She tried not to think about what that blood could mean. Was Kiran still out there, searching for her? Had he gotten too close? Goddess, the cramping hunger pains combined with the wrenching discomfort of fear, and she realized she still had tears to cry after all.

When the Stormlord rejoined the camp, he had donned the coat of a Locke soldier, though it was charred black in spots, and littered with holes. She did not want to look weak, but her desperation outweighed her calculation. “Water, please,” she croaked.

The Stormlord jerked at her interruption, as though he had forgotten her presence entirely. But he did as she asked, pulling out a waterskin and stalking toward her. He held it up to her lips as she drank. She was weak and clumsy, and water dribbled down her chin, but she did not mind. It felt good on her sunburned skin. She drank until the skin was empty, and she only barely resisted the urge to ask for more.

“I-I thought you were going to teach me,” she murmured, falling back against the earth, exhausted just by the act of lifting her head up to drink.

“I will,” he said. “When it is time.”

“Can you free me? If only for a little while. You have been gone so long, and I need … I need…” The list of what she needed was endless, but the only thing that popped into her head at that moment was Kiran, and the blood-soaked clothes the Stormlord had worn as he strode into camp. She needed to know he was safe.

“You need to feel helpless and alone,” he snapped. “That is how it starts. It is only when you are truly alone, when you have been given up by those who love you and left by the ones who should protect you and abandoned by your companions … that is how you will learn the worth of your gift.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

“The Lockes made certain of that. Left me to die in the jungle. They did not know I am never alone. Thanks to the goddess.”

He left again before she got the chance to ask for food, and her stomach contracted sharply in protest. She waited and waited, hoping he would come back with another fox or a rabbit or a bird, but when she gathered her energy to search the souls in the surrounding area, she did not find his distinct and confusing signature.

That was when she screamed. She howled up to the sky, her throat raw and everything in her spasming with unrivaled fear and fury. She screamed until the birds flew from the surrounding trees, and the maelstrom in her chest dwindled into exhaustion. It felt good. But all it did was draw her into sleep again.