“Get her out of here,” Jaku ordered. “We’ll question her separately.”

“No!” I screamed again, jerking and flailing in a desperate attempt to throw Uzadaan and Dromak off me. Izgath merely rested on his knees, head hanging low, garnet the color of his eyes seeping from the meat of his back. Tears blurred his form as they hauled me away from the chaos. “Uzadaan, Dromak, you have to save him, please! This is all my fault. Punish me and not him. Please, I am begging you.”

They corralled me into a nearby tent, devoid of life with the drama unfolding outside.

“How do you know our names?” Uzadaan hissed, spinning me to face him.

“I am Vagach,” I tried to explain, but my words came out more like breathless hiccups.

Dromak came around to face me, crouching slightly so we were level. “What?”

“I am Vagach,” I repeated.

He shook his head. “That’s impossible.”

“I can show you–” I started to call my magic, but then my entire body froze. Uzadaan’s hand lifted from his side, fingers pinched together.

“Do you believe this, Dromak?” he asked. “I don’t want to let her move again if she’s going to use her magic to try to escape. I don’t want to join Izgath on the pyre tonight.”

Dromak looked between the two of us, his nervousness playing out in every expression on his face.

“Hurry and decide, I don’t want to accidentally kill her,” Uzadaan snapped.

“Well then it’s a good thing you and your blood magic are going for extra training,” Dromak snapped. “What’s the harm? We’re both bigger and stronger than her. There’s no way she can get away if you took hold of her that quickly.”

As if I was literally being brought back to life, Uzadaan released whatever hold he had over me. My heart thundered in my chest again, and the world swam for a moment before I regained my bearings.

“Firstly, fuck both of you, if I wanted to escape I could,” I griped. Uzadaan’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Secondly, why would I try to escape when I want to save Izgath?” Huffing out a breath, I wasted no more time pulling Vagach’s form to me.

Both jaws dropped open as I grew bigger, taller, hairier, and I made sure to get the asshole’s dick perfectly since it was swinging out beneath the tunic. “Happy?” I asked in his much deeper voice.

They only blinked at me as I released my power, returning to Assyria. “Can we go save Izgath now?”

“Hold on, have you always been Vagach?” Dromak questioned, his dark brows dipping over his cherry eyes.

“Since we left Stryi,” I admitted, fingers twisting in the tunic. A woodsy, smoky scent crept into our space, tickling my nostrils.

We don’t have time for this.

Uzadaan held up one finger as if he sensed the direction of my thoughts. “And how did you become Vagach?”

“Vagach was my husband and I killed him,” I said simply, body tingling as adrenaline continued to course through my veins. The scent was thickening by the second which meant Izgath was likely already on the pyre—alive.

“You killed a Kormánzó?” Uzadaan questioned, his ruby eyes widening. He took a fraction of a step away, but I clocked the movement regardless.

“Yes, so it should be me on the pyre and not Izgath! So let’s fucking go before he dies for my mistake.” Tears burned again and I fisted the tunic so hard I thought it might tear.

“And Izgath knew?” Dromak clarified, his brows pulled so far together I thought they would become one as he tried to process this new information.

“Yes, what are you not understanding about the seriousness of the situation? Do you want to save Izgath or continue to question me when I am admitting what I did?” I snapped. A throaty yell ripped through the night, stealing the air from my lungs. I bolted immediately for the exit, not waiting for the other two. Izgath was going to die, and if they wouldn’t take me, I’d go myself.

A hand clamped around my bicep again, yanking me backward against his chest. “Fuck,” Dromak swore, “we can’t save Izgath, not now. It’s too late.”

I fought against his hold, but his arms were like a vise around my body. “Let me go! There’s still time. You two are cowards! I’m sorry I ever thought of you as friends.”

An all too familiar scent of burning flesh blew through the tent on another strong breeze. Three more caws preceded another scream. My vision blurred as I stopped struggling, collapsing in Dromak’s arms. A sob wracked my chest as one anguished cry followed another.

Izgath was dying. It was too late.

“No,” I sobbed, “this is all my fault.”

Dromak eased me to the ground, and Uzadaan crouched on my other side. “Izgath made his decision to protect you,” Uzadaan murmured, smoothing back my hair.

Wayward strands still clung to my face, wet from every drop of sorrow that spilled down my cheeks. “He asked me to marry him. He wanted to protect me from this. And look what happened because I was stupid and reckless.”

The smell was cloying, and I choked on my tears and the air, coughing, hiccuping, sobbing, falling to pieces between two males whom I didn’t know if I could trust. Izgath had wanted me to tell Uzadaan before we left for enhanced training, but would either of them risk standing up for me with the severity of the consequences?

Maybe I was going to die today after all.

Dromak’s large hands covered my ears, drowning out Izgath’s screams. I shook my head to dislodge them. “No, I need to hear what I’ve done. He deserves that at least.”

I couldn’t deny how they speared into my heart, shredding it even more than it already was. Wherever I went, whomever I was with, death followed.

Why did you gift me this magic, Giver? What do you want from me, Reaper? Why lead me on this path only to have it end here, Weaver?

I’d never hated the Fates, the priestesses, and being female more than I did in that moment.

When the screams fell silent, I shattered like a glass vase thrown at a wall, a thousand tiny shards exploding in every direction and tearing me apart from the inside. The force of my cries robbed me of breath as I curled on the ground, nearly vomiting from the depth of my anguish. It hurt so bad, and I wanted nothing more than to join him on that pyre. Izgath was gone, like everyone else I’d loved, and I would face my fate utterly alone.

The ground shook beneath me, and it wasn’t until Jaku appeared in my blurred vision that I realized it wasn’t because the earth grieved with me.

“Get her up, it’s time for her to answer some questions,” he snarled, looking at me with so much disgust that I almost sprinted to the fire and flung myself on it rather than face whatever he had planned for me.

Two sets of hands hauled me to my feet, taking all my weight as I had no energy, no will to walk on my own. “I’m so sorry,” Uzadaan whispered, so low I barely heard him, as we reentered the putrid night air.

Utterly overwhelmed with my grief, I didn’t fight back as the leather straps were fastened around my wrists, as the tunic barely covering my body was ripped wide, as Parancsok Olet unfurled his still-dripping whip and circled me. When he disappeared from view, I saw the still-burning pyre, and the charred body resting atop it.

Izgath.

The pain as the whip struck my back was blinding, and I jerked forward, an involuntary scream tearing from my throat from the unexpected strike. I braced for the next one, and blood filled my mouth from where I had bitten down on my lip. On the third, wet heat spilled down my back, alongside my eyes.

“I killed him! I killed Vagach,” I sobbed, desperate for a reprieve, an escape from the pain.

Please kill me now.

“What was that?” Jaku asked, stepping closer. I could barely make out his form from the swollenness of my eyes.

“Vagach was my husband, and I killed him. Before we left Stryi,” I explained through heaving breaths.