He found her on the third night. A girl—no older than seventeen—curled beneath a collapsed stall, eyes red from tears and ash.
"They're all dead," she said when he approached. "The Fever took them."
Kael knelt. He could feel the life-thread leaving her, a filament of soul spinning up into the air like incense.
"Do you want to live?"
Her eyes flickered. "What?"
"I can anchor you. But you'll never be the same."
"Will I live?"
He nodded.
And with a breath that felt like swallowing a blade, he reached into her chest and pulled her soul back down.
She screamed.