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The words cut because they are shaped to, and my brother lunges while they land. I catch him poorly, his antlers scraping along my skull, one tine slicing near my eye socket. We crash into the split pine hard enough that the old lightning scar splits wider and bark explodes around us. The tree groans.

I seize his shoulder with one hand and slam him into the trunk again, again, again, until the air fills with splinters and blood. He laughs through it, claws digging into my ribs, dragging downward.

Mate, he mocks. Sacred. Chosen. Crying meat with a pretty throat.

Rage gives me strength, but rage alone is stupid. He wants me blind. He wants me to spend myself against him while Lucas fades somewhere hidden.

Lucas.

The name strikes through the red.

I feint left, let my brother catch my movement, then drop low and drive my antlers up under his guard. One tine punches beneath his ribs. He howls, finally more pain than laughter, and we go down together into the creek.

Water closes over my skull. Cold shocks through wounds. He thrashes, claws gouging my back, jaws snapping near my throat again, but I shove his head under with both hands.

The creek rejects him.

That is the first sign of Aestrata.

The water darkens around his skull, then surges upward, not a natural current but old will, forcing mud into his mouth, around his eyes, beneath the cracked edges of bone. He tears free with a roar, but roots erupt from the bank behind him, thin at first, then thick as wrists, wrapping around one hind leg.

My brother looks down, and for the first time, fear crosses him. But it’s not enough.

He rips one root apart, then another, but more rise. The forest that hid from his false scent now touches him directly and recoils in fury. Moss peels away from stone under his feet. Cedars shudder. The creek climbs his legs like hands.

Mother chooses favorites, he snarls.

I slam into him before he can free himself.

We go through the low brush and into the old deer path beyond, his trapped leg tearing loose only because flesh gives where roots will not. He leaves pieces of himself behind and still laughs, mad and shrill, striking my jaw with enough force to send me sideways into stone. My vision flares white. He is on me before it clears, claws at my throat, his skull pressed close to mine.

She loved you best, he spits. Lonely one. Patient one. Good guardian. I made them remember us.

You made them fear us!

I made them follow! He presses harder, claws searching for the place between armor and flesh. Your mate followed nothing. I called with your scent. I held your light. I wore your wanting. He turned away. So, I took him another way.

I drive my claws up beneath his jaw. He jerks back, but not far enough. My grip closes around the underside of his skull, fingers sinking into old cracks and corrupted flesh. He slashes across my chest, opening me, but I hold. He bucks, antlers scraping against mine, lantern swinging wildly, blue flame stuttering with each movement.

You should have stayed gone, I growl.

Then I wrench.

Bone cracks, and he screams, the sound shaking birds from trees for a mile. He twists free by tearing himself against my grip, leaving black-red blood across my hands. He stumbles toward the quarry path, laughing again, but weaker now, one side of his skull hanging at an unnatural angle. I follow with the terrible clarity that comes after rage has burned everything unnecessary.

He turns at the edge of the old quarry hollow, where stone drops sharp into shadow. Kill me then, brother. Your mate still dies slowly. You can hold two corpses tonight.

The bond flickers. It’s so faint and so far beneath blood and false scent that I nearly miss it.

Lucas is still alive, but he doesn’t have long. My brother sees the recognition move through me, and his laughter stops. Then he attacks with everything left.

The final clash breaks the ground under us. Antlers lock, unlock, strike. Claws tear. Teeth snap. We slam through a dead cedar and spill onto the quarry stones, both bleeding, both limping, both too ancient for the human world and too furious to fall.

He goes for my lantern. I let him think it matters. His claws close around the chain, yanking hard enough to tear the metal into my antler, and in that moment, with his throat exposed beneath the ruined skull, I surge forward and bite.

Not as predator—as executioner.

My jaws close around the corrupted throat of the thing that began beside me. His blood floods my mouth, foul with old death and stolen fear.