by Grace Draven
“She’ll still be here for you to enjoy when you return, stud,” one guard said. “That’s if Herself doesn’t take it into her head to geld you just for fun.”
The taunt elicited snorts of laughter. Azarion paid no heed and concentrated on keeping his feet as they navigated the slimy floor toward a set of steps that ascended to street level.
They exited the underground labyrinth and entered an enclosed bailey. The guards shoved Azarion toward a waiting wagon. He half fell into the back and was joined by the guard with the crossbow and another who gripped an ax. The driver whistled, and the wagon lurched forward into the city’s narrow streets.
Night had descended on Kraelag as they traveled toward Palace Hill. Lamplight illuminated signs advertising pub houses and brothels. Revelers made drunk on wine and made poor by pickpockets spilled into the streets, continuing the weeklong celebration of the Rites of Spring.
The hill overlooking the city blazed with light, a beacon of brightness that hid a corruption far fouler than the worst of Kraelag’s middens.
The wagon rolled up the hill, leaving behind the closes for the wide, cobbled avenues lined with gates attended by guards.
Behind the gates, the Empire’s wealthy and noble enjoyed the fruits of their riches. The closer they drew to the hill’s peak and the palace that crowned it, the larger and more lavish the manors became. And the greater the number of soldiers guarding these sanctuaries.
Azarion found it all suffocating. Even with the wider streets, the buildings seemed to loom above him, sometimes blocking the moon from view. Trees grown as privacy barriers were clipped into shapes that defied nature’s hand. Like the manor houses and temples, they towered above him, a green wall threatening to collapse on top of him.
A decade spent as a slave in the Empire’s capital hadn’t dulled his memory of the open steppe, with its wild grasses bent to the ceaseless wind. The Sky Below was an unforgiving land, nor were the nomadic clans that roamed its expanse peaceful, but he missed it. Fiercely. He went to sleep each night with its image behind his eyelids and woke up each morning to its memory. If his plan succeeded, he would ride across its grasslands once more, a free man.
The road finally leveled out as the wagon reached the hilltop and turned onto a paved avenue even wider than the one winding up the slope. More of the ubiquitous trimmed trees lined the way toward the royal palace.
Azarion’s first sight of it when he came to the capital as a slave had stunned him enough that he momentarily forgot his rage. Until then, he’d lived within a culture of wagons and tents, where the biggest shelter was the qara belonging to the chief of the largest Savatar clan, and that was still smaller than the meanest outbuilding surrounding the palace.
They rolled to a stop in front of a plain door that opened to a maze of hallways. Azarion could find his way to the empress’s apartments blindfolded by now. He’d been brought to her more times than he could count or want.
Palace guards took over his stewardship and escorted him up flights of stairs and down corridors lined with statues of the Empire heroes, past galleries whose walls were crowded with portraits of the royal tyrants who had ruled for centuries.
Music and laughter drifted from various rooms along the way, accompanied by the cloying scent of perfume or the acrid smoke of incense.
At last they reached a pair of carved doors burnished in gold leaf that shimmered under torchlight.
Unlike the men who guarded the arena, those who guarded the palace gazed past him as if he were an invisible spirit, their expressions blank masks behind their helmets’ face shields. A pair dressed in full armor and heavily armed stood sentry at the doors. One nodded to the soldier on one side of Azarion before he and his companion pushed the doors open to allow entry.
One of the guards shoved Azarion forward, hard enough to make him stumble.
He straightened as far as the shortened length of chain at his throat allowed, and raised his head to take in his surroundings. The apartments belonging to the most powerful woman in all of the Empire were everything that defined luxury.
A painted ceiling arched above him to create a dome, its curving joists carved and painted in bright colors and more of the gold leaf. Silks and velvets imported from the south graced the walls inset with windows made of real glass. More of the costly fabrics spilled over tufted couches and the grand bed occupying one corner of the room. Animal pelts shared floor space with carpets woven by Velian weavers rumored to shed the blood of their shredded fingers into the very knots of the fibers they warped and wefted.
Jewel-encrusted chests and boxes took up additional space, the largest, as big as a horse trough, footing the great bed.
Such opulence would have brought any merchant to his knees in drooling awe. It had ceased to amaze Azarion long ago, except for one thing. Suspended from the joists by chains, the colossal bones of a draga encircled the entire room in a skeletal coil.
All of the Empire knew the tale of how the empress’s great-great-grandfather had slain the last living draga and dragged its corpse back to Kraelag, where he offered its blood and bones to the emperor. His feat, and the gift of such treasure, had earned him and his family a place of power within the ranks of the Empire’s nobility.
Azarion still marveled over the creature’s size, its majesty undiminished by death as it spiraled up to the dome’s center, only to swoop down in a serpentine arch that ended in a massive skull hovering over an ornately carved chair set on a dais.
The draga’s eye sockets, larger than doorways, looked blindly upon him, its gaping jaws filled with a forest of teeth the length of tree limbs and sharper than swords.
A petite woman, made even more diminutive by the draga’s hulk looming above her, lounged in the chair, a silk-clad leg draped over one of the arms. A dainty, slippered foot tapped the air in careless rhythm as Azarion shuffled toward her. He dropped to his knees before the dais in wordless obeisance, watching her through locks of hair that fell in front of his eyes.
Dalvila, empress of the Krael Empire, was a worthy mate to its emperor. As cruel, merciless, and power hungry as her husband, she was even more feared by her subjects.
Tonight she wore an open tunic and trousers of indigo silk. Delicate strands of gold encircled her neck and spilled between generous breasts fully bared to the room’s other occupants. Gold cuffs, mockeries of his own iron shackles, banded her wrists, the jewels worked into the soft metal catching the torchlight to flash in colors of blue, crimson, and green.
Kohl outlined her large eyes, enhancing their shape, and she watched him with a serpent’s hypnotic focus. Her tongue darted out to lick her lower lip, and all the hairs on Azarion’s nape rose in response.
Hard experience had taught him that such an action heralded pain. That her tongue wasn’t forked never ceased to surprise him.
The tiny diamonds woven in her upswept hair sparkled in the light as she tilted her head. “I think you become a better slayer of men every time you enter the arena, Azarion. Either practice and time have improved your skills, or you now enjoy spilling blood as much as I do.”
He dared not answer her. The one time he had spoken out of turn, the punishment for his transgression almost killed him. He had pissed blood for days.
Dalvila motioned to one of the silent handmaidens flanking her chair. The woman rushed forward until she stood beside the empress, head bowed and shoulders hunched. Like Azarion, she held her tongue and awaited her mistress’s command.
“Have the guards bring the other bull. The festivities in the arena today were fine, but I’ve decided I’d like a little more.” A lascivious smile curved her lips. “The winner will be rewarded, of course.”
The handmaiden bowed and darted toward the doors. Azarion wondered which poor bastard besides him had been dragged up from the catacombs for the empress’s entertainment.
Dalvila gestured at the guards. �
�Unchain him. He can’t adequately fight or fuck while trussed up like a pig.”
He stared into the distance while one of the guards unlocked his shackles and pulled the chains aside. He wanted to rub his throat and wrists but stayed as he was, his hands clasped together between his knees, his head lowered.
The empress stared at him with reptilian interest.
She repulsed him at every level, yet his cock stiffened at the sight of her nubile body and the lust in her gaze.
Beautiful, soft, and perfumed, Dalvila of Krael could raise an erection in a corpse, and Azarion wasn’t immune to her physical charms. He couldn’t be. He’d learned quickly that to displease her in bed courted imminent death.
He returned from every encounter either light-headed from the euphoria of having survived or bloody and nearly retching from the agony of her attentions. Who knew what this night held for him?
An image rose in his mind’s eye, of a dark-haired woman—the tall agacin with her condemning gaze and bitter fury. A woman filthy from the road and the catacombs, yet still far cleaner than this predator in her perfumed silks, perched before him on the makeshift throne like a spider.
He blinked away the memory and the hope the reluctant agacin offered. Distraction now could get him killed, and he had no intention of dying tonight, even if it meant taking the life of another for the pleasure of a queen whose touch made his cock throb and his skin crawl.
Dalvila swung her leg down and rose from the chair. The sense of threat made every hair on Azarion’s body stand at attention the closer she sashayed toward him. The soldiers on either side of him tensed. His skin prickled when one of her fingers skated over his shoulder before sliding down his arm. The cloying scent of flowers, underscored by the musk of aroused woman, made his nose twitch. Her round breasts bobbed, sheened in perspiration.
“The private games are much superior to the public ones,” she purred.
As if on cue, the doors opened once more to admit another cluster of guards surrounding a man two hands shorter than Azarion and twice his size in mass. No doubt a fighter brought in from one of the numerous gladiator schools and transported to the capital for the empress’s pleasure.
Dalvila always referred to her gladiator lovers as bulls, and the one striding toward them lived up to the name. His close-cropped hair rose on his round skull like hackles, and the veins in his thick neck throbbed under his skin. The beefy shoulders bulged, as did his massive arms, and he moved with a lumbering gait that, while ungraceful, spoke of immense strength and speed.
“Lovely,” the empress said and clapped her hands, her delighted smile avaricious. She curled a lock of Azarion’s hair around one finger. “Time to please your mistress, bull.” She nodded to his guards, who hauled him to his feet.
Blood roared through his veins, and his heart thundered a beat in his chest that echoed in his skull. For one moment, he met Dalvila’s gaze. His stomach clenched, as it always did when he looked into her eyes.
Bards had written and sung odes to the empress’s beauty, including her blue eyes. Azarion was sure none had ever peered into their depths. Behind the blue lurked . . . nothing. Only an abyssal emptiness, as if the goddesses had created a child and forgot to bequeath it a soul. His gaze flickered away, back to the less lethal fighter waiting to break him in half. The sight of his opponent didn’t make Azarion’s spirit shudder the way the empress did.
He toed off the simple sandals he’d donned in his cell. The chill of the marble floor made his feet flex. His breeches and tunic followed, leaving only the loincloth knotted at his waist. Now he matched the other man, almost bare and weaponless except for his own strength and cleverness.
The guards enclosed them in a makeshift circle, swords drawn to deter any notion about breaking through the living wall to escape.
The empress clapped her hands together. “Begin!”
Azarion dropped into a crouch, forgetting Dalvila, forgetting the guards, and especially forgetting the agacin waiting in his cell. All that mattered now was the man facing him, as intent on winning this fight as Azarion was.
The gladiator charged him, his strategy obvious. Brute strength to conquer his adversary. Azarion’s counter was just as straightforward: keep away from those grasping hands and stay on his feet long enough to wear his opponent out, then go for the death blow.
He spun out of the way, but not fast enough. The man’s shoulder caught him high in the chest, throwing him off balance. He stumbled but kept his feet, pivoting in time to take a direct blow from a head-butt. The hit took him to the floor, knocking the breath out of him as his adversary landed on top of him. His hands wrapped around Azarion’s neck and squeezed.
Neither as heavy nor as muscular, Azarion used the leverage of his long legs to break free, swinging one over his opponent’s shoulder and wedging it against his throat, pushing back until the other man was forced to loosen his suffocating hold to keep from falling backward.
They clashed again, wrestling and grasping in a tangle of sweating limbs. The man went for Azarion’s neck a second time. Again, Azarion dodged him, repeating the move several times. His plan was working until the empress added an unexpected challenge. The crack of a whip sounded close to his ear before a hot pain tore down his back in a scorching line. He flinched away from it, directly into the gladiator’s deadly embrace.
The fighter whooped in triumph, only to shout his surprise when the whip kissed the back of his thighs, bringing him to his knees, Azarion still in his grip.
“Stop boring me,” the empress snarled, and struck again, this time catching Azarion across one shoulder with the lash. He glimpsed her face, pink with fury, spittle glossing her full lips.
The fighter wrapped himself around Azarion, his bulk belying his ability to act like a constrictor squeezing its prey. Azarion writhed in his grip, managing to free one arm. He curled his fingers into a tight fist and clubbed his adversary on the side of the head, hard enough that he rocked sideways. It wasn’t enough to dislodge him, and Azarion struck him again, this time full in the face.
There was a crunch of bone, and the other man jerked back as blood gushed from his nose and split lip. He let go to take a swing, his knuckles plowing into the underside of Azarion’s jaw.
Both men tore into each other, exchanging blows and crashing together like two bulls caught in the mating rut. The empress followed their movements, calling out encouragement or curses, and inflicting pain with the arbitrary flick of her whip.
The marble floor within the makeshift arena was slippery with sweat, blood, and saliva. Tired from a day battling for his survival in the Pit, Azarion’s muscles screamed for rest. He staggered from a brutal blow and felt a vague pop in his left side. The agony that followed turned the breath in his chest into a wash of fire. If he didn’t end it now, he’d lose this combat.
A surge of power, fueled by desperation and sharpened by pain, pumped through his battered frame. He broke free of his opponent’s persistent grip, twisted behind him, and caught him around the neck with one leg. His position and the hard grip of his thigh defeated the fighter’s efforts to break free.
Azarion tightened his hold, squeezing until he thought the veins in his leg would burst. He stared down at his captive, who thrashed in his hold, arms grasping uselessly at Azarion’s elbows. His eyes bulged even as his sweating face darkened to a dusky red, then purple, and his mouth opened and closed in a futile effort to breathe.
The empress lowered her whip and crept closer, her gaze avid as she watched Azarion choke his opponent to death.
He stared at her even as the fighter’s struggles weakened until they halted altogether, and he slumped lifeless in Azarion’s grip.
They stayed that way a few moments longer, until Dalvila smiled her approval. “Well done, my pet! I do believe you’re the winner tonight.” She gestured for him to rise.
A pair of soldiers pried the
dead fighter out of his hold and dragged the body out of the room while two more hauled Azarion to his feet. The moment they let go, he fell, clutching his thigh as the muscles there knotted into an unholy cramp. The pain was as bad as the one in his side, and he groaned between clenched teeth, uncaring that he might have incurred Dalvila’s wrath over his inability to stand at her command.
“Bring him to the bed and strip him,” the empress ordered.
The guards lifted him to his feet a second time, their aid ungentle and unforgiving. The earlier agony in his leg was now overshadowed by that in his side. He’d cracked a rib; he was certain of it. And if he was lucky, it was only a crack. He pulled his arm free from one guard to tuck it against his side as he staggered to the massive bed.
Silken sheets shrouded him as he collapsed onto the mattress. Every breath was a knife between the ribs, and he didn’t move when rough hands ripped away his loincloth, leaving him naked. Perfume mixed with the scent of gore filled the bed’s draped interior, accented by the smell of beeswax from candles nearby.
Dalvila crawled onto the bed, bare from the waist down. She straddled him, slim legs spread wide to nestle his cock between them. Her eyes looked black in the half-light, her nostrils flared wide like a wild horse’s.
She braced a hand on his chest, laughing in delight at the tortured hiss that escaped his lips. “You performed well for me tonight, bull.” Her delicate hand slipped down to grip his cock. “Keep doing so, and you might live to see the morning.”
The pain was making him light-headed, and still his erection surged in her hand, ready to sink into the empress’s wet heat. He’d learned.
Her hand glided up and down his engorged shaft until, impatient with her own teasing, she rose, positioned herself above him, and sank down hard, taking him to the hilt.
Azarion’s back arched, and he groaned, both from the agony in his side and the hard ride of the empress’s passions. Each gasp was a torture, every thrust a lash that tore up his torso and blasted into his skull until he thought he might exhale a gout of flame. The black stars exploding across his vision were as much from his injury as from the sudden shock of his climax.