Page 9 of Burned Alive to Be His
I look at her, the dirt on her face, the terror in her eyes, the unyielding spine that refuses to bow. A thousand answers come to mind.For the good of my clan. To spite my rivals. Becauseit is my right.But the truest answer is the simplest, the most primal.
“Because I can,” I say.
And with that, I leave her alone in the darkness.
5
JUDITH
The darkness in the cave is absolute, a thick, smothering blackness that presses in on me. But it is the cold that truly terrifies. In Vhoig, the nights were merely an absence of the day’s heat. Here, on this island born of fire, the cold is a physical presence, a predator that slinks down from the smoking peak of the volcano. It seeps through the thin linen of my tunic, raising goosebumps on my skin and settling deep in my bones, a chilling counterpoint to the hot, sharp grit of the cave floor.
I spend the night huddled in the furthest corner, my arms wrapped around my knees, my stolen blade clutched tight in my hand. Every gust of wind that whistles past the mouth of the cave is a monster’s breath. Every skittering sound of a small creature in the rocks is the scrape of a claw. Sleep is a luxury I cannot afford. Instead, I watch the square of less-dark that is the cave entrance, my senses stretched thin, listening for the footfalls of the beasts he said would come.
They do not. Or if they do, they are wise enough to stay away from the scent of the dragon settlement. The only monster that comes is the dawn.
It arrives not as a gentle light, but as a conquering army. The sun crests the jagged horizon, and the heat returns with a vengeance, chasing the last of the cold from the rocks. The air quickly becomes a suffocating blanket, thick with the smell of ash and sulfur. My thirst, a dull ache during the night, is now a raging fire in my throat.
I crawl to the mouth of the cave, my body a collection of aches and pains. Outside, the world is a brutal landscape of black and grey, the only color the angry red glow deep within the volcano’s crater. The settlement is stirring. I see the dragon-shifters, their tall, powerful forms moving with an unnerving grace. They are all magnificent. They are all terrifying.
My gaze finds the females first. They gather near a steaming fissure in the rock, their movements elegant, their platinum and black hair gleaming in the morning light. The one from yesterday, Phina, is at their center. She is laughing, a sharp, musical sound that grates on my raw nerves. Her eyes, the color of amethysts, flick toward my cave, and her smile tightens with contempt. She and the others are the queens of this desolate rock, and I am the dirt beneath their claws.
A young male, one of the guards from the day before, approaches my cave. He carries a waterskin and a strip of what looks like dried, leathery meat. He does not meet my eyes. He sets the provisions on a flat rock just outside the entrance, a safe distance away, as if I carry a plague. Then he turns and quickly walks away.
I wait until he is gone, my eyes scanning the area for any other threats. The females are still watching, their whispers like the hiss of snakes. I know this is a test. Everything is a test. I snatch the waterskin and the meat and retreat into the relative safety of my cave.
The water is the most glorious thing I have ever tasted. I drink half of it in slow, measured sips, forcing myself to conserveit. The meat is tough and salty, and I chew on a small piece, the flavor strange and gamey. I tuck the rest away, hiding it beneath a loose rock in the back of the cave. The first rule of survival: never let them see you have anything to hold onto.
My small meal does little to quell the deep, gnawing hunger in my belly, but it is enough. It is fuel. I spend the rest of the morning observing. I watch the patterns of the settlement. The warriors train in the circle, their movements a blur of brutal efficiency. The younger dragons tend to the strange, hardy plants that grow near the steam vents. The females groom themselves, sharpen their claws on the rocks, and watch me.
They are always watching me.
Around midday, Phina and two of her companions saunter toward my cave. They do not approach directly, but stop near the flat rock where my provisions were left. Phina picks up a sharp shard of obsidian, testing its edge against her thumb.
“It’s pathetic, isn’t it?” she says, her voice carrying easily on the hot air. She is speaking to her friends, but her words are for me. “That Vorlag would pin the future survival of our race on such a frail, filthy creature.”
“Grakar says it’s a madness,” one of the others adds. “He says Xvitar has been bewitched by it. Why else would he claim such a thing?”
“He hasn’t been bewitched,” Phina scoffs, tossing the obsidian shard aside. It lands with a clatter, just feet from my hiding place. “He is a male. He sees a new toy, something to be broken. Once he is done with it, he will cast it aside. Or perhaps it will fail the trials first. I, for one, hope it is eaten by a likar. A slow, screaming death would be fitting.”
They laugh, and the sound sends a chill down my spine despite the oppressive heat. This is not just contempt. This is a threat. They are waiting for me to fail, and they will doeverything in their power to help it along. I press myself further into the shadows, making myself smaller.
They eventually grow bored and wander away, but their presence lingers, a poison in the air. I know I cannot stay in this cave forever. It is a cage, and they are the ones who hold the key.
Later, as the sun begins its descent, casting long, distorted shadows across the land, he returns.
Xvitar.
He moves with a predator’s silence, his powerful form blocking the light at the entrance to my cave. He says nothing. He simply stands there, watching me, his violet eyes unreadable. In his hand, he holds a large, bloody piece of raw meat, torn from the carcass of some unfortunate beast.
He tosses it onto the cave floor. It lands with a wet, sickening slap in the black grit. Blood and viscera smear the ground. The smell is overpowering, raw and metallic.
“Eat,” he commands.
I stare at the gruesome offering, my stomach churning. In Vhoig, I ate scraps. Leftovers. Stale bread and bruised fruit. But it was cooked. This… this is what a wild animal would eat.
“I can’t,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.
His eyes narrow. “It is not a request. It is food. You are weak. You will eat, and you will regain your strength. You are useless to me as a corpse.”
