As I stare from my hiding space, he snatches the bag from his anchor and lifts it to his nose. “Did you finish the nose spices again?”

She quivers. “I’m sorry. I just needed a little.” Her voice turns whining.

“You didn’t leave any for me.” He flings the bag at her, smacking her on the cheek. “Where’s my wine? And my sweets?”

“Here,” she says eagerly, scrambling to the nearest table. “Shall I feed you?”

“I want you to eat them,” he says, petting her hair. His hand goes to his belt and as I watch, he unfastens what has to be the most jewel-encrusted codpiece ever. I’d laugh at this guy if it wasn’t Aron’s face underneath all that crap.

The anchor – Naeri – shoves a few sweets into her mouth, chewing loudly, and then tilts her face up to his. Aron – Skank Aron – leans down and covers her mouth, slicking his tongue against hers even as she eats.

Okay, gross. I get that he doesn’t need to eat, but damn, that’s nasty.

“Now wine,” he tells her, and she grabs a goblet and starts to slurp it down, her gaze locked on his as he pets her cheek. His hand keeps moving over his waist, and then his armor jingles as his pants go down.

Oh shit. I do not want to see this.

I drop down to the floor, squeezing my eyes shut. I hate that being near this is affecting me, just like it was in Tadekha’s palace. I recognize how it feels. There’s an intense, needy yearning deep in my belly that’s growing by the moment. I don’t want to be turned on by this. I don’t. But my body’s responding anyhow. I can feel my pussy flooding with heat even as they make loud, sloppy noises on the other side of the wall of crates.

“Take me in your mouth,” he tells her, and I flinch.

He’s Hedonism. Of course he’s going to want her to blow him. I hate that she’s doing it, though, and for a moment, I hate him too. I hate all of this, and it makes me want to throw the vial of Godsfire at both of them. Thing is, my Aron is impossibly fast and strong. I don’t know if I can take him out, even if he is distracted. I have to wait…and endure.

It’s the longest five minutes of my life. It might be less. It might be more. I have no way of knowing, only that the smacks and moans and groans seem to go on for far too long. Aron’s armor jingles faster and faster, and then he gives a low groan that breaks my heart, because I’ve heard that groan before. That’s his orgasm groan.

I dig my fingernails into my palms so hard that I draw blood. I don’t know if I want to shove my hand down my pants or burst into tears. Both sound good right about now.

The girl gives a throaty giggle, and I hear the light slap of skin. “That’s for finishing off my nose spices,” Aron murmurs. “You’d better find me more before I return from the battlefield.”

“I will,” she promises breathlessly.

“Good. Today will be a glorious day.” His armor jingles again, and when I dare to peek over, I see he’s putting his codpiece back on with her help as she kneels in front of him. “We’ll break them today. I can feel it. And tonight, we celebrate.”

Naeri giggles again, gazing up at him with a sly look. “We celebrate every night, my lord of storms.”

He grunts, taps her cheek with a jewel-crusted glove, and then heads for the entrance to the tent, the beads in his hair swaying. He pauses before he leaves. “Find those red-haired twins and tell them to be in our tent tonight.”

“Of course,” she says breathlessly, and then he’s gone.

I want to vomit. So much vomit. I stare with hatred as the girl moves to the table and drinks more wine, then saunters back to the trunk and digs through it. She pulls out a new pouch from behind something, and as she turns her back to me, I hear her sniff deeply again.

Bitch is holding out on him.

I hate her. He’s not even my Aron and I hate her.

It’s now or never. I kick off my muddy shoes and move, barefooted, over the thick rug on the ground. I creep up behind the woman as she rummages through the trunk, the vial clutched in my hand.

She’s twenty feet away from me.

Then ten.

All I have to do is cross the distance between us, break the vial over her head, and run like the wind.

I can do this.

Five feet.

The woman tenses in her crouch, then whips around and looks at me, her eyes wide. I stand over her in my wench clothing, the vial clutched in my hand, and she stares up at me in shock. She looks so young, no more than eighteen or nineteen.

Her lower lip wobbles. “Please don’t kill me.”

Oh fuck. Every time I played this scenario in my head, the anchor never had a face. Staring down at this girl as she begs me to live? I hesitate. “I—”

She surges forward and in the next moment, plunges a knife into my belly.

I stagger. Pain rockets through me, overwhelming in its awfulness. Somewhere outside, I hear a distant unearthly scream as thunder crashes overhead. That would be Aron. Blood fills my mouth, and I clutch the dagger in my stomach even as the girl gets to her feet.

The look on her face is no longer helpless. It’s feral and cunning. My fingers curl around the cool handle of the metal knife and I realize the mirror off to the side let her know my every movement. I was so focused on getting to her, so distracted from Hedonism’s visit that I didn’t pay attention to it.

Fucking dumb, Faith.

The woman grins and approaches me as blood dribbles down my chin. She reaches for the knife, her hand covering mine. “Fuck you, cunt.” Her voice is low and cold.

I lift my hand—the one with the fragile vial—and smash it against the side of her face.

“That’s tart to you,” I choke out.

Flames erupt. It’s like she explodes into flame, and her shrieks fill the tent even as I stagger backward and collapse on the rug. She screams, high pitched and wailing, as she pours water on her face and the flames lick across her clothing and ignite. The smell of burned hair fills the room and people rush in.

They take one look at her, burning like a pillar, and me collapsed on the ground with a knife in my gut, blood pouring from my mouth—

And they run.

Blackness creeps in and out of my vision. Pain makes it hard to concentrate.

The girl’s still screaming, but it ebbs back and forth. Or maybe I’m the one screaming. It’s hard to tell.

Time passes.

I think.

Spots dance in front of my vision. My hand hurts. I squint to look at it, and even that’s difficult. My palm faces the ceiling of the tent, and I see that it’s entirely blackened, the last of the flames licking the charred remains of where the Godsfire touched me.

I lost a hand. Oh well.

My belly feels cold. I can’t even feel the knife in my gut. Not anymore. I can’t feel the pain, either. Everything just feels…really cold. And distant. I try to move my good hand, but it’s like trying to communicate with a block of ice. It doesn’t respond.

I fade in and out again. Right now, it’s not a question of which of us is going to die. We’re both going to die—the only question is which anchor will outlast the other in her death-throes. Will I bleed out before she burns to death? Who knows.

Who…cares. It suddenly seems to matter very little.

My heart throbs slowly. Painfully. My gut does, too. Belly wounds are bullshit.

I want to vomit, but I don’t have the energy. Oh god, everything hurts. I moan, and I can feel sweat on my skin. This is a horrible way to die. I think of the man with his throat cut. I think of the woman, burning alive under Godsfire. I think of poor Vitar. And Solat.

Fuck, there are no good ways to die, it seems. Just a lot of awful.

The woman. I turn my head, trying to look around the tent. One of the rugs is on fire, I notice belatedly, and her charred, unmoving corpse is atop it. She’s not screaming anymore. She’s utterly silent. The Godsfire keeps going, though, and as I watch, the bed lights up, the silks zooming with fire and crackling like they’re covered in gasoline.