Kael's stomach screamed.
He had eaten nothing in two days. The taste of blood from the hare and wolves still lingered in his mouth, but it only made the emptiness worse.
He staggered through the tunnels, dragging his bone shard, his bare feet cut and raw. The darkness pressed against him, whispering with the sound of dripping water and distant growls.
Food… anything…
His head spun. His vision blurred. The dungeon walls seemed to bend and twist, faces forming in the stone. They sneered, they laughed, they whispered.
"You should have died."
"You're nothing but prey."
"Why do you keep crawling?"
Kael pressed his hands to his ears, sinking to his knees.
"Shut up… shut up…"
But the voices grew louder. His chest burned, the mark pulsing furiously as if it hungered too.
Something broke inside him. He slammed the shard against the stone again and again, his small arms trembling, his voice cracking into a sob.
"I don't… I don't want to die…"
The dungeon gave no answer. Only silence, and his own ragged cries.