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, wherethe biggest shelter was theqarabelonging 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 wallsinset 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 itsemperor. 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. Azarionwondered 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.
