He needed his family.

By the time he made it on foot to the remnant camp outside the city gates, night had fallen on the third day since Aurora disappeared. There was some kind of commotion going on in camp. Soldiers were out in full force, but they were still having difficulty holding the crowds of remnants back as they gathered around something in the center of camp.

Kiran pushed closer. Weary as he was, his large body made it easy for him to weave his way through until he reached the front line of the crowd. An enormous number of Locke soldiers were fighting to push back the crowd enough to prevent them from viewing what lay beyond, but there was no blocking out what Kiran saw, no matter how many soldiers lined up to push the crowds back. For there, just at the edge of the camp, was a pile of bodies, all of them wearing blue Locke uniforms. They had been stacked into a grotesque mound, and at the top, a pike stuck out, a white flag waving from the top with bloodred writing too small for him to read covering the surface.

He leaned down and asked a older woman, “Do you know what happened here?”

“’Tis the night guards. They were all in their positions last night when we went to sleep. Then this morning, they were like this.”

“Do they have any suspects?” he asked.

“Oh, they would like to blame it on all of us here, ye bet on it. They would love the excuse to get rid of us all. But he signed his name like it was artwork. Called it a gift.”

“Who did?” Kiran asked.

“You know,” the woman whispered, pointing a finger up at the sky. “Him.”

Kiran nodded, that awful, foreboding sensation in his gut magnifying tenfold. He had to believe this was a coincidence. There was no reason to believe this was connected to Aurora’s disappearance. He kept telling himself that. And yet … he could not shake the terrible fear that was taking root inside him.

He left the crowd to their gawking, and set out looking for familiar faces. He found a few people he recognized from their brief stay in the camps upon their arrival in Pavan. As carefully and quietly as he could, he asked around about Etel and her visits until he found someone who kept regular contact with the old woman. Her last visit had been two days ago, so she had technically been due for a visit today, but the high security had likely kept her from coming, which left Kiran with nothing to do but wait.

And hope.