"I never?—"
"Don't." The word cracks like a whip. "Don't you dare lie to me. I raised you. I fed you. I kept you alive when others would have let you starve, and this is how you repay me?"
She raises the torch higher, and the flames cast dancing shadows across her face, making her look like something carved from stone and fury. Around us, the battle continues—screams and clash of metal, the wet sound of blade meeting flesh—but it feels distant now, muffled, as if we're trapped in our own pocket of hell.
"Rytha, please?—"
But she's already moving. She steps forward through the chaos with purpose, her eyes never leaving mine, and drops the torch at my feet.
The flames catch instantly on the oil-soaked wood piled around the post. Heat wraps around my legs like living things,searing through my thin clothes, and I scream—a sound that tears from my throat raw and desperate as the fire begins to climb.
38
GALTHAN
The roar that tears from my throat doesn't sound like anything human or orc—it's the sound of something breaking apart from the inside. My vision tunnels until all I can see is Thalia, flames licking at her legs, her mouth open in a scream that cuts through every other sound in the valley.
The fire climbs her body like it's alive, hungry, and I feel each lick of flame as if it's searing my own flesh. My chest constricts until I can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but stumble forward through the chaos.
"Thalia!" Her name rips from my lungs, raw and desperate.
But as I lunge toward her, something massive crashes into my skull from behind. Stars explode across my vision as a Vaskyr war hammer connects with the back of my head, sending me sprawling face-first into the mud. The world tilts sideways, sounds becoming muffled and distant. Blood streams down my neck, warm and sticky.
"Stay down, traitor," someone snarls above me.
I try to push myself up, but my arms shake like newborn colts. The blow has scrambled my thoughts, made everything slow and thick like moving through honey. Through the ringingin my ears, I can still hear her screaming—that horrible, keening sound that tears pieces from my soul with each note.
"Get up," I growl to myself, spitting blood and mud. "Get up, you worthless?—"
My vision clears enough to see two orcs pushing through the crowd toward the pyre. They look like the orcs who started the ambush, but they move with purpose that cuts through the surrounding chaos. Relief floods through me for half a heartbeat—someone else sees what's happening, someone else will help her.
But then my blood turns to ice water.
They're not running to stop the fire. They're walking toward it with the steady pace of executioners approaching a scaffold. The one orc carries a curved blade that gleams orange in the firelight, while his companion hefts a war axe that could cleave a tree in two.
"No." The word comes out as barely a whisper, then builds to a bellow that makes my throat burn. "No!"
They're going to finish what Rytha started. Pull her from the flames just to gut her in front of everyone, make her death even more of a spectacle. Make sure she suffers before she dies.
I force myself to my knees, then my feet, swaying like a drunkard but moving forward. Each step sends spikes of pain through my skull, and the world keeps trying to tip sideways, but I don't care. Nothing matters except reaching her before those bastards do.
The orc with the curved blade reaches the pyre first. Without hesitation, he steps directly into the flames, his leather armor beginning to smoke as he reaches for Thalia's bonds. The other follows a heartbeat later, his massive frame blocking my view as they work to free her from the post.
"Don't touch her!" I roar, but my voice cracks with desperation instead of authority.
They're going to drag her somewhere private. Somewhere they can take their time with whatever sick punishment they have planned. My vision blurs—from the head wound or rage, I can't tell which—as I force my legs to move faster through the churning mud.
Thalia's screams cut off abruptly, and that silence is somehow worse than the sound. It means she's either unconscious from pain or?—
A figure steps into my path—ash-gray skin, amber eyes wild with something beyond rage. Rytha blocks my way to the pyre, her ceremonial tattoos stark against skin flushed with madness.
"Galthan!" She grabs my arm, nails digging deep enough to draw blood. "Don't you see? She's gone! We can finally be together, like we were meant to?—"
The words hit my ears like poison. While Thalia burns, this creature talks about destiny. About us.
My hands move before my mind catches up. One moment Rytha's mouth is moving, spilling more venom about our future, and the next my palms are on either side of her head. The twist comes sharp and clean—a sound like green wood snapping.
Her amber eyes go blank. Her body crumples.
