Kai dreams that he has found Paedyn in the desert. In the dream, she greets him calmly and offers him forget-me-nots, but the flowers are soaked in the dead king’s blood. As Kai recoils, Paedyn accuses him of ignoring his own violence, and the vision ends with Kai covered in blood and screaming.

He wakes in the Scorches beside his sleeping Imperials, shaken by the nightmare and unsure whether he cried out loud. After four days in the desert, Kai has found no real trace of Paedyn, but his thoughts are so consumed by her that he keeps imagining her in the landscape. His exhaustion and obsession make him feel as though he is losing his mind.

As dawn arrives, Kai forces himself back into command. He wakes his men, pushes them to break camp, and gets the group moving again with their horses, dried rabbit, and limited water. The routine shows that the search continues, even though the desert has worn everyone down.

While traveling, Kai keeps connecting ordinary moments to memories of Paedyn, which deepens his conflict instead of steadying him. He wonders whether everything between them was manipulation tied to the Resistance, the fall of the kingdom, and the murder of his father. Even so, Kai cannot settle his feelings from a distance, so he commits to reaching Dor by the next sunrise, searching there, then continuing to Tando if necessary, determined to find Paedyn and force the answers he wants.