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“Influx of your power?” My breath came fast. He was inside me, permanently. The strength I felt was him, puppeting me.

Your blood is mine now, he taunted. Your blood, your spit, your seed.

Horror coursed through me, beside the foreign strength. “Get out. Get out!”

He scoffed. What I gave, I will take back. Your body will live long enough to breed my bride, though, to burn their marks away from the inside. When I am done and have a child, I will let this form die.

I stepped away from the wall, though I was not the one moving my feet. Edan stalked across the cavern, the glow from my skin illuminating the remaining living priests, who all fell to their knees, pressing their noseless faces to the rough floor. He barked orders to them, raving about feeding and children.

I ignored his voice and them, focusing on my body. Could I control any part of it? Possibly. I wrenched at my left hand, and it flew up and into the air.

Fool, Edan hissed. Suddenly, both arms were pinned to my sides, not swinging at all as he moved my legs. It made each stride more awkward, of course. Each step less steady.

He had no practice at being human, or using a human form. As he moved me closer to the pools of lava, far closer than was normally safe for one of his priests, a plan flitted through my brain.

I hid the thought away, knowing he would stop me if he even suspected what I would attempt. He leaned over one of the pools, breathing in deeply. I felt the heated air sear my lungs, then felt his impatience as he healed me. The next breath was easy, like smelling a loaf of bread fresh from the oven.

I will taste such things, using this form, he murmured to himself. While I have it, I will taste everything. I will taste her.

As he imagined the act itself, I let my attention move to the ground around us. I had to find something. Something small… Yes.

There it was. A shard of obsidian that hadn’t been melted into the floor. I didn’t let myself imagine what I would do, but when he straightened and began to step, I used all my strength to slide that foot to the side, just enough for the heel to catch on that shard. He was still holding my arms immobile and didn’t let them go. Not trusting me, perhaps.

Not understanding the danger.

He didn’t understand it fully until my back had hit the lava pool, and I was sinking into the molten stone.

For you, my little thief, I thought as it closed over my head. Steal away from here.

Live.

ALEXIOS

Isat near the top of a tree with broad, close-set leaves and listened. The Beta guards on duty at the ridge had a habit of gossiping out loud, not caring that their voices carried across the jungle. I’d been listening for three days now, while Goran built the raft and Rada… I wrenched my mind away from her.

I had no idea what she was doing, only that she’d seemed relieved to see me gone after she claimed Goran on the beach. I’d known she was never meant for me, but it had been impossible to stay and watch them bind themselves to each other at last. Though I’d made myself listen, my hand down the front of my trousers, praying for forgiveness from the Goddess and blaspheming by coming on the leaf-littered jungle floor as the woman I loved more than my own life cried out a hundred feet away.

After she left, I’d told Goran of my plan to travel to the ridge and eavesdrop on the guards. I’d already picked up most of the common words, thanks to an ear for languages that the Goddess had granted when She’d chosen me.

I refused to think about that day. I couldn’t have refused Her, and I’d known that this mission most likely ended in my death. I’d been nobody special until then, but the priests had taught me well that gifts came at a cost.

And the many gifts I’d been granted would cost me everything.

I hadn’t known just how painful it would be, though, to have my best friend––the woman I adored not for her power but her heart and wit, and even her flaws and failings––detest me.

“Lots going on at the maw, it seems,” the red-haired guard muttered, pulling out his knife and sharpening it on a flat stone. I narrowed my eyes, paying close attention.

“Yeah. Heard the lord tied Serak back to the wall,” the taller one said. He was almost exactly my height, with the same hue to his skin and hair, though he gathered his into an odd knot. “Heard he’s been changed somehow.”

I’d taken to calling this one Garlic in my mind, since he had a habit of eating wild garlic and onions from a pile of small, peeled bulbs in a bowl on the stump beside his post. He had infected cuts on his arms, from scratching at what might be body lice. The wild garlic wasn’t helping enough, though it would help me.

I tied my own hair into the knot as I wondered what he’d meant. Changed? Serak was Rada’s first love. I had a feeling he might also be her greatest weakness here on Pict. Edan had had that poor man in his grip for decades. Which meant he could not be trusted.

“Changed him how? Who told you that?”

“Nikit, when he came for the food,” Garlic replied around a mouthful. “Said Serak’s veins were full of fire, but he wasn’t dead. Said he was healing, all the cuts gone and his muscles back.”

“Lies,” the shorter one scoffed. “You think the lord would heal that poor bastard? He’s more likely to kill ‘im.”