The cultists who patrol the black slosh marshes whisper that the sound wasn't a scream of pain, but of pure, untempered feeling. One moment, Remona was cornered, their back to a pit of unnatural ice. The next, the Soul Chasers were on their knees, not wounded, but simply pacified, staring at the ash-choked sky with vacant smiles. Remona’s Love Wand still pulsed with a fierce pink light, utterly alien in the gloom. They had been trying to follow a lesson from one of Tedi's smuggled songs—that emotion could be a shield. But their panic wasn’t a shield; it was a wave that washed over everything. The power felt wonderful and terrifying. The wand is still warm.