My fear largely overshadows my outrage. In my head, a voice screams at me to follow after Sanaa, demand her aid, and force her to heal Samu. But my feet remain rooted in place as helplessness washes over me.

Did I really allow myself to so easily fall into another one of Killian's false promises? After a year of planning and dreaming of my brother, I never anticipated feeling so stuck upon finally finding him.

Voices outside the tent draw my attention. Lei, and a more familiar voice, strangely foreign with that new accent. My stomach clenches as I pull the sheet back. They both halt their conversation, attention drawing to me.

The deserter clothes I got used to seeing Killian in have been swapped out for a different style. More loose-fit, the trim of his neckline a deep V, revealing his toned chest. My eyes raise to meet his gaze as somebody captures Lei's attention, drawing her into a separate conversation.

"I didn't know you'd woken up," he says.

"I didn't realise I had to inform you of every single thing I did."

A grin tugs at his lips. "And back to your old self, too," he comments. "That's good."

There's a dryness in his tone that makes me think of the way we spoke to one another in Veymaw, with a certain playful familiarity. It makes my chest burn.

"How's your head?" he asks. "You bumped it pretty hard."

As if you care.

I ignore him. He takes a step towards the tent when I don't answer, but I block his path. I don't want him anywhere near Samu. "Leave me alone, Killian."

He hesitates, expression cautious as if he expects me to strike him. I scan his face. Those eyes, that lilt to his accent, they only serve to worsen the growing pit in my stomach. Following my conversation with Sanaa and everything else that's happened since Killian betrayed me, emotion swells inside of me. I blink frantically, trying to dissuade the tears. The only thing that could make this worse is crying in front of Killian.

"I don't know why I even considered believing that you'd help Samu after everything you did."

"Samu?" He frowns. "What're you talking about?"

"Just drop the act. You got what you wanted."

He narrows his eyes. "And what is it that you think I wanted?"

"Me, stuck here against my will. A prisoner." Over his shoulder, people begin to stare. "You don't have to pretend to care about me or Samu anymore."

His gaze burns into mine. I move to step past him. He catches my wrist. "Don't." I recoil, snatching my hand back.

"I know you're upset—"

"You don't know anything about me."

"That's not true, Freya."

"It is." My eyes burn as I stare at him, wishing I could read the thoughts in his eyes, wishing I could go back to the day we met and erase every single moment.

"You can't know somebody you don't even see as a person. For you and your people, I'm a means to an end. A weapon. None of you care about what happens to me, you only care about what you think I can do for you." I try to sound casual as if the thought doesn't bother me, but even I can hear the bitterness in my tone. "You don't know me. I clearly don't know you, and I don't want to. So just drop the act, okay?"

His jaw tightens as we stare at one another. But that stoic expression remains, my words having no effect on him whatsoever. Some pathetic part of me wants him to deny my claims. To say that he wasn't pretending, that he does care, that he knows me. That all those fleeting glances, burning touches, and midnight conversations weren't one-sided.

But he doesn't say anything.

My heart heaves as I take a sharp breath. Without another word, I spin on my heel and storm towards Lei, my rage fueling every step.

Killian is a liar. But so am I.

I clearly don't know you. And I don't want to.

I wish that were true.

***

The last thing I want to do is a guided tour, especially when it means leaving Samu unattended. But with the newfound knowledge that helping Samu is a condition and not a guarantee, my desire to leave only grows.

If I want to escape, I need to know the layout of the land. As Lei leads me through, it's far larger than I first realized.

My mind is still frazzled with my encounter with Killian. He didn't follow after me when I stormed off, didn't try to deny what I'd said, call out my lie. It takes a lot of restraint to keep the tears at bay. A thin thread holds me together, stretched to its limit as I attempt to shove Killian from my mind.

He doesn't care about me. I can't let him know I care about him. I have to stop caring about him.

"How many of you here?" I ask Lei, trying to distract myself.

The camp is bigger than I imagined, but its size doesn't make it more permanent. The makeshift tents, collection of carriages, and horses stocked with bags. They could pack up and leave with a moments notice. There is no clear perimeter marking, the camp appearing largely unguarded. But I know not to understimate the keen senses of a shifter army.

"Only fifty of us at this camp." We tread further along the path, the ocean coming back into view. "Down that path, you'll find a hot spring you can freshen up in."

I follow her gaze to the path leading up the bank and into the trees, pretending to nod in thanks. Fifty. That's smaller than I expected. The flame of hope inside me flares as I scan the cluster of tents. There are lanterns strung up on ropes through the overhanging branches, but when night falls, I can imagine the darkness that descends upon this camp. The kind of darkness I'll need to get away.

"And where are we exactly?" I ask. She glances at me from the corner of her eye. "I only ask because of King Ereon. Will he find us here?"

"Don't worry about Ereon," she says. "Along here is the dining tent. We eat meals together."

My heart sinks at her lack of an answer. Escaping this place is one thing, navigating the Elel countryside with no idea where I am is an entirely different kind of challenge—one I'm not so sure I'll be able to complete.

We round the corner to what I can only assume is the dining tent. A couple lingers outside, separated from the loud conversations humming through the material. I ignore the heat of their gazes, keeping my eyes fixed forward as we move on.

"And what about the... the infected?" I ask, a shudder crawling down my spine.

"What about them?"

"Should I worry about them out here?"

She hesitates. "Not at the camp, no."

"But in the surrounding woods? Are there many?"

Lei eyes me suspiciously. I force a smile. "The infected have no rational thought, and they rarely travel in groups of more than two or three. They won't infiltrate the camp successfully. They'd be outnumbered and easily taken down here."

"So you can take them down?"

She stops walking to look at me, slightly defensive. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"There were three of you against one of them the other night, and yet you did nothing. You let that poor horse suffer when you could've fought it."

She examines my expression. "And how do you suggest we should've fought it?"

"I don't know, shift or something—"

She laughs. "When Killian said you didn't know, he really wasn't kidding."

"What're you talking about?"

"How much have you interacted with the shifters in Elel?"

"The councillor visited us occasionally throughout the years. But they only come down from the mountains on the Red Moon."

"And think about it, Freya, in all your interactions with the shifters, how often were they in their wolf form?"

"Only the night of the Red Moon."

"And why is that?"

"I-I don't know."

She raises her brows. "It's because the Red Moon is the only night we can transform."

I stare at her, trying to decipher any deceit from her expression, but she only looks surprised I hadn't already known. Biting the inside of my cheek, I try to mask my shock and maintain a neutral expression. The shifters have always been elusive to us. And aside from councillor Tetterman, we only saw them on the Red Moon, dangerous and out for blood. I try to scrape my mind for any memory of a shifter in wolf form on another occasion but come up empty.

Not once in the Palace, nor on the mission Trina sent me on. I'd held a dagger in councillor Tetterman's son's chest, and he still hadn't shifted. The information clicks into place, filling in the spaces I'd left with a question mark.

"So... aside from the night of the Red Moon," I start, "you're no different to us?"

"If by 'us' you mean humans, then not exactly. We still have enhanced senses, agility, and strength every other day of the year. We just can't shift. Not that I'd want to, anyway." She shudders. "It's not exactly a pain-free experience."

It merely fuels my rage. We were terrified of the shifters because of their wolf forms, our image of them compiled from what we saw during the Red Moon. It's yet another tale of deception King Ereon fed us to keep us in line.

"You really didn't know that?" she says, voice softer.

"Is it supposed to be common knowledge?"

She shrugs. "In Torinne, shifters don't hide from humans. They know who and what we are."

The idea intrigues me. How things function in the other countries sounds so different to here in Elel. "And they're okay with it?"

"There is no them versus us. There is only we, citizens of Torinne."

The pride in both her words and expression shines brighter than the sun above her head. I try to picture it in my mind, a place where there's no separation between the two, but something blocks it. I can't dismantle the ideas about society that have been pressed onto me my entire life based on a few words from somebody who has experienced life differently.

"But you're right, between the three of us, we could have taken the infected down last night, and we would have if it had tried to hurt one of us."

"So why didn't you?" I ask.

"We've all lost loved ones to the evocion. We all hope that it's a disease you can bring somebody back from." She meets my eye. "Somewhere out there, that shifter has a family, a life."

"And how do you know it deserved your mercy? The person that it was before could have been just as evil as who it was last night."

She shrugs. "That's not my judgment to make."

She turns around and starts walking again. Questions litter my mind as her words settle in. Even before I knew Killian was one of them, I knew they were in the country. But how long? How long has it been since Torinne was deemed unliveable? Since Sanaa became the only living royal? How long since Killian lost his family?

And there's one pressing thought that lingers in the wake of Lei's words.

Killian and I spoke about his family on multiple occasions. When we first met, he was aloof and guarded. He only shared that his father was a trader and never returned from sea. But I knew that was a lie when I discovered that he was with the deserters.

He told me he didn't know where his family was, and he wasn't sure if they were alive or dead. Except for his sister. He was there when she died. He'd told me that in the early hours of the morning, mere inches away atop the bed in the Palace bedroom. I don't know if anything of what Killian revealed about his family is true. And yet, I shudder as I recall the infected last night, the way it groaned, devoured that horse.

We've all lost loved ones to the evocion.

I shake the memory off, forcing myself to think of something else. Whatever familial secrets Killian holds should be the last of my concerns. I don't need to know about Torinne or their pasts. I need to know the present--anything that will help me escape.

"Is Sanaa in charge here?" I ask. "Or is there somebody else?"

"Sanaa is the Queen of Torinne now. There are other leaders still sheltering overseas in Ayrith with the rest of our people, but Sanaa wanted to be on the front lines despite their protests."

It doesn't surprise me. There was an air of power that surrounded her, and it had nothing to do with the guards glued to her sides.

I shudder at the memory.

This country doesn't have forever.

I can only assume she was referring to the cloud that ravaged Torinne and forced them to take shelter in the neighboring countries. I've seen evidence of its potential damage; it's marked on my body. Cloud Piercer. That's what Elora called me before throwing me in front of a diseased, ravenous shifter. She thought I could heal it, and Sanaa thinks I can do something for her, too.

But I shun the thought, remembering my father, a man of sense and logic. Magic doesn't exist. And yet, the lingering thought persists—no amount of logic can explain the existence of the cloud.

"Let's move on," Lei says. "I'll show you the rest of camp."

She continues forward, droning on about the different tents, where I can find her, where I can get food, where I can wash. Each tent is a mental mark in my mind. I don't miss the tents she skips over, the one guarded by a single person each time we breeze past, three times to be exact. The third time, there's a 55 second period where the entrance is clear as the guards switch over.

I glance to the sky, noting where the sun sits. If I'm going to get myself and Samu out of here, there's no way in hell we're leaving without a weapon.