“I am fine. Only…” She cleared her throat, knowing she had to give him something or he would never give up. “You remember Avira?” she asked, referencing the spirit witch he had sought out when Aurora had taken the heart of a skyfire storm in the Sangsorra desert and fallen unconscious for days. That night in the desert, she had manifested the incredibly rare ability to take the heart of a storm not by the traditional means of defeating the storm to capture the relic Stormheart it leaves behind, but by literally taking the storm into herself. Kiran did not talk about it much, but she knew that night had been traumatizing for him, not to mention her remaining unconscious for days with a mimicry of a lightning storm where her heart should be. It was a wonder he had not run for the hills before now.

“Of course I remember her. She gave me back my name.” He squeezed her arm gently and grimaced. “And I will never forget the way she was always looking around, as if she was having ten different conversations I could not hear. It was unsettling.”

Aurora fought not to wince, and in her fatigue just ended up giving a long, slow blink.

“Roar?”

She forced heavy-lidded eyes open, suddenly exhausted. “Hmm?”

“What about Avira?”

“Let’s say she would have a lot to work with here.”

His eyes left her to scan the camp around her, softening then widening in understanding. “That is why you are so pale? Because you can hear them?”

She thought about arguing that she was always pale, but decided it was not worth the breath. “Something like that,” she said. “Hear. Feel. Taste. See. It depends on what they are putting off. But yes, they are everywhere.”

“This is the nearest you have been to a city since your waking. Is it that?”

She huddled closer to his side, trying to keep their conversation as private as possible. “That might have something to do with it. But it’s also the remnants.” She worded her next sentence carefully, hoping he understood. “They have all experienced so much loss. And much of it has followed them here.”

Their eyes met, and he looked at her with a knowing grief that made her want to collapse into his arms right there in the middle of everyone. Instead, she let herself lean on him as she took another step forward.

“We can set up camp farther away,” Kiran suggested. “It will give you some space. And the Rock is too conspicuous anyway.” The hulking metal contraption that passed for a traveling carriage was quite unusual.

“But we need to get information, make connections, learn about the guard situation—”