Dragoncrest Cliffs I've never given in to madness, never given in to madness

Since the scuffle when he tried to leave, Ephraim was being contained in the secluded beach at the bottom of Hougeda, the very same spot they'd held Rosalyn previously. For days he was left there in solitude; there was a guard posted in the tunnel but they didn't engage with him, no doubt on the Wormana's orders. He was left to fester in his misery, guilt and anguish until it burned him down to smoldering embers. Boredom consumed him when he had only the lapping waves for company, but that wasn't all.

He didn't eat. He hardly slept, stealing snatches here and there but never allowing his guard to drop for long. Ephraim knew he deserved this treatment on some level. He'd attacked his leader. He was sure no one would understand what he'd been seeing in the moment, so he didn't bother trying to explain it. It sounded crazy even in his head, to claim he had been on the battlefield again and Blixen had appeared to be an enemy. Easier to just accept what came.

And yet, he couldn't help thinking of all the others who left with nary a word and were let go. Wildfire, Kiwi and Sequoia; Eastwood; Artaax had been missing since Heda's death. Ephraim guessed that he was gone too. They'd even released their prisoner in the midst of a war for reasons he couldn't begin to understand. He thought about it often, spinning these names in his head and trying to determine why they got off scot free and he had to fester here, as if he hadn't also put his life on the line for this pack. He thought that Heda would be disappointed in @Blixen if she could see her now, imprisoning her own torture packmates while letting her blood relatives and other born kru do as they pleased. When he thought of it like that, he knew he didn't deserve this.

Maybe they would let him go in due time, like Rosalyn. He somehow doubted it, since that had been a political move, but it was the only hope he had and it was the main reason he remained meek and quiet on the beach instead of attempting to break past his guard as Rosalyn once had.