The neck of her shirt was torn open, and he could see mud-streaked skin and what looked like flashes of light. He stared, entranced and confused, as displays of magic he had only ever seen in the sky moved where her heart should be. It was impossible; only the Stormlord bore those kinds of marks. It was him they had come seeking, after all. One of the remnants had reported seeing a suspicious man with someone she was certain was Casimir Locke. Considering his brother had made it his mission to torture the remnants into leaving, he did not know why anyone would want to help, but it was the first real lead they had had on his brother.

And now he found Aurora here instead? It made no sense.

Someone called out ahead of him. Then more shouts followed. He hefted Aurora into his arms and went toward the noise. She was too light in his arms, her skin too cold, but a warmth he had not known in a long time began to spread through him at the certainty of having her safe in his hold.

Then he came into the clearing and saw what had drawn his soldiers’ attention, and what little warmth he had gained left him.

His brother lay strewn across the grass, his neck open, a crimson puddle forming below him. He looked away, blinking hard to rid himself of the sight. But that red pool lingered on the black of his eyelids.

He had never been particularly close to his brother. That was not how his family worked. But gods damn it, he was so tired. Violence lived beneath his very skin, it was part of who he was, but that did not mean he did not want to claw it out sometimes. He wanted to turn that violence inward and burn it all away until there was nothing left but ash and he could finally rest.

He forced his eyes open and scanned the rest of the area around him. His eyes landed on a pair of manacles staked in the grass, about two strides apart. He looked down where Aurora’s arms lay limply in her lap and saw the raw abrasions around her wrists. He tilted one arm up and saw the same was true of her ankles.

Then that violence he knew so well came screaming back—black and burning.

If she had been held captive out here too, then the bastard still had to be out here somewhere.

“Search the woods,” he demanded. “Search every bleeding tree if you have to. Find him.”

He took a deep breath, his thoughts torn in too many directions—wanting to be in on the hunt, knowing he needed to get Aurora to a nurse, and dreading facing his brother’s lifeless body again.