Page 10 of Burned Alive to Be His

JUDITH

T he walk back to the settlement is a silent torment.

Xvitar stalks ahead of me, a furious, powerful storm of a male, the glowing fire-crystals clutched in his hand.

He does not look back. He does not slow his pace.

I am an afterthought, a tool that has served its purpose, now being returned to its box.

My body screams with every step. The crude shoes he made for me protected my soles from being cooked to the bone, but my muscles are screaming from the exertion, my lungs raw from the poisonous air of the Maw.

When we enter the settlement, a hush falls over the clan.

They have been waiting. Watching. They stare at me, at the soot on my face, the singed edges of my tunic, and the impossible, pulsing crystals in Xvitar’s hand.

Their expressions are a mixture of shock, disbelief, and for some, a simmering, venomous resentment.

I see Grakar, his dark face a mask of thunderous disbelief.

I see Phina, her beautiful features twisted into an ugly sneer of pure hatred.

I did not die. I have failed them in the most fundamental way.

Xvitar does not stop to accept accolades or address his people.

He strides directly to the Great Cavern and presents the crystals to Vorlag, who emerges from the shadows to receive them.

The Eldest Dragon’s ancient eyes meet mine over Xvitar’s shoulder, and I see a flicker of something in their depths—not surprise, but a cool, calculating satisfaction.

I was his pawn, and my survival has moved his game forward.

“The trial is complete,” Vorlag proclaims, his voice echoing through the clearing. “The human has proven her courage.”

He says nothing more. There is no praise, no reward.

Only a simple statement of fact. The spectacle is over.

The clan disperses, their whispers following me like a swarm of biting insects.

Xvitar turns, his face taking on cold indifference.

He gestures curtly with his head toward my cave. My dismissal.

I limp back to my cold, empty shelter, the weight of a hundred hostile stares pressing down on me.

I collapse onto the hard, gritty floor, my body trembling with the aftershocks of adrenaline and exhaustion.

I survived. The thought is a small, hard kernel of triumph in a vast, empty sea of fear and uncertainty.

I expect him to leave me alone, to let me lick my wounds in the darkness. But a short time later, his shadow falls across the entrance. I flinch, my body tensing, every muscle screaming in protest as I push myself into a sitting position.

He says nothing. He simply tosses a bundle into the cave. It lands at my feet with a soft thud. It is not food. It is cloth. Dark, sturdy, and clean. A tunic and a pair of soft leather breeches.

I stare at the offering, my mind reeling. Clothes. Clean clothes. In my entire life, I have only ever worn the cast-off, patched rags of other slaves.

“Your appearance is an embarrassment,” he snarls from the entrance, his voice a low growl. “You are my possession. You will not shame me by looking like a beggar.”

He turns and stalks away before I can even process the words. Something I don’t understand. He hates my weakness, yet he provides for it. He calls me an embarrassment, yet he gives me something that feels like a luxury.

I strip off my torn, filthy, sweat-soaked tunic and pull on the new garments.

The fabric of the tunic is soft against my bruised skin, the leather of the breeches supple and warm.

They are too large for me, clearly meant for one of his kind, but they are whole.

They are clean. For the first time since I washed ashore on this hellish island, I feel almost human.

Later, another offering appears at the opening of my cave.

A piece of roasted meat, as before, but this time it is accompanied by a handful of strange, purple-skinned fruits.

They are sweet and juicy, a burst of flavor so intense it makes my eyes water.

I eat slowly, savoring every bite, my mind a whirlwind of confusion.

He is cruel. He is a monster. He took my body and claimed it as his own with a brutal, possessive violence that left me feeling scoured and broken.

And yet… he brings me cooked food. He brings me fruit.

He gives me clothes to keep me warm. In Vhoig, cruelty was simple.

It was the whip, the kick, the starved belly.

It was never followed by a gesture that could, if I squinted, almost look like care.

This is a new kind of torment, a psychological game I do not understand.

He is trying to keep me off-balance, to confuse me. That must be it.

The thought hardens my resolve. I will not be confused. I will not be swayed by these small, contradictory acts. I will take what he gives me, and I will use it to grow stronger. I will use his resources to fuel my own survival.

My newfound strength is tested the very next day.

My success in the Serpent’s Maw has not earned me respect from Phina and her followers; it has earned me their focused, undiluted rage.

They see me not as a courageous survivor, but as an upstart, a piece of filth that has somehow cheated their world’s harsh justice.

I am outside my cave, trying to stretch my sore muscles in the morning heat, when they approach. Phina leads the way, flanked by two other females. Their beauty is a weapon, sharp and cold.

“Look at it,” Phina says, her voice a melodic sneer. She gestures to the new clothes I wear. “Dressed in our clothes now. Does it think that makes it one of us?”

“It still smells of human weakness,” one of her companions adds, wrinkling her perfect nose in disgust.

I say nothing. I learned long ago that words are useless against this kind of hatred. I simply watch them, my body tense, my hand resting near the small pile of obsidian shards I have hidden just inside the cave entrance.

“This is not a home,” Phina continues, her eyes sweeping over my small, pathetic shelter. “It is a stain on our land. It needs to be cleansed.”

She gives a sharp nod to her companions. And then they attack.

It is not a physical assault on me. It is an assault on the small, fragile semblance of a life I have managed to carve out for myself.

They descend on my cave with a casual, vicious glee.

They kick over the flat rock I use as a table.

They find the ursain pelt Xvitar gave me and drag it out, spitting on it before flinging it into a nearby steam vent, where it sizzles and begins to smolder.

I stand frozen, a cold, helpless rage building in my chest. This is what they do. The powerful. They destroy not just your body, but any small thing you might claim as your own, any small comfort you might find in the darkness.

But I am not the same girl who cowered in the kitchens of Vhoig. I have faced the fire of the mountain and survived. And I expected this.

As Phina turns her attention to the small, carefully constructed windbreak I made from loose stones at the cave opening, I act.

I had noticed it this morning: a patch of ground near the entrance that was unusually soft, the grit hiding a pocket of hot, bubbling mud just beneath the surface, a common feature near the steam vents.

I had also found a long, tough strand of vine on my way back from the Maw.

While they were focused on the pelt, I had discreetly tied the vine to a heavy rock and stretched it, taut and low to the ground, across the path leading directly to that soft patch.

“Tear it down,” Phina commands her friends, gesturing to my windbreak.

She takes a triumphant step forward to oversee the destruction, her stride long and arrogant. Her foot catches the vine.

It is not a dramatic fall. It is a clumsy, undignified stumble.

Her arms flail, her perfect grace dissolving into a panicked scramble for balance.

She lets out a startled shriek as her forward momentum carries her right into the soft patch of ground.

Her foot sinks, ankle-deep, into the hot, bubbling mud.

A geyser of thick, grey, foul-smelling sludge erupts from the ground, spattering her from head to toe. It coats her beautiful, braided hair, her fine clothes, her perfect, sneering face.

For a heart-stopping moment, there is absolute silence. Phina stands there, frozen in shock, dripping with hot, stinking mud. Her two companions stare, their mouths agape.

A sound breaks the silence. A low chuckle. It comes from one of the warriors who had stopped to watch the spectacle from the training circle. Then another joins in. And another. Soon, a wave of deep, rumbling laughter is rolling through the settlement.

Phina’s face, already flushed with heat, turns a shade of deep, murderous crimson beneath the mud.

She has not been hurt. But she has been humiliated.

Her image of untouchable, elegant superiority has been shattered.

She looks foolish. And for a creature of her pride, that is a fate worse than death.

She rips her foot from the mud with a furious squelch and glares at me, her violet eyes promising a slow, painful death. But the laughter of the males, particularly the warriors, has taken the teeth from her threat. She cannot retaliate now without looking like a petulant child.

With a final, venomous look, she turns and stalks away, her companions scurrying after her, trying to stifle their own horrified giggles.

I stand my ground until they are gone, my heart hammering in my chest. I have won.

It is a small victory, a temporary one, but it is mine.

I look around. The dragons who witnessed the event are looking at me differently.

Not with friendship, not with acceptance, but with a new, grudging respect.

I am not just a victim. I am a survivor who bites back.

My eyes find Xvitar. He is standing near the entrance to his own cavern, having witnessed the entire exchange.

His face is a hard mask of stone, his expression unreadable.

But I see the flicker in his eyes, the barest hint of something that looks shockingly like approval.

Or perhaps, amusement. He holds my gaze for a long, intense moment, then turns and disappears into the darkness of his cave.

The confrontation has left me shaking, but a strange sense of power, a feeling I have never known before, hums in my veins.

I turn back to my ruined shelter. The pelt is gone, my windbreak is scattered. It is a mess. But as I begin to patiently, methodically, rebuild my small wall of stones, I feel a shift in the air. I am still a prisoner. I am still a pawn.

But the game has changed. And I am learning how to play.