Aurora took a few hard blinks, trying to focus, and scraped in a raspy breath, followed by another. She did not know how to explain to him the way it felt to be this surrounded, this inundated. She imagined it to be like swimming deep into the ocean, the heavy pressure of the water pushing at her lungs and her ears harder and harder until they felt as if they might burst. No, no, that was not quite right. It was more like sensory overload, as if her sense of hearing had increased, and now everything was too loud, too close. Only what she sensed was so much more complex than sound, or sight, or smell.

She felt … yearning and regret and wave upon wave of hopelessness. She saw fragments of memories and lives and loves. Spirits, new ones especially, had a tendency to dwell on their passing, so again and again and again she plunged into the misery of their deaths, dragged unwillingly along for the ride. Even when she managed to put up a block, there was such painful energy here that it made her feel raw and worn out. Which left her with too little strength to block the other souls she could feel—the ones that were not grieving or coping or following loved ones—the ones that had long ago let go of their human lives and become something else entirely. Mangled by fury and knotted up in lust for power and revenge, these souls were not as close by, but it did not matter. Their presence loomed so large and dark and magnetic—she knew if she dared to use her power to call a storm now, it would be one of those souls that would answer. She was not sure she would be able to stop them.

“Roar. Answer me, or I am going to make a scene.”

No. They absolutely could not draw attention to themselves. She had noted on their arrival the blue Locke flags that now flew atop Pavan’s city walls. But it was not only flags that enforced the change in rule; Locke soldiers stood on guard at the gates and occasionally made sweeps through the camp. She had yet to recognize anyone she knew, but that did not mean they would not recognize her if they saw her.