Page 10 of Firebird (The Fire That Binds #1)

IX

MALINA

“Why can’t she just use the mill in town?” I asked as I turned the quernstone around and around, grinding the grain.

“Because their flour is shit!” shouted Kara from the kitchen window.

I made a wide-eyed face at Stefanos, which made him burst into laughter. He was always smiling or laughing, this child. I laughed with him, even while my arms were burning from the exertion of grinding the grain into the fine powder Kara required.

“Here. My turn.” Stefanos shooed me off the handle attached to the quern, sitting on a low stool opposite me in the yard .

For such a gangly boy, he was strong, grinding twice as fast, and seemed not to wear out like me.

At this time of day, I’d normally be cleaning the master’s bedchamber or washing his linens. I had laundered all of his togas and robes yesterday afternoon since he was at the emperor’s feast.

This morning, I’d arrived to his bedchamber with his food on a tray only to find him already gone. I’d tidied what little there was to do, checked on Enid—no change—then found Stefanos grinding grain for bread flour.

“Do you know where the master was off to so early?” I asked casually.

“No.” He kept grinding in a circle at his swift, even pace. “But he’s an important man. Loads of people want to meet with him. He’s the emperor’s nephew, you know.”

My stomach shriveled inward. “Yes. I discovered that.”

“He’ll be next in line.” He shook his head. “Though Caesar won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, I daresay.”

A darkness smothered my spirit at the thought of Julian ascending the throne and taking the cruel wheel of this city. I don’t know why it bothered me so much. I knew him to be the conqueror everyone proclaimed him to be. Gods, even the graffiti declared him to be the cold monster whose sole ambition was to kill more, enslave more.

Skrr, skrr. The wheel went round.

And yet, there were signs that he wasn’t a cruel man, that there was compassion in him. He’d rescued Ivo and brought him to his household when he likely would’ve been killed by his former master. He’d taken Ruskus in, a man with a decided limp, and a boy who—my gaze flitted to his throat where the vicious scar raised beneath his collar—must’ve had a violent past. My intuition told me he’d rescued Ruskus and Stefanos from some horrible fate as well.

“Stefanos, did dominus save you from something… or someone?”

I’d been considering it all week, noting that Julian kept few slaves and the ones he did all seemed to have one thing in common—a fault of some kind, a reason most nobles would not want them.

He gulped, then picked up speed again. Skrr, skrr.

“He did. He’s still saving me.”

“How do you mean?” I asked curiously.

“I—I can’t say. Kara says not to tell.”

It was the first time I’d seen Stefanos seem nervous or scared. “It’s all right,” I assured him, deciding to switch the subject. “How did Kara come to the household?” I asked quietly.

“She was his mother’s slave. When his parents were killed, he inherited her.”

My heart tripped faster. “His parents were killed? Who killed them? Why?”

“Some plebians looking to rob them. His uncle’s men found and executed them. That was his brother they’d killed after all.” His eyes widened as he whispered, “Kara said it was ghastly. Slaughtered in their beds. Killed the slaves of the house too. Kara was midwifing for a neighbor. She found them the next day.”

“Where was Julian?”

“Away at military training. Somewhere in Dacia. He was a centurion then.”

My entire soul shrank inward. “It happened around four years ago?”

He shrugged. “Unsure. I’m never good with time.”

But I believed I knew. It was about the time we met. Perhaps even the same night, his parents were being murdered half a world away. All I knew was that when I met him that night, he seemed more carefree, not as angry as he appeared now. Not as cold. Something had hardened him, and I knew as well as any that the deaths of one’s parents could certainly change a person.

So strange these ties we seemed to have. I wondered where he was when my family was attacked and slaughtered by Romans. That was three years ago, and he certainly wasn’t among the men that night. I’d have known. Just as I did on that Celtic battlefield. I’d felt him there.

That night, there had been an awareness building inside me, my magic tap-tap-tapping on my tether. I thought I was simply in sensory overload after the slaying of my adopted clan and the near-assault by that monster Silvanus.

But when Julian stepped into view, when I heard his voice, my tether locked on him. I refused to open the empathic link but it didn’t keep my magic from grasping tight. I didn’t understand.

Bunica had always said my sisters and I were given our gifts to defeat our enemies. While my sisters were dead, I still had my gift. So why would it drive me toward this Roman dragon? Not to control or defeat him, but to keep him close. The witch inside me longed for the dragon, Julianus. I didn’t understand.

A steady clip-clop of hooves drew our attention to the entrance into the stable yard. Julian entered astride his black stallion, and my entire being warmed at the sight of him. Not because he appeared strong and powerful and majestic—though he did—but because he was simply there before me.

He pulled on his reins, his impassive expression locked onto me. We remained like that, holding each other captive until Ivo stepped out and took the reins.

Julian dismounted and strode toward us, Stefanos still grinding, then he stopped in front of me.

“I’ll take dinner in an hour. Don’t be late.”

Then he strode away.

I cringed at the amount of pleasure that suffused my entire body. I was ashamed of my attraction, that I was completely captivated by a Roman—a sworn enemy, one of the kind who killed my entire clan and family.

Stefanos stopped turning the handle of the quernstone, his brow raised so high it disappeared behind his draping bangs. “You dine with him?”

I managed a shrug like he’d done earlier. “I’m his body slave. I serve his meals.”

Stefanos grinned. “He doesn’t want you to serve him. He wants you to join him.”

And then I saw it, right before he lowered his gaze to the quern—a flicker of golden fire flaring bright in his eyes. The otherworldly spark of a dragon.

I gasped and stood quickly. Stefanos continued on, not noticing my reaction. So that was why Julian was “still saving him.” All dragon bastards must be killed, but here he was. Living and breathing.

In complete and utter shock, I hurried away to prepare for dinner, trying to understand why the Coldhearted Conqueror of Rome would be hiding a dragon bastard in his home.