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I had spent hundreds of thousands of years subjugated to humankind and had endured countless vicious acts against me, yet not once in all that time had I ever felt something akin to the pain that swathed my body now. Of course, there had never been a chance of my master being forcefully separated from me before--their wills had bound me to protect them in such situations.

Koel's ineptitude had caused me pain before, but this...this went beyond that. Whoever had kidnapped Koel knew I was a demon and they had done something to block the connection between me and my master.

But the curse was still in place. Thus, the feeling of fire engulfing my body. Had the contract been broken somehow, I would have returned to an incorporeal state, forced to wait for some other human to find my knife. Instead, I got agony--a hundredfold of the worst pain I had endured from the curse.

I tried to lift myself up, but the pain had completely taken away all my strength. I could barely move my limbs at all, let alone muster up enough energy and power to do more than that.

I panted against the dirt, body trembling from both pain and exertion as I futilely tried to rise, only for my arms to fail me before ever even getting the chance to start to push myself up.

Pathetic.

To think I'd fall to such a state.

Weak.

Completely helpless.

I heard the crunch of footsteps approaching me, and for the first time, I was thankful to have human eyes, rather than my telltale demon eyes. Anyone who saw those would instantly know what I was and in my current state, they would be able to do whatever they wanted to me, even without the curse of the knife binding me to them.

The footsteps stilled and someone swore.

I tried to see who was there, but they were behind me and I couldn't turn my head.

A pair of boots appeared in my line of sight and then knees as a woman knelt down in front of me.

"Can you hear me?" she asked.

She pressed her hand to my forehead before quickly withdrawing it, muttering a curse under her breath.

"He's burning up," she said. "Can you get some water from the stream?"

I could hear the sound of feet behind me shifting but not withdrawing.

It was silent for a few moments and then the second person, a man, spoke, "It's a waste of time. He's clearly got more than a fever. We should just--"

"Be quiet," the woman snapped. She pushed sweat-dampened clumps of hair out of my face before continuing, "I know what you're going to say, Dany, and there's no way I'm going to do that. So just get me some water."

"Fine. But it's a waste of time."

I listened to his footsteps departing but was quickly distracted by the woman as she put her hand against my face again. Her skin, somehow, felt both hot and cold to me, and had I the energy, I would have removed her hand. Possibly from her body.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm a healer."