Their daughter woke screaming in the small hours of the night, a sound Wirasena had never once heard from her in all the weeks he'd kept her under his care, and he was through her door with a lamp in hand before the second cry had fully left her throat.
She sat bolt upright in bed, small hands pressed flat over her own ears as though trying to block out something only she could hear, tears streaming freely down a face gone pale with a fear Wirasena had no framework for soothing. "Papa's scared," she gasped, the words tumbling out faster than her breath could properly support them. "Something big is looking at him, Empu Wirasena, something enormous, and it's angry that he's there, and I can feel how scared he is even though he isn't saying it out loud to anyone."
