattered it. That was much more impressive!” She grinned.

  “I...I’ve been trying to figure out how Zakaraia does what he does with that...messed up spell. I thought maybe he tweaks with the pressure of a space or something. It’s...It’s not important right now. We’ll tinker with it later.” He urged, offering her an energy cube and pain pill since getting slammed against a wall had to have hurt more than she wanted to admit. He took one for himself, wincing at the tenderness of his side.

  “You know–Tazaro began, then paused to drink deeply and quench his thirst, voicing satisfaction with a throaty, heavy “argh,” then offered it to her. “Behemoths don’t smell that bad. The mandrake was far worse. I think it’s just ‘cuz you hate them so much.” He sniffed, blowing his dusty nose into a handkerchief.

  Sheeva scoffed and offered a small smile, then sipped. She must have needed the pain pill as the little show of discomfort furrowed her brow.

  “Agree to disagree.” She dismissed their previous topic, tipping her head back for a fuller drink.

  “You just say that because I’m right.” Tazaro grinned, laying his head back as he allowed the medicine to kick in and work its magic.

  Too dizzy to manage flight, Sheeva insisted that they walk through the rest of the ravine, hanging heavier and heavier on his arm as the evening fell into night.

  “Hey,” Sheeva called to him, weakly shaking his arm. He looked, and the worry strangled his gut. Her brow harbored droplets of sweat, and her eyes were half-lidded, and the sight of her pallid face took him back to the delusional state she’d been in when he carried her back to Roussell from the abandoned fortress.

  “Whoa, hey, yourself!” He replied, stopping immediately and wrapping his arms around her to support her. He hissed as her hand squeezed his shirt so quickly, it pinched his skin, and as she grunted out a sound of pain and crumbled, Tazaro held her tighter and took a knee as gently as he could.

  “Sheeva? Sheeva, what’s wrong? What’s happening?” He asked, helping her to lie on her back as he cradled her in his lap. She didn’t answer, appearing to have fainted in a split second. He trailed his hand in the air to trace a scanning spell, then tapped her to deliver it. Red signs blared their warning; some he recognized, others he didn’t. As a matter of fact, they were symbols he had never seen before, but as his eyes fell upon one he did recognize for bleeding, he frantically cast his light and searched her body.

  A darkened pool had formed between her legs. Best-case scenario, it was simply urine, but as Tazaro pressed his fingers to it, the rich color of blood shined on his clammy fingers in the orb’s light.

  “Oh, gods.” He managed, voice taut with fear.

  Unequipped to even know where to begin, he scooped Sheeva up into his arms and stood, bared his wings, and took off, searching for lights in the horizon, panic driving a biting chill through his veins.

  Hope warmed his chest as he saw an array of lit stone braziers nestled amid a fortress at the edge of the crags. He flapped as hard as his wings would allow, then dove behind a large slab of rock. His legs ached as he bolted for the gates, somehow having the wits to shuffle his wings into his back.

  A couple of guards watching the gates stood from their slacked lean in their chairs, dropping the cards they had been holding. A pile of Inue towered in the center of the table, momentarily forgotten about as they asked what the matter was.

  “Please, my wife, she fainted, and she’s bleeding! I need a doctor!” Tazaro cried, not caring about the worry thickly lacing his voice.

  They hurried him to a wooden building with the universal sign for a clinic: a warm, yellow sun, gifting a mortar and pestle with gentle sunbeams. Tazaro supposed it was intended to instill positive feelings in the ailed, but it didn’t seem to do diddly-squat, and he clutched Sheeva tighter to himself while the men directing him opened the door and ushered him inside.

  The doctor in question sat up in the middle of a meal by a gentle fireside.

  “Oh, my. What’s happened?” He asked, waving Tazaro into a room beyond what must have been the man’s living room. After calling for the guard to wake his assistant, the man motioned for Tazaro to lay Sheeva down in the patient’s bed waiting here as he hastily snatched up a coat and threw it on, then hurried to a sink to wash up.

  Calm enough to think now that they were in better hands than himself, Tazaro managed a quick reflection of the events.

  “We had a run-in with a behemoth in the crags. She got knocked around some. I thought we were fine, but she collapsed and fainted, and she’s bleeding. Given the location, I...I think she may be, uh, pregnant.” He answered, feeling an immeasurable abundance of guilt at the circumstance.

  “You are unsure?” The doctor asked, curling an eyebrow at Tazaro.

  Tazaro felt the curvature of his grimace on his brow, and he dropped his head.

  “I didn’t know. I, I don’t know.” He sighed. His hands fought to work out the tension from his frown as he thought about it. The snippiness. The slight lethargy. The appetite. Perhaps, even, the increased sex drive? Either way, the first three all fit when he applied them to Sheeva possibly being pregnant rather than the circumstances of their journey.

  Tazaro heard the man mutter something that sounded like, “huh, that’s new,” and looked up.

  “Sorry, what’s new?” He asked, hoping the suspicion welling in his gut was just nerves. He reached out, took Sheeva’s hand, and cast a spell, hoping that the doctor hadn’t already noticed the scars on Sheeva’s forearm. He glanced, and as they faded away, let out a sigh of relief, confident that the wing slits on her back were also now hidden.

  Tazaro watched with a careful eye as the man continued poking and prodding, checking Sheeva’s pulse with his watch and his thumb or her struggled breathing with a stethoscope.

  “I was referring to the sword. Not every day do you see a lady with a weapon–especially not here; they all take up tasks at home while the men work the fields.” He waved a hand at the tangent. “Anyway, if your wife’s a fighter, I’m sure she’ll be alright.” The man muttered, drawing a vial of blood.

  Tazaro looked up and over as someone else entered, rubbing sleep from their eyes. The tired man sprang to work upon registering the command he was given to test the vial for hormone levels. Tazaro shuffled as the man whispered “excuse me” and headed to a workstation in the corner of the room.

  “Sir, if you would wait in the living room for the moment? We need space; he may have to assist me.”

  Tazaro’s eyes widened, and he went to protest, but as the assistant had to squeeze past Tazaro in the small room again to get something else, he relented with a reluctant nod. Shakily, he stood and shuffled out of the room and let the men do their work.

  Desperately, he racked his brain, wondering whether they had missed a contraceptive spell somewhere, but he honestly couldn’t recall. The spells unconsciously played such a significant role in foreplay, whether it was his one-time spell or Sheeva’s week-long one, and he was more than sure that he had cast the latter on her even though it was already active a few times over.

  He suddenly felt incredibly foolish and fought to talk himself down from his embarrassment. He didn’t exactly keep track of Sheeva’s cycle per se, but he still took note of it at times, mainly when she exhibited tell-tale signs. The poor woman suffered insane cramps or random bouts of insomnia, weird...er cravings, and overheated in the middle of the night, regardless of how cold it was outside the sheets. But, now that he thought about it, it had been...well, a while, he summed.

  Tazaro sat back with a heavy, miserable sigh and looked toward the door that the two medics had shut for privacy. His frown turned to a grimace, and his eyes welled with tears as he feared that the amount of blood she had lost would be too much, and that he was too late, and that she would be…

  He shot up from his slump, slouched forward, pressed his hands to his face, and began to weep. Ignoring the vast heat emanating from his cheeks, his voice was a harsh whisper as he started to pray to whatever gods would listen if they cared about such trifle matters. He clasped his hands together and buried his sweaty forehead against his forearms as he curled into a submissive, groveling ball.

  “Please, please let her be okay. Let...let them be okay. I don’t ask for much, but that’s...all I want right now. Please. Please.” He begged, the heady pressure of crying taking effect on his nasals. Needing a proper breath, Tazaro reached for the disposable tissues and snatched one out of the box to blow his nose.

  His prayers were interrupted by the assistant leaving the room, holding a steaming cup of something, which he pushed into Tazaro’s hands. As the heat stung them, Tazaro tightened his grip around the cup, not noticing how cold and clammy they had been before.

  “Here. Some Valerian root tea. In times of stress, you should stay hydrated.” The man insisted with a forced, hopeful smile. Tazaro brought the stuff to his lips and took an appeasing sip, then gulped it down as it registered just how insanely thirsty he was. He ignored the man’s “Oh, sir, you didn’t have to chug it!”

  “How is she? Is she alright?” Tazaro called after him as he headed back to the room. The man must not have heard him. He sighed and figured silence from doctors working on patients until after they were finished was normal, used to Vincent and Dr. Marx’s radio silence.

  If Vincent were here, Sheeva’s odds would be better. He told himself to keep his hopes up before they dashed six feet under.

  He stood and paced the small living room for a moment, dredging up what Vincent would do or say to help. Thankfully, he was interrupted before his thoughts turned wholly dark; Vincent could be a harsh realist when things were past hopeful and on the downward slope.

  Tazaro wheeled around so sharply the room spun as the door clicked open.

  “Is she okay? Is she awake? Can I see her?”

  Byron, evident by the name embroidered into the man’s jacket, opened his mouth but said nothing more and simply beckoned him into the room. As Tazaro passed, he saw the shadow of sadness on the man’s simple stoic facade, and Tazaro slowed his steps as he passed through the doorway.

  Time slowed to sludge, and he wrung his hands together, a total, trembling nervous wreck.

  Tazaro’s worried gaze settled on Sheeva’s face, then lowered to her chest, watching unblinkingly for a rise and fall. As a gentle one shifted the sheet covering her, he felt the overwhelming tension release his stiff demeanor, and he sighed deeply as he leaned against the railing at the foot of the bed. Using it as a temporary crutch for his trembling body, he guided himself to sit at her side, taking a slender hand in his and stroking the back of it with his thumb.

  With Sheeva appearing stable, Tazaro met the doctor’s eye.

  “Your wife was pregnant. We have her stable and well, but unfortunately, it was too late for the, uh, fetus.” The man began, seeming to stick to a medical, matter-of-fact stance on the situation.

  Tazaro dropped his head in shame, then shook it slowly in disappointment with himself.

  “I, I had no idea.”

  “She was only a month along. Just five weeks. She might not have known, herself.”

  “A month?” Tazaro asked, surprised. He looked back at Sheeva, trying to think back to a month ago, but struggled through a sea of fog. Needing to rest his aching body, he lay himself down on the bed as well as awkwardly possible. If such a thing wasn’t okay, the doctor paid no mind and continued about his business.

  At his perturbance, Sheeva began to stir, groaning as she blinked sluggishly at her surroundings, then jumped with a startled whimper at what must have been unfamiliar territory.

  Tazaro weakly pushed himself up to greet her with a relieved smile at her well-being and cup her face in his hand, sighing as he felt the warmth of her skin.

  “What happened? Where are we?” She asked, attempting to sit up to get a better look at her surroundings, but Tazaro gently hushed her and coaxed her into laying back down, despite his now swimming vision.

  “Hey. Hey, it’s okay. You’re sssafe.” He found himself mumbling and slurring. The tire of his body and the weight of his head was alarming, and as he looked around at the fuzziness of the room, he managed to wonder why beyond the haze.

  He looked to the man, wanting to say something was wrong with him, but could only manage an unintelligible grunt that stuck in his chest and tickled his ears.

  Tazaro vaguely understood that the doctor had filled a needle with a clear liquid even though his eyes followed the man’s actions from the start.

  “Wait. What is–

  –Diazepam. She’s been through quite the ordeal, and she’ll need to sleep.” He stated, though not with a sincere hint to his voice. Rather, it was sickeningly sweet and twinged with malice, and it made Tazaro’s stomach churn in a warning.

  “Diazepam.” He repeated as though saying it himself would make him understand. It didn’t, but as he realized the man had tied a sash around Sheeva’s upper arm, it stirred further warning in his gut.

  Why was it so familiar? Flashed through the sludge of thoughts, followed by the more blaring question: He wanted to drug her to sleep?

  “No, don’t. She wouldn’t want...” He mumbled, confused when the man didn’t stop, and pierced Sheeva’s arm with the point, beginning to inject the stuff anyway.

  “I zaid ztop,” Tazaro demanded drunkenly. He leaned over and slapped the man’s hand, then tore the half-filled syringe out of Sheeva’s arm. When he threatened to stab the medic with it, it fell from his hand, senses dulled and wit stupefied.

  He collapsed on the bed over Sheeva’s now drugged, sleeping form as his supporting arm gave in, and he cried out when he felt the pinch of a needle into his neck as the man injected him with something, too.

  The liquid was cold, but the implication it carried turned the drug to ice in his veins, and for as much screaming as he did for his body to grab Sheeva and get out, he could not, only managing non-coherent mumbles and slow swats of anger.

  By the time blackness hit, he wasn’t aware of anything aside from panic that slowly ebbed as he slipped into a drugged sleep.