Page 9 of Firebird (The Fire That Binds #1)

VII I

JULIAN

I dismounted from my black stallion, Volkan, closer to the stable entrance, noting that many of the patricians were exiting their extravagant litters at the palace doorstep. Torchlight spilled onto the steps leading into Caesar’s home, illuminating the senators, generals, and their wives in elegant dress as they ascended.

“I’ll take care of him, Legatus.” The young stableman who I tipped to handle Volkan for me on my visits to the palace held his reins.

“Thank you, Jovan.”

I slid a small silver piece into his palm, then removed my formal red toga from the satchel on the saddle. Jovan stepped up to help me arrange it properly over my short white tunic, the thick folds draping over one shoulder, the hem nearly brushing the cobblestone. I held the silky fabric up to keep it from dragging in the dirt and walked toward the palace steps, my gut tightening as it always did when I entered my uncle’s home.

The dragon’s lair, indeed. But I was costumed perfectly to please my uncle. There was nothing that gave him more pride than his nephew, the Coldhearted Conqueror, wearing the red of our house.

I followed behind Senator Otho, frowning to see a young woman with long, silky brown hair on his arm. He wasn’t married. Or he hadn’t been when I left on my campaign to Gaul.

The servants at the entrance holding platters of goblets bowed as we entered. I took a chalice of wine right as Otho took one from the same tray.

“Salve, Julianus. How wonderful to see you.” He smiled genially, gesturing to the young woman at his side. “May I introduce to you my new bride. This is Sabina Amethystus Candida. Darling, this is the famous Legatus Julianus Ignis Dakkia.”

“Such a pleasure to meet you, Legatus.” She leaned forward, batting her kohl-lined eyes, her plump breasts spilling out of her low-cut purple stola. “Is it true you are called the Coldhearted Conqueror because you’ve single-handedly killed more barbarians than any general in history? And that you drink the blood of your enemies?”

Gods, the rumors of this city.

“Sabina,” Otho chastised her with a laugh. “Don’t be rude.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Legatus.” She placed her jeweled hand on my wrist as I poised to take a drink of my goblet. “I meant no insult.”

I glanced at her hand, then switched my goblet to my other hand, releasing her hold. “I’m afraid those tales are exaggerated.”

Otho wasn’t usually invited to the palace. In fact, I could only remember him being here once, many years ago, before he began opposing Caesar in the senate house. His ignorance of his precarious situation was only exacerbated by the fact that he hadn’t heard or listened to the tales of the emperor’s infamous parties.

We followed the other line of guests down the marble hallway to the grand hall where my uncle held his large feasts. My gut tightened the closer I grew to my uncle’s inner sanctum.

“Well, the other rumors aren’t exaggerated,” she said when Otho stopped to greet another senator. Her gaze roamed my body with obvious interest. “You’re the finest general in all of Rome.”

“Sabina!” a woman yelled from inside the throng of guests.

She hurried over to the other woman dressed in a green stola, one of the Chrysocolla line. They’d socialize in the same circles, of course.

There were few of the middle-ranked dragons present—the Amethystus, Chrysocolla, and Sapphirus houses. And none of the Griseo. Uncle would never allow the lowest caste to attend his feast. There were mostly black and red robes milling about the room, dotted with blue, purple, and green.

“She’s a beauty, is she not?” Otho stood next to me.

“You shouldn’t have brought her,” I told him honestly, wishing this man, one of the few dragons who still voted his conscience in the senate house, was smarter than I’d thought. “You should take her and leave. Now. ”

“What do you mean?” He frowned, finding his young wife giggling with the girl in green.

“I know you haven’t been to the palace much, but you are aware of my uncle’s tendencies at his feasts, are you not?”

Otho turned his frown toward me. “My voice holds power in the senate,” he said haughtily. “Caesar knows this. He would not disparage me in such a way.”

“You are a fool if you believe that,” I told him with pity.

“Caesar invited me,” he protested, becoming more agitated. “I couldn’t reject his invitation. It would be tantamount to treason. ”

“You’re right, but you could’ve left her at home.”

“The invitation was for both of us,” he added nervously, then looked over at his wife. “Besides, my bride loves parties. I couldn’t disappoint her. It didn’t seem fair to keep her at home.”

“Not even to protect her.”

Otho scowled at me. “You can’t be implying what I think you are.”

I opened my mouth to answer but then that deep, familiar voice that always skittered across my skin, nearly raising my scales to the surface, interrupted me.

“Julianus!”

Ice bled through my veins as I turned to Caesar as he ascended the entry steps to his famous feasting hall. Or rather, infamous, depending who you were and how you viewed the debauched and violent events that had happened here. That sickening swell I had to keep down in my stomach and the revulsion I had to keep off my face whenever I came to his palace began to claw at me. All while I pretended I belonged here.

My uncle opened his arms, his red toga perfectly fitting his large frame. His short black hair and clean-shaven face cut his jaw, chin, and brow into too-sharp angles. It was as if he could never completely shift back into the man he was supposed to be. Though he wasn’t in half-skin, his beast always seemed to be lurking on the surface, waiting to burst free.

“Caesar,” I said, bowing as he approached and then enveloped me in an embrace.

He pressed a kiss of greeting on my cheek and held my shoulders hard, his dark gaze full of pride. “I knew you could do it,” he said, low, for only me to hear. “You slayed that rabble in Gaul and brought me the head of the king in a fortnight after that fucking bastard failed me time and time again.”

“Thank you, uncle.” I filled my voice with admiration I didn’t feel, forcing the nausea down. “All for you, Caesar. Always for you. ”

He squeezed my shoulders, his grin spreading wide, his eyes already growing glassy from drink. “Come. Take your seat at my side.”

My stomach lurched, but I nodded and walked beside him, the crowd opening as we walked through the throng. My gaze caught on Trajan—hair shaved nearly to his scalp, his face clean-shaven. I caught his smirk before I looked away. At least he took my advice to heart.

We passed the fountain at the center where the statue of a naked male dragon in half-skin stood. Two nude female dragons in half-skin knelt at his feet. His hands gripped one of each of their horns, forcing them to gaze up at him adoringly. This statue was the first change I’d noticed in the palace when my uncle took over.

The palace was filled with similar signs of his dominance, of his demand that all bow beneath his strength. The truth was, my uncle was an incredibly strong dragon. In half-skin and in his dragon form, he had never been bested, not even in bouts of strength between warriors. My father had told me that even when my uncle was an adolescent, he’d defeated another dragon twice his size.

So while I detested the way he flouted his dominance, I couldn’t dismiss it as arrogance. History had proven that anyone who went against him would likely not survive the encounter. Yet again a reminder that our plan must be solid to be successful.

“You know Prefect Ciprian,” said Caesar, gesturing toward the man in a black toga sitting opposite me. My uncle lowered onto the highest seat between us—a kind of short throne with a high, gilded back and gilded arms—sitting among a cascade of cushions and plush carpets of red and gold.

“Yes.” I nodded at Ciprian, clenching my jaw to keep from saying something nasty.

Ciprian annoyed me for many reasons. Besides being a malicious deviant and reprobate, he received favor from my uncle, and I didn’t understand why.

When I was a centurion, I’d once had the unfortunate experience of having Ciprian assigned to my infantry. He didn’t like my more methodical way of leading and would often rouse some of my men to his side and make rash, foolhardy decisions in the midst of battle that went against my orders.

When he explicitly went against my command in a campaign in Thrace, causing the death of three men who charged ahead with him, I had planned to formally punish him for undermining my authority. A public lashing for getting his brothers-in-arms killed wasn’t equal but it would’ve gone on his record.

By the time the battle had ended and we’d tended to our injured, I summoned him to my tent only to be told that he’d been suddenly called back to Rome. I’d assumed the emperor had found him guilty of some other crime worse than getting his brethren killed. But the next thing I knew, he had been promoted to centurion of another unit.

Knowing it was unwise to challenge my uncle’s decisions, I never asked. But it never sat well that this arrogant, selfish bastard had only risen over the bodies of others. Now he was fucking prefect.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” I told the man through gritted teeth. I took my seat, facing out toward the mingling guests, some now taking seats along the many low feasting tables on pillowed carpets.

“They are indeed,” drawled Ciprian, already deep in his cups. “I’ll be taking my Rite of Skulls soon.”

Another wonderful tradition instituted by my uncle. Acid roiled in my belly.

“That’s right, Ciprian,” said the emperor. “The first king’s head you’ve brought me. I daresay it won’t be the last.”

“You can count on it, Caesar,” replied Ciprian, raising his goblet to him before drinking.

“Of course,” added my uncle in that superior tone of voice that always prefaced him saying something provoking, “you’ll need to kill quite a few more kings before you catch up to my nephew. ”

Ciprian’s black gaze cut to me, his nostrils flaring in fury as he drank from his goblet. “Too true, Caesar. But I will.”

“You think so?” I challenged.

My uncle laughed gleefully. He loved conflict, probably the only thing beyond power and violence that put a smile on his face.

Ciprian held my stare. “You’ve had a good head start on me, Julian. But I’ll beat you. I always achieve my goals.”

And now his goal was to beat me?

I huffed in derision, not even bothering to reply, surveying the room as half-naked dancers began twirling along the paths between feasting tables. They all wore the golden slave collars stamped with IGNICULUS , their breasts bared, their skirts mere gossamer. Red-painted serpents wound around their bellies, backs, and between their breasts. They twirled to the soft tunes of the musicians playing the flute and tympanum in the corner.

“I heard a rumor about you, Julian,” said Ciprian, using my shortened name, which only close friends were allowed to do.

His face was objectively handsome, carved into sharper lines than most, like all aristocrats of the black and red dragon houses. But all I could see was the ugliness hiding within. Ciprian was a foul creature. No wonder my uncle liked him so much.

A woman in a green toga, the one Otho’s wife had greeted when she entered, plopped down next to Ciprian with a rumbling purr in her throat, a female dragon’s way of flirting. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, his fingers teasing the side of her breast. She was obviously here with him, though he didn’t even bother to introduce her.

“What rumor is that?” I asked cavalierly, holding my goblet up for one of the servers to refill.

A pretty slave filled my cup, made a quick curtsy, and disappeared. Smart girl. It wouldn’t take long before things would get vulgar in here .

“I heard,” said Ciprian in a singsong sort of way that made his woman giggle, “that you shifted into your dragon on the battlefield and killed a man over a Celtic wench, then carried her away into the sky.”

I’d wondered who would bring this up first. It didn’t shock me that it was Ciprian. And she wasn’t Celtic, but I wasn’t going to correct him.

“What’s this? You shifted on the battlefield?” Igniculus asked me in disbelief. “Over a woman?”

Roman generals didn’t shift on the battlefield, not into half-skin or their dragon. It was considered a sign of weakness if they were forced to leave their human form during battle. They weren’t even supposed to get their blade bloody since that was the job of their soldiers.

“Yes, Caesar.” Ciprian laughed again. “That’s what I heard anyway.”

I remained unruffled as I’d been expecting this to come up at some point. “Your source is obviously addled in the head. And if I meet them, I’ll remove it for him.”

“What is the truth of the incident?” Caesar asked in a way that was a command, not a question.

I held his gaze steadily. “The truth is that one of my men disobeyed a direct order. And for that, I severed him in half.” I shrugged. “I could’ve done the same without shifting, but my dragon wanted his blood. And I wanted every man present to understand clearly the consequences of disobeying my orders and that my dragon would stand for nothing less than complete obedience .” My gaze shifted to Ciprian, who wasn’t laughing anymore. “That fucking rabble that Bastius left me is wholly undisciplined.” I swiveled my gaze back to my uncle, letting my dragon deepen my voice with promise. “They’ll obey me. Or they’ll die.”

Just as I suspected, my uncle grinned wide, that insane look of both bloodlust and pride mingling in his gaze as he leaned over and placed a hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

“That’s correct, nephew. You did the right thing. Use brutal force to teach them the way.” Then he chuckled darkly. “By Dis, my blood certainly runs through your veins.”

We clinked goblets. Ciprian fumed since I’d stolen his moment. He’d thought to show me weak in front of my uncle. That wasn’t going to happen. Yet he still continued to try.

“So, you didn’t carry that witch off? The one who supposedly helped the Celts evade Bastius?”

“Oh, no. I took her. She’s quite the beauty,” I confirmed, having to give some reason for why I took her. “It’s the general’s prerogative to take the choicest spoils of war. But you wouldn’t know that, Prefect . You aren’t a general.”

His eyes filled full black with his dragon. He was itching to shift and claw me, which only made me smile and lift my goblet to him. It was improper etiquette to shift at the emperor’s palace. Only the emperor himself could do so.

Caesar tilted his head back and laughed uproariously. When he settled, he said, “Don’t worry, Ciprian. I believe you’ll be seeing a promotion soon enough.”

“Thank you, Caesar,” said Ciprian, now openly fondling the breast of his companion.

She didn’t seem to mind, drinking down her wine and watching the guests below us.

“That must be one sweet piece of Celtic cunt,” said Ciprian venomously.

Fury swirled like a snake in my belly. But I kept my face cold and impassive.

“Speaking of cunts.” Caesar glared at Otho sitting at the table directly across from us, the dancers swirling between us.

Why had that fool even come to this feast? After openly arguing against a law the emperor had wanted passed. And especially with his young wife .

“Otho!” called Caesar over the music. “What lovely creature have you brought as a guest?”

Otho stood with a smile, helping the brazen girl in purple to her feet. “Caesar, this is my new bride, Sabina Candida of the Amethystus.”

Caesar flicked a hand to summon her. “Come closer, Sabina.”

She looked down at Otho, unsure. He nodded while his expression revealed the wariness he should be feeling. If my predictions were right, he should be feeling much more than that right about now.

I girded myself for what was about to come, keeping my expression indifferent as I sipped my wine.

Sabina wove her way up to the carpeted dais and pillows, around other generals and their wives to stand before Caesar.

“Candida?” Caesar wore his charming smile for her. “Was your father not a deathrider?”

“He was, Caesar,” she answered brightly. “He was very sad to retire from service.”

“Very loyal to Rome, if I recall correctly.”

“Indeed, Caesar.”

He flicked his hand for her to come closer. She glanced nervously at me, then at Ciprian, who watched her with feral lust, still groping his companion with his free hand.

Sabina stepped forward. Caesar leaned against his high-backed chair and spread his legs. “Closer, sweet.”

She returned his smile, one similar to how she’d looked at me in the corridor. He coasted his hand along her thigh, pressing the silk of her stola to her skin.

“So how do you like married life with a senator?” he crooned while caressing her.

“I… I like it very much, Caesar.”

“Does your husband satisfy all of your needs?”

She gulped hard, then giggled nervously. “I don’t know what to say,” she finally answered, a hitch in her voice .

Caesar slid his hand up the side of her waist, stroking the back of his knuckles over one breast. Then he grinned at the taut nipple teasing through the silk of her purple stola.

“Caesar!” Otho stood. “Please, do not—”

Two praetorian guards shoved Otho back down into his seat and stood over him. Sabina snapped her head to look at her husband, seeming confused, worried. Then my uncle guided her chin back so that she looked at him. I couldn’t even look at Otho, especially when I’d warned him. He thought himself so important, like so many others, that the emperor wouldn’t dare target them for humiliation and their women for crude sport and public shame. He was wrong.

No one seemed to recognize the depths of the evil in my uncle but me.

“Don’t worry about him,” Igniculus told her. “I am the emperor. It is my right to touch beautiful things.” He opened his palm and mounded it over her breast. “You are a beautiful creature, Sabina. Your husband won’t mind.”

“Because you’re the emperor,” she whispered, her breathing quickening, her pulse speeding in her throat.

I could hear it flutter even faster when Caesar pushed the strap of her stola off her shoulder, revealing the breast he’d been fondling.

“That’s right.” He slid his hand beneath her stola and gripped her thigh, tugging her closer. “I’m the emperor. I can have whatever I want. Open your thighs.”

She slid her feet wider, eyes dilating with desire.

“I want you, Sabina.” He moved his hand between her legs. “And according to your dripping pussy, you feel the same.”

She giggled, like this was a game. Of course, it was. And the emperor always won. He stroked between her legs and she moaned.

I coolly surveyed the feasting hall. This foul game my uncle liked to play was showing not just Otho, but all of Rome, who held the most power. And what he could do with it, who he could steal and hurt with it .

Some of the generals and their wives pretended not to see what was happening on the dais. Legatus Titus, the general I served under for my entire military career until my recent promotion, quietly assisted his wife to her feet and slipped out the side entrance. That was always the interesting part. My uncle demanded everyone’s presence when he sent invitations to his so-called celebrations, but he didn’t appear to mind when some crept away once his target had been established.

Through his cruel behavior toward Otho and his wife, Caesar was now announcing to the entire lot of senators present that they’d better vote only in his favor or suffer similar consequences.

Others had taken it as the sign that the orgy could commence and were now groping and fucking at or around their feast tables. But my gaze skimmed to Otho. I wished I hadn’t looked. The shame and fear and fury mottled his face red as the praetorians held him in place. He simply watched, and it wasn’t nearly over yet.

“Why don’t you come sit on my lap, sweet Sabina,” growled my uncle, his eyes sparking gold with his dragon.

“Yes, Caesar,” she cooed.

When she went to drape her leg across his lap, he twisted her quickly to face away, her back to him. He hiked up her stola and then pulled her onto his lap. She gasped as he maneuvered the flap of his toga aside and sank inside her with a hard thrust.

“Ah!” she cried out in pleasure, dropping her head back to his shoulder.

My uncle, however, had his eyes on Otho as he fucked the senator’s wife, baring her breasts completely and licking her neck with his forked tongue. Always, his dragon rose when he was being cruel. He wouldn’t shift into half-skin unless he wanted to kill the girl. But that wasn’t her purpose. She was a tool to show Otho he’d better not vote against the emperor’s wishes in the future.

There was a reason beyond my number of kills that they called me the Coldhearted Conqueror. I’d become a master at remaining co mpletely emotionless no matter what was happening around me. Whether my men were taking the head of a king, slaughtering an entire army, or my uncle was fucking another man’s wife in front of all the patricians of Rome.

For a split second, I contemplated killing my uncle now. I could obviously take him by surprise. But then his praetorians and the others loyal to him would certainly kill me right here and now. And like a hydra, another of his ilk would sprout his head and take the throne. Nothing would change.

And then there was Malina.

My stomach churned with acid even thinking of her while Otho’s bride writhed on Caesar’s cock, crying out in pleasure. All while the dancers and musicians continued on, the guests laughed and drank and fucked, like one of their own wasn’t dying inside at the center of the feast hall. Otho’s head was now bowed in humiliation.

Ciprian had joined in the fray, pushing the head of his woman down beneath his toga. Her head bobbed furiously as he growled with lust, watching the emperor with fiendish glee.

A few of the honorable couples slipped away quietly, leaving the feast hall before the depravity intensified. I remained fixed in place, summoning the servant with the wine to fill my cup.

Finally, Otho’s bride screamed with her climax. Caesar pitched her forward onto all fours and finished with a few hard thrusts, fisting her hair and forcing her face up so that Otho could see what he’d done to her. That he’d fucked and pleasured his wife and there was nothing the senator could do about it.

Caesar slapped a palm to Sabina’s bare ass and pushed her aside as he heaved back into his throne, his breathing labored. “Otho! I give you and your bride my blessing.”

Ciprian laughed cruelly, his hand still on the nape of the woman sucking his cock. “You might even get an extra blessing from the emperor in nine months! ”

Caesar tilted his head back and laughed, then reached for his goblet, his gaze falling to me, ever cold and watchful.

“Julian. You need to take the edge off. Take Sabina. She’s a good, tight fuck.” He gestured toward the woman, who was still crumpled in the cushions, her face flushed both from exertion and the new shame that kept her from looking over at her husband.

Otho’s head was still bowed, his fists clenched. The praetorians no longer held him in place, though they kept watch at his back, just in case he tried to avenge his honor. He wouldn’t though. No one ever did.

“No, thank you, Caesar,” I said evenly. “I’m fine with just the wine.”

“That’s right,” said Ciprian. “He’s got that Celtic cunny at home.” Then he grit his teeth and orgasmed. The woman between his legs gagged and coughed, but he held her down a second longer before letting her up. “Well done,” he told her, handing her a goblet of wine.

It was a miracle I could sit through these events and not vomit. It was a miracle I wasn’t insane from it all. The excessive debauchery in this den of hedonism had grown over the years. My emperor’s insatiable appetite for power was fueled by his malice, his lust for flesh and his lust for blood in equal measure. The madness was rising, and we needed to set our plan in motion soon.

When it was an adequate time for me to take my leave, I did so quietly. Ciprian was preoccupied with another woman wearing a sapphire-blue stola, the one in green he’d used moments earlier sulking at his side. Caesar was engaged with some of his generals, who’d gathered around to regale him with their recent victories.

No one took note as I wove quietly through the party and toward the exit. Speeding down the corridor, I left the sounds of sex and laughter and a corrupt, rotting kingdom behind me.

Once out of the palace, I strode at a quick clip, nearly at a run, eager to get the fuck away from there.

A shadow moved before I reached the stables .

I reached for the blade hidden beneath my toga before I realized it was Trajan. Relaxing, I joined him in the shade of a line of Persian cypress trees.

“Otho should’ve known better,” he said quietly. “He won’t be opposing any more laws in the senate.”

“The senate is useless.”

“Don’t tell my grandfather that.”

“We need to move soon,” I spat, bile still trying to rise up my throat after my uncle’s display. “I can’t take this much longer.”

“You’ve witnessed that before. We both have. Even worse than that. At least Otho’s bride was willing.”

Another wave of nausea rose as I remembered some of my uncle’s past public demonstrations with wives who weren’t at all keen on the emperor’s attentions.

“We all need to meet to devise the final plan,” Trajan was saying, his blue eyes glinting with a flare of his dragon. “There can be no confusion on what each person’s role will be. Just let me know when to arrange the meeting.”

I gave a stiff nod. “Soon.”

Then I strode away. Jovan brought Volkan out quickly. I swung up and galloped away, needing the wind on my face, needing to scrape that foul place from my soul. It wasn’t enough. It never was.

As I trotted into the courtyard, a candle burned through Ivo’s window in his little room where he preferred to stay near the horses. He stepped out as I dismounted and took Volkan from me.

“Thank you, Ivo.”

Normally, I’d take care of him myself after a late-night party, but I needed a bath. Now. Even a cold one.

Even so, I couldn’t help myself, diverting my path through the house toward the servants’ quarters. Slowly, I inched her door open.

The moon shone through her open window, bathing her beautiful face, shining on the black tresses of her hair. The crescent shape of her dark lashes, her full mouth relaxed, the slightly upward slope of her nose—everything about her was both like a balm to my soul and an ache on my heart.

I couldn’t imagine how those jade-green eyes would look at me if she’d been there tonight, if she’d watched me sit idly by.

Quietly, I walked to the window and closed the shutters, locking them. I had an insane need to haul her to my bedchamber. To have her near me so I could protect her.

What I should do is shed my human skin and carry her away to the farthest point from Rome. Somewhere she might have a chance at being safe, in a life far from me.

An instant burn erupted in my core. The beast raised his head, a feral growl rumbling in my chest. Then I heard him.

Never.

The single word vibrated through my bones and echoed through my soul.

Pulling her door shut, I exhaled a breath I’d been holding and marched toward my bedchamber.

He was right, of course. I could no more part with her than I could shove my blade through my own heart. Not when the gods had given her to me, not when she was designed to be mine.

A distant whisper floated to the surface, reminding me why I could never part with her:

Treasure .

I walked to my terrace and stared toward the palace, where torchlight shined bright, where Romans wallowed in licentiousness, where my uncle, the emperor, luxuriated in his corrupt power.

There was nothing to be done, then, except to move forward with our plan and to somehow not die in the process. I didn’t mind dying for the cause before, but now there was her .

My loyalties had shifted the second I saw her on the Celtic battlefield—bloody and terrified, defending herself against that filth in half-skin. My cold heart was engulfed in flame, and there was nothing I could do to stop the wheels Lady Fortuna spun for me.

For us.

That night in Dacia four years ago, I was newly appointed centurion by my uncle, who I’d known was not a good man. I’d left our camp with three of my trusted men that night only to get away from this oppressive feeling that I was on a path of my uncle’s choosing and there was nothing I could do to escape from him or his appalling plans for Rome. There was a constant pall of gloom pressing down on me.

Then, unexpectedly, I’d watched this young, beautiful woman dance with fire in her heart and defiance in her eyes as she looked upon me, an enemy. For our brief encounter, she’d given me hope.

As I watched her, an inner voice, not my dragon’s, had nudged me to give her the gold coin. Whether it was the gods guiding me or my own intuition, I believed that I owed her for what she’d given me that night. It wasn’t simply a dance, but an unexpected courage to walk my new path. If she could look upon a dragon with such fearlessness, knowing I had the power to kill her and her entire clan, then I could summon the same to face my own future beneath my uncle’s power.

That was why I’d paid her with such a precious coin that had been so dear, never knowing it would one day guide her right back to me.

I bowed my head and prayed to the gods who would listen that we weren’t both now doomed together.