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.