She clung to a nearby tree, unsure whether she should keep running, or whether she should turn now and run in the other direction, considering the twister tearing through the forest ahead. She had her answer a few moments later when she felt a burst of magic, and the forest went quiet—no more howling winds, no more whirlwind of debris. Only the calm after the chaos.

Someone had dismantled the storm and come to rescue her. And even though every muscle in her body wanted to give up and slide to the forest floor, she pushed herself off of her current tree and toward the next. She did that again and again, stumbling over tree roots and past shrub bushes, determined to set eyes on the loved ones she had missed so dearly.

Soon, she heard the crack of a twig up ahead, and her breath caught, tears preemptively falling down her face. She searched the trees, waiting for the moment Kiran would appear between them, praying to the goddess that no one had been hurt in the fight with the storm.

There were a thousand other things that shadowed form could have been besides a person caught up in the twister’s winds. She had to believe that. It had to be true.

Another crunch of boots, and then a tall form appeared. Aurora clutched at the nearest tree, giving up on walking the rest of the way.

But for the second time that day, the person who walked out from the trees was not who she expected. He was tall, with dark hair and eyes and light brown skin not unlike Kiran’s. And the moment he laid eyes on her, he started running, yelling commands at someone she could not see. She lost her grip on the tree, sinking to her knees, but he was there to catch her before she hit the ground.

“Aurora. Gods, Aurora, are you all right?”

She looked up into the face of Cassius Locke, and she told the truth. “No. I am not.”

Cassius fell to his knees, dropping his sword completely to cradle Aurora Pavan’s thin, bloody form as she crumpled into unconsciousness. He felt as if his mind had been swept away by the twister they had encountered moments before, because he could not seem to grasp what he was seeing. She was here, in front of him, after all this time.

Her clothes were ragged and muddy, and she was splattered with blood. Her hair was shorter—tangled and dirty. Her cheeks looked hollow, like they had long forgotten their last meal. He searched furiously for any injuries that could be the source for all the blood, but after a few moments determined it was not hers.