Page 79 of Firebird
Igniculus stared down. I finally turned and forced myself to look into the pit. My aunt in her white dragon form chomped on the remains of a human man. There was only the bottom torso and one leg left.
“Is he tasty, Camilla?” Igniculus called down to her.
She turned her head up to us, the chain around her throat keeping her staked to the ground. Blood dripped from her fanged muzzle. Her jaws gaped and she released a guttural growl, her red eyes narrowed on my uncle. Then she caught sight of me.
I was never sure if she recognized me. But she let out a piercing sort of cry, a sad, birdlike wail, then she returned to her ghastly meal.
“Eat well, sweetheart,” laughed my uncle, raising his goblet to her before drinking. “She loves the fat ones.”
I didn’t bother to ask who had the luxury of being my aunt’s meal tonight. He usually used one of many he believed were against his regime, or a recent prisoner of war before they were sold off at auction.
Aunt Camilla’s permanent state of dragon form was a mystery. My uncle had had numerous physicians to study her and delve into the archives for cases of this kind, to find a cure. The only conclusion they offered was that she had succumbed to dragon madness and could no longer shift back into her female human form.
Uncle Igniculus had gutted the first physician who’d given him that diagnosis. But he’d spared the second and third, realizing perhaps they were right.
I’d done some studying of my own, finding a case in my own father’s books of the early dragon families. Dragons were protectors, andthere had been a case of a young boy who’d been separated from his family while traveling. He shifted into his dragon form and remained that way even after distant family members found him living in a cave years later. They tried to coax him back to their village, but he blew fire to keep them distant and lived his entire life as a dragon.
The theory was that his dragon knew he was best protected in dragon form and he feared being vulnerable as a man.
Whatever my uncle had done to his sister, Camilla, it had terrified her so much that she preferred living as a dragon in chains in his pit over returning to her womanly form. I hoped that one day I might finally free her from this miserable life in chains.
She’d finished her meal and glanced up. She made that shrieking chirp again, then curled into a ball, jangling her chains, giving us her back as she went to sleep.
“All you have to do is come back to me,” my uncle slurred down to her in a sickeningly sultry voice, “then I’ll remove the chains, my sweet.”
She didn’t make a sound or move, her back heaving in deep breaths as if she were already in slumber.
Igniculus grunted, turning to me. “Come have a drink.”
Fuck. The last thing I wanted to do.
“Of course, uncle. It would be a pleasure.”
His praetorians followed us back, but I was mindful of the ones stationed in permanent watchtowers on two sides of my aunt’s pit, my uncle’s watchdogs.
We crossed through the back gate and door leading into his feasting hall, then into the central part of the palace, then his parlor.
“Jana!” he bellowed as he lowered onto a chaise.
A pretty female wearing his slave collar entered the room quickly. “Yes, dominus.”
I recognized her as one of the wine-bearers at the feast.
“Get me more wine and one for my nephew.”
“Right away, dominus.”
While Jana fetched us wine, I stretched out, pretending to be comfortable in my uncle’s home when in reality, my entire being revolted at being here. The palace reeked of rot and corruption and sin.
“Do not let this loss weigh you down, nephew. They are inconsequential.”
“Thank you for saying so, but I’ll be there if they raise their heads from the sand again.”
“Indeed, you will be. You’re a Dakkian. My blood.” He thumped his chest.
Jana delivered the wine and speedily left.
My uncle’s gaze was bleary from drink, and his mood was sentimental. This was rare.
