Redtail Rise Everything is fair in love

I want the bitterness back.

For days after, Carrion wore a circle in the ground around Rotgut's stump.

She paced and paced and paced and paced and paced and paced. She muttered the same thing over and over. Where is the bitter taste? I want the bitterness back.

She moved as her thoughts did: cyclically, endlessly, without progression. She would leave the area as her body bade her — either to drink or take a mouthful from the Rise's cache or relieve herself — but she always returned to the stump, as if tethered to it like a junkyard dog. She slept near none of her family and met no one's gaze.

I want the bitterness back.

Her anguish was palpable only to those familiar with her. To a stranger, she would just seem disturbed.

She was numb. Insensate. A newborn again with nothing but the instinct to curl up at her mother's belly and no mother to be found.

Where is the bitter taste?