Page 33 of Firebird
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 experienceof 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?
